README

   1 ReadMe for Dev-Editor 3.2
   2 =========================
   3
   4 Description
   5 -----------
   6
   7 Dev-Editor is a simple web based file manager written in Perl and licensed
   8 under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0, allowing you to access a file
   9 system on a server using a web browser. That's useful if you aren't able to
  10 access the files directly or using FTP or SSH.
  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 CGI scripts (in most cases, this is "cgi-bin"). I suggest
  34 to 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 make devedit.pl executable
  38 (chmod 755 in most cases).
  39 You also have to edit Dev-Editor's configuration file (see next section for
  40 details).
  41
  42 If you install Dev-Editor on a public web server, you should protect its
  43 directory using HTTP authentication or everybody in the world will be able to
  44 access the configured directory structure!
  45
  46 Configuration
  47 -------------
  48
  49 Open devedit.conf. This file contains keys and values separated by a "=" sign.
  50 Lines beginning with a "#" sign are comments and will be ignored.
  51 Here is a list of the configuration options currently available:
  52
  53 Option                   Description
  54 ------                   -----------
  55
  56 fileroot                 The root directory Dev-Editor is allowed to access.
  57                          Nobody is allowed to access the files and directories
  58                          above this directory. Dev-Editor needs write access to
  59                          this directory and its sub directories.
  60
  61 httproot                 This is the equivalent HTTP URL to the root directory.
  62                          It's just used for visual output, so it doesn't need to
  63                          be correct.
  64
  65 startdir                 Here you may define the default directory Dev-Editor
  66                          opens on start.
  67
  68 max_file_size            Here you may define a maximum size for files (Bytes).
  69                          If the user wants to view or edit a file larger than
  70                          this defined size, Dev-Editor denies file access (but
  71                          the file can still be copied, renamed or removed).
  72                          If this is empty or 0, any file can be viewed or
  73                          edited.
  74
  75 timeformat               The format of the time shown in directory listings.
  76                          These are the most important placeholders:
  77
  78                          %a - short day name (Sun to Sat)
  79                          %A - long day name (Sunday to Saturday)
  80                          %b - short month name (Jan to Dec)
  81                          %B - long month name (January to December)
  82                          %d - day of the month (01 to 31)
  83                          %H - hour in 24 hour clock (00 to 23)
  84                          %I - hour in 12 hour clock (01 to 12)
  85                          %m - month of the year (01 to 12)
  86                          %M - minutes (00 to 59)
  87                          %p - AM or PM
  88                          %S - seconds (00 to 59)
  89                          %y - two digit year (03)
  90                          %Y - four digit year (2003)
  91                          %% - percent sign
  92
  93                          There are a lot of other placeholders. A complete list
  94                          can be found at:
  95                          http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/strftime.html
  96                          Note that some systems don't support some of the
  97                          placeholders (for example %T on Windows).
  98
  99                          This format is also used to format the system time in
 100                          the About dialogue.
 101
 102 use_gmt                  Set this option to 1 if you want to use Greenwich Mean
 103                          Time (GMT/UTC) in directory listing and in the About
 104                          dialogue instead of the local time.
 105
 106 hide_dot_files           Set this option to 1 if you want to hide files or
 107                          directories beginning with a dot (e.g. ".htaccess") in
 108                          directory listing.
 109                          The files are just hidden in the directory listing,
 110                          you can still access them using the "Go to
 111                          directory/file" box.
 112
 113 forbidden                Specify a list of filenames the user is not allowed to
 114                          access. The filenames have to be relative to the
 115                          virtual root directory (they must also begin with a
 116                          slash) and have to be separated by space characters. If
 117                          a filename contains space characters, you have to put
 118                          it into double quotation marks ("/file name").
 119
 120 disable_commands         Specify a list of commands the user is not allowed to
 121                          execute. The commands have to be separated by space
 122                          characters.
 123                          If you add "@write" to the list, all writing commands
 124                          (for example edit, copy, rename etc.) will be
 125                          disabled.
 126
 127 userconf_file            Specifies the path to a file which contains
 128                          user-dependent configuration options (see next section
 129                          for details).
 130
 131 error_file               The path to the file which defines the error messages.
 132                          The file has the same format as the main configuration
 133                          file.
 134
 135 template_file            The path to the file which defines the paths to the
 136                          template files. The file has the same format as the
 137                          main configuration file.
 138
 139 User-dependent configuration
 140 ----------------------------
 141
 142 If you have placed Dev-Editor inside a directory protected using HTTP
 143 authentication, you may override some default configuration values for a defined
 144 list of users. You may override the values for the following configuration
 145 options:
 146
 147 - fileroot
 148 - httproot
 149 - startdir
 150 - hide_dot_files
 151 - forbidden
 152 - disable_commands
 153
 154 For overriding configuration values you need a special configuration file. The
 155 path to this file is defined using the "userconf_file" configuration option in
 156 the main configuration file (add the option if necessary). This file consists of
 157 key-value-pairs and sections, marked by a string encapsulated in square brackets
 158 (perhaps you know this format, it is nearly the same as Windows' INI files).
 159 Each section in this file describes an individual configuration, whereby the
 160 name of the section is the username for whom this configuration should be used.
 161 Here is an example:
 162
 163 [homer]
 164 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 165 httproot = /
 166
 167 This sets the physical file root directory to "/var/www/homer/htdocs" and the
 168 virtual HTTP root to "/" - but only for the user whose HTTP authentication
 169 username is "homer".
 170
 171 Using the "aliases" option, you may also define some other usernames for whom
 172 this configuration should be used:
 173
 174 [homer]
 175 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 176 httproot = /
 177 aliases = marge bart
 178
 179 Using this, the users whose usernames are "marge" and "bart" use the same
 180 configuration as "homer". You can place an arbitrary number of usernames
 181 seperated by whitespaces here.
 182 Note: If one of the users is defined as an alias and there is an individual
 183 configuration section for this user too, the one defined as an alias is
 184 ignored.
 185
 186 If there are some files marked as inaccessible using the "forbidden"
 187 configuration option in the main configuration file, but some users should have
 188 access to these files, you may clear the default value of "forbidden":
 189
 190 [homer]
 191 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 192 httproot = /
 193 forbidden =
 194
 195 Using this, "homer" has access to all files in "/var/www/homer/htdocs".
 196
 197 Notes
 198 -----
 199
 200 Symbolic links are treated as files, no matter where they point to. The user is
 201 just allowed to see the path where the link points to, he is allowed to delete
 202 the link, to rename it and to overwrite it by renaming an other file. Nothing
 203 else is allowed.
 204 Accessing a symbolic link pointing to a directory also caused a very strange
 205 effect: It was possible to access this directory, but you could not access the
 206 objects in it.
 207 I had to do it in this way because of the very stupid behaviour of abs_path()
 208 from the Cwd module: This function is just able to detect the absolute path of
 209 directories.
 210 Hard links are not affected by this.
 211
 212 ------------------------------------------------
 213
 214 (C) 1999-2000 Roland Bluethgen, Frank Schoenmann
 215 (C) 2003-2011 Patrick Canterino
 216
 217 E-Mail: patrick@patshaping.de
 218 WWW:    http://devedit.sourceforge.net/