FrontPage is Microsoft's Web authoring and publishing tool. Full FrontPage support relies on two components. A Windows 95 / Windows NT client application and a set of Microsoft server extension programs for your webserver. The extension programs provide publishing support and the FrontPage "bots". Installing FrontPage® Support for Zeus Web Server
Microsoft provide the necessary extension programs for a number of the UNIX platforms supported by Application Server. Microsoft also provides instructions for installing the server extensions on a number of UNIX web servers, these instructions are at best cryptic, and are thankfully unnecessary. Application Server provides it's own FrontPage installation script for the Microsoft FrontPage extensions. You should not use the Microsoft installation scripts to install FrontPage support under Application Server.
For a full list of Microsoft supported UNIX platforms refer to the Microsoft FrontPage homepage or the Zeus FrontPage support pages.
Using FrontPage with SubServers
The subserver module allows you to setup lots (e.g. thousands) of servers with the same configuration settings, but with different document trees. Subservers are fully supported by the FrontPage module, each subserver document tree can have its own root-web and files owned/editable by a unique user. This means that each subserver will appear as a completely separate webserver to the FrontPage client software. Each subserver can hold multiple subwebs and a client with access to one subserver will not be able to modify the files of another subserver.If you have the subserver module enabled, the installation script as described below will also prompt you for the name of the subserver to install FrontPage support for after asking for the name of the virtual server.
Installing the Microsoft FrontPage extensions
Firstly, ensure the FrontPage and htaccess modules are enabled for the virtual server you wish to install FrontPage support for.
Next you need to download the correct FrontPage extensions for your platform. These extensions are available from the Microsoft ftp site and are called fp30.platform.tar.Z, where platform refers to machine architecture. The supplied installation script will only work with these binaries, you should not use any other.
The archives contain precompiled binaries for different platforms, you should make sure that you download the correct one for your architecture and operating system version. Save the archive in a suitable location such as /tmp
Once you have downloaded the archive you will need to install it in the /usr/local/ hierarchy and create a symbolic link so Application Server knows the version of the files to use. To do this you will need to log in to the machine as a root user, and issue the following commands:
cd /usr/local/ cat /tmp/fp30.platform.tar.Z | uncompress | tar -xvf - cd frontpage; ln -s version3.0 currentversionYou then have to install FrontPage support for each virtual server for which it is required. We provide a custom written shell script which is specifically for Application Server, significantly simplifying the installation. The installation script is stored in the $ZEUSHOME/web/bin/ directory and is called fpinst.sh. This script will copy files into the docroot of the virtual server and set up ownership of the root web, to do this it must be run as a root user. This script can be run with the following command :
su root -c $ZEUSHOME/web/bin/fpinst.shYou should follow the on screen instructions for entering the following information.
virtual server name The virtual server identifier as used in the admin server UNIX user that owns the web The user name of the owner of the docroot UNIX group that owns the web The group of the owner of the docroot frontpage admin user name for the root web Username for the FrontPage admin user password for the administrator Password for the FrontPage admin user After entering the necessary details, the script will create the configuration files and template files required by the FrontPage extensions for the virtual server. Specifically it will :
- Create the file /usr/local/frontpage/hostname:port.cfg which contains file pointers to other configurations files.
- Create the directory /usr/local/frontpage/zeus/server-name, and the files conf and srm.conf. The srm.conf file contains virtual server specfic settings.
- Create the FrontPage support files needed in the virtual server document root.
After successful completion you should see the text "Install completed."
To disable FrontPage support at any time, simply disable the FrontPage module.
Configuring FrontPage Modules
Application Server requires two modules to be enabled for each virtual server requiring FrontPage support. The FrontPage module provides support for FrontPage publishing and support functions and the htaccess module provides authentication services for each FrontPage Web. It is very important that the htaccess modules is installed, if not there will be no access control for your FrontPage webs. For information on enabling modules, see the admin server documentation.All FrontPage administration tasks should be performed with the Windows client application. Application Server FrontPage support has been tested with all versions of FrontPage up to FrontPage 98 beta2.
FrontPage, Windows95 and Windows NT are trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, USA.