README

   1 ReadMe for Dev-Editor 3.x.x
   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 Installation
  13 ------------
  14
  15 First, you have to copy the files into a directory on your web server where you
  16 are able to execute scripts (in most cases, this is "cgi-bin"). I suggest to
  17 create a sub directory for Dev-Editor.
  18 Then, you have to change the first line of devedit.pl: Just replace
  19 /usr/bin/perl by the path to your Perl interpreter.
  20 If you are on a UNIX based system, you have to set devedit.pl as executable
  21 (chmod 755 in most cases).
  22 You will also need to configure Dev-Editor. See the next section for details.
  23
  24 Note, that the directory where you installed Dev-Editor should be protected by
  25 HTTP Authentication. If you don't do that, everybody will be able to access
  26 Dev-Editor and use it for evil purposes.
  27
  28 Configuration
  29 -------------
  30
  31 Open the file devedit.conf. This file contains keys and values separated by a
  32 "=" sign. Lines beginning with a "#" sign are ignored.
  33 Here is a list of the configuration options currently available:
  34
  35 Option                   Description
  36 ------                   -----------
  37
  38 fileroot                 The root directory Dev-Editor is allowed to access.
  39                          Nobody is allowed to access the files and directories
  40                          above this directory. Dev-Editor needs write access to
  41                          this directory and to the sub directories.
  42
  43 httproot                 This is the equivalent HTTP URL to the root directory.
  44                          It's just used for visual output, so it doesn't need to
  45                          be correct.
  46
  47 max_file_size            Here you may define a maximum size for files (Bytes).
  48                          If the user wants to view or edit a file larger than
  49                          this defined size, Dev-Editor denies file access (but
  50                          the file can still be copied, renamed or removed).
  51                          If this is empty or 0, any file can be viewed or
  52                          edited.
  53
  54 timeformat               The format of the time shown in directory listings.
  55                          These are the most important placeholders:
  56
  57                          %a - short day name (Sun to Sat)
  58                          %A - long day name (Sunday to Saturday)
  59                          %b - short month name (Jan to Dec)
  60                          %B - long month name (January to December)
  61                          %d - day of the month (01 to 31)
  62                          %H - hour in 24 hour clock (00 to 23)
  63                          %I - hour in 12 hour clock (01 to 12)
  64                          %m - month of the year (01 to 12)
  65                          %M - minutes (00 to 59)
  66                          %p - AM or PM
  67                          %S - seconds (00 to 59)
  68                          %y - two digit year (03)
  69                          %Y - four digit year (2003)
  70                          %% - percent sign
  71
  72                          There are a lot of other placeholders. A complete list
  73                          is found at:
  74                          http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/7908799/xsh/strftime.html
  75                          Note that some systems don't support some of the
  76                          placeholders (for example %T on Windows).
  77
  78                          This format is also used to format the system time in
  79                          the About dialogue.
  80
  81 use_gmt                  Set this option to 1 if you want to use Greenwich Mean
  82                          Time (GMT/UTC) in directory listing and in the About
  83                          dialogue instead of the local time.
  84
  85 hide_dot_files           Set this option to 1 if you want to hide files
  86                          beginning with a dot (e.g. ".htaccess") in directory
  87                          listing.
  88
  89 forbidden                Specify a list of filenames the user is not allowed to
  90                          access. The filenames have to be relative to the
  91                          virtual root directory (they must also begin with a
  92                          slash) and have to be separated by space characters. If
  93                          a filename contains space characters, you have to put
  94                          it into double quotation marks ("/filename").
  95
  96 userconf_file            Specifies the path to a file which contains
  97                          user-dependent configuration options (see next section
  98                          for details).
  99
 100 error_file               The path to the file which defines the error messages.
 101                          The file has the same format as this one.
 102
 103 template_file            The path to the file which defines the paths to the
 104                          template files. The file has the same format as this
 105                          one.
 106
 107 User-dependent configuration
 108 ----------------------------
 109
 110 If you have placed Dev-Editor inside a directory protected using HTTP
 111 authentication, you may override some default configuration values for a defined
 112 list of users. You may override the values for "fileroot", "httproot" and
 113 "forbidden".
 114
 115 For overriding configuration values you need a special configuration file. The
 116 path to this file is defined using the "userconf_file" configuration option in
 117 the main configuration file (add the option if necessary). This file consists of
 118 key-value-pairs and sections, marked by a string encapsulated in square brackets
 119 (perhaps you know this format, it is nearly the same as the Windows INI files).
 120 Each section in this file describes an individual configuration, whereby the
 121 name of the section is the username for whom this configuration should be used.
 122 Here is an example:
 123
 124 [homer]
 125 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 126 httproot = /
 127
 128 This sets the physical file root directory to "/var/www/homer/htdocs" and the
 129 virtual HTTP root to "/" - but only for the user whose HTTP authentication
 130 username is "homer".
 131
 132 Using the "aliases" option, you may also define some other usernames for whom
 133 this configuration should be used:
 134
 135 [homer]
 136 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 137 httproot = /
 138 aliases = marge bart
 139
 140 Using this, the users whose usernames are "marge" and "bart" use the same
 141 configuration as "homer". Place any number of username seperated by whitespaces
 142 here.
 143 Note: If one of the users mentioned as an alias and an individual configuration
 144 section for this user exists too, the one mentioned as an alias is ignored.
 145
 146 If there are some files marked as inaccessible using the "forbidden"
 147 configuration option in the main configuration file, but some users should have
 148 access to these files, you may clear the default value of "forbidden":
 149
 150 [homer]
 151 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 152 httproot = /
 153 forbidden =
 154
 155 Using this, "homer" has access to all files in "/var/www/homer/htdocs".
 156
 157 Notes
 158 -----
 159
 160 Symbolic links are treated as files, no matter where they point to. The user is
 161 just allowed to see the path where the link points to, he is allowed to delete
 162 the link, to rename it and to overwrite it by renaming an other file. Nothing
 163 else is allowed.
 164 Accessing a symbolic link pointing to a directory also caused a very strange
 165 effect: It was possible to access this directory, but you could not access the
 166 objects in it.
 167 I had to do it in this way because of the very stupid behaviour of abs_path()
 168 from the Cwd module: This function is just able to detect the absolute path of
 169 directories.
 170 Hard links are not affected by this.
 171
 172 ------------------------------------------------
 173
 174 (C) 1999-2000 Roland Bluethgen, Frank Schoenmann
 175 (C) 2003-2005 Patrick Canterino
 176
 177 E-Mail: patrick@patshaping.de
 178 WWW:    http://devedit.sourceforge.net/