README

   1 ReadMe for Dev-Editor 3.2
   2 =========================
   3
   4 Description
   5 -----------
   6
   7 Dev-Editor is a simple CGI based editor written in Perl and licensed under the
   8 terms of the Artistic License, which allows remote changes to files and
   9 directory structures on a web server. That's useful if you aren't able to access
  10 the files on your homepage directly, for example if you are on holiday.
  11
  12 Features
  13 --------
  14
  15 - Browsing through directory structures
  16 - Viewing text files
  17 - Editing text files
  18 - Removing files and directories
  19 - Moving/renaming files and directories
  20 - Copying files and directories
  21 - Creating new files and directories
  22 - Executing a HTTP download of a file
  23 - Uploading files to the server via HTTP
  24 - Changing permissions (chmod) and group (chgrp) of files and directories (on
  25   Unix systems)
  26 - Unpacking some types of archive files (Perl module Archive::Extract is
  27   required - core module since Perl 5.10, I guess)
  28
  29 Installation
  30 ------------
  31
  32 First, you have to copy the files into a directory on your web server where you
  33 are able to execute scripts (in most cases, this is "cgi-bin"). I suggest to
  34 create a sub directory for Dev-Editor.
  35 Then, you have to change the first line of devedit.pl: Just replace
  36 /usr/bin/perl by the path to your Perl interpreter.
  37 If you are on a Unix based system, you have to set devedit.pl as executable
  38 (chmod 755 in most cases).
  39 You will also need to configure Dev-Editor. See the next section for details.
  40
  41 Note, that the directory where you installed Dev-Editor should be protected by
  42 HTTP Authentication. If you don't do that, everybody will be able to access
  43 Dev-Editor and use it for evil purposes.
  44
  45 Configuration
  46 -------------
  47
  48 Open the file devedit.conf. This file contains keys and values separated by a
  49 "=" sign. Lines beginning with a "#" sign are ignored.
  50 Here is a list of the configuration options currently available:
  51
  52 Option                   Description
  53 ------                   -----------
  54
  55 fileroot                 The root directory Dev-Editor is allowed to access.
  56                          Nobody is allowed to access the files and directories
  57                          above this directory. Dev-Editor needs write access to
  58                          this directory and to the sub directories.
  59
  60 httproot                 This is the equivalent HTTP URL to the root directory.
  61                          It's just used for visual output, so it doesn't need to
  62                          be correct.
  63
  64 startdir                 Here you may define the default directory Dev-Editor
  65                          opens on start.
  66
  67 max_file_size            Here you may define a maximum size for files (Bytes).
  68                          If the user wants to view or edit a file larger than
  69                          this defined size, Dev-Editor denies file access (but
  70                          the file can still be copied, renamed or removed).
  71                          If this is empty or 0, any file can be viewed or
  72                          edited.
  73
  74 timeformat               The format of the time shown in directory listings.
  75                          These are the most important placeholders:
  76
  77                          %a - short day name (Sun to Sat)
  78                          %A - long day name (Sunday to Saturday)
  79                          %b - short month name (Jan to Dec)
  80                          %B - long month name (January to December)
  81                          %d - day of the month (01 to 31)
  82                          %H - hour in 24 hour clock (00 to 23)
  83                          %I - hour in 12 hour clock (01 to 12)
  84                          %m - month of the year (01 to 12)
  85                          %M - minutes (00 to 59)
  86                          %p - AM or PM
  87                          %S - seconds (00 to 59)
  88                          %y - two digit year (03)
  89                          %Y - four digit year (2003)
  90                          %% - percent sign
  91
  92                          There are a lot of other placeholders. A complete list
  93                          is found at:
  94                          http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/strftime.html
  95                          Note that some systems don't support some of the
  96                          placeholders (for example %T on Windows).
  97
  98                          This format is also used to format the system time in
  99                          the About dialogue.
 100
 101 use_gmt                  Set this option to 1 if you want to use Greenwich Mean
 102                          Time (GMT/UTC) in directory listing and in the About
 103                          dialogue instead of the local time.
 104
 105 hide_dot_files           Set this option to 1 if you want to hide files or
 106                          directories beginning with a dot (e.g. ".htaccess") in
 107                          directory listing.
 108                          The files are just hidden in the directory listing,
 109                          you can still access them typing the name into the
 110                          "Go to directory/file" box.
 111
 112 forbidden                Specify a list of filenames the user is not allowed to
 113                          access. The filenames have to be relative to the
 114                          virtual root directory (they must also begin with a
 115                          slash) and have to be separated by space characters. If
 116                          a filename contains space characters, you have to put
 117                          it into double quotation marks ("/file name").
 118
 119 disable_commands         Specify a list of commands the user is not allowed to
 120                          execute. The commands have to be separated by space
 121                          characters.
 122                          If you add "@write" to the list, all writing commands
 123                          (for example edit, copy, rename etc.) get disabled.
 124
 125 userconf_file            Specifies the path to a file which contains
 126                          user-dependent configuration options (see next section
 127                          for details).
 128
 129 error_file               The path to the file which defines the error messages.
 130                          The file has the same format as this one.
 131
 132 template_file            The path to the file which defines the paths to the
 133                          template files. The file has the same format as this
 134                          one.
 135
 136 User-dependent configuration
 137 ----------------------------
 138
 139 If you have placed Dev-Editor inside a directory protected using HTTP
 140 authentication, you may override some default configuration values for a defined
 141 list of users. You may override the values for the following configuration
 142 options:
 143
 144 - fileroot
 145 - httproot
 146 - startdir
 147 - hide_dot_files
 148 - forbidden
 149 - disable_commands
 150
 151 For overriding configuration values you need a special configuration file. The
 152 path to this file is defined using the "userconf_file" configuration option in
 153 the main configuration file (add the option if necessary). This file consists of
 154 key-value-pairs and sections, marked by a string encapsulated in square brackets
 155 (perhaps you know this format, it is nearly the same as the Windows INI files).
 156 Each section in this file describes an individual configuration, whereby the
 157 name of the section is the username for whom this configuration should be used.
 158 Here is an example:
 159
 160 [homer]
 161 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 162 httproot = /
 163
 164 This sets the physical file root directory to "/var/www/homer/htdocs" and the
 165 virtual HTTP root to "/" - but only for the user whose HTTP authentication
 166 username is "homer".
 167
 168 Using the "aliases" option, you may also define some other usernames for whom
 169 this configuration should be used:
 170
 171 [homer]
 172 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 173 httproot = /
 174 aliases = marge bart
 175
 176 Using this, the users whose usernames are "marge" and "bart" use the same
 177 configuration as "homer". You can place an arbitrary number of usernames
 178 seperated by whitespaces here.
 179 Note: If one of the users mentioned as an alias and an individual configuration
 180 section for this user exists too, the one mentioned as an alias is ignored.
 181
 182 If there are some files marked as inaccessible using the "forbidden"
 183 configuration option in the main configuration file, but some users should have
 184 access to these files, you may clear the default value of "forbidden":
 185
 186 [homer]
 187 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 188 httproot = /
 189 forbidden =
 190
 191 Using this, "homer" has access to all files in "/var/www/homer/htdocs".
 192
 193 Notes
 194 -----
 195
 196 Symbolic links are treated as files, no matter where they point to. The user is
 197 just allowed to see the path where the link points to, he is allowed to delete
 198 the link, to rename it and to overwrite it by renaming an other file. Nothing
 199 else is allowed.
 200 Accessing a symbolic link pointing to a directory also caused a very strange
 201 effect: It was possible to access this directory, but you could not access the
 202 objects in it.
 203 I had to do it in this way because of the very stupid behaviour of abs_path()
 204 from the Cwd module: This function is just able to detect the absolute path of
 205 directories.
 206 Hard links are not affected by this.
 207
 208 ------------------------------------------------
 209
 210 (C) 1999-2000 Roland Bluethgen, Frank Schoenmann
 211 (C) 2003-2011 Patrick Canterino
 212
 213 E-Mail: patrick@patshaping.de
 214 WWW:    http://devedit.sourceforge.net/