README

   1 ReadMe for Dev-Editor 3.0 (CVS)
   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 forbidden                Specify a list of filenames the user is not allowed to
  86                          access. The filenames have to be relative to the
  87                          virtual root directory (they must also begin with a
  88                          slash) and have to be separated by space characters. If
  89                          a filename contains space characters, you have to put
  90                          it into double quotation marks ("/filename").
  91
  92 userconf_file            Specifies the path to a file which contains
  93                          user-dependent configuration options (see next section
  94                          for details).
  95
  96 error_file               The path to the file which defines the error messages.
  97                          The file has the same format as this one.
  98
  99 template_file            The path to the file which defines the paths to the
 100                          template files. The file has the same format as this
 101                          one.
 102
 103 User-dependent configuration
 104 ----------------------------
 105
 106 If you have placed Dev-Editor inside a directory protected using HTTP
 107 authentication, you may override some default configuration values for a defined
 108 list of users. You may override the values for "fileroot", "httproot" and
 109 "forbidden".
 110
 111 For overriding configuration values you need a special configuration file. The
 112 path to this file is defined using the "userconf_file" configuration option in
 113 the main configuration file (add the option if necessary). This file consists of
 114 key-value-pairs and sections, marked by a string encapsulated in square brackets
 115 (perhaps you know this format, it is nearly the same as the Windows INI files).
 116 Each section in this file describes an individual configuration, whereby the
 117 name of the section is the username for whom this configuration should be used.
 118 Here is an example:
 119
 120 [homer]
 121 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 122 httproot = /
 123
 124 This sets the physical file root directory to "/var/www/homer/htdocs" and the
 125 virtual HTTP root to "/" - but only for the user whose HTTP authentication
 126 username is "homer".
 127
 128 Using the "aliases" option, you may also define some other usernames for whom
 129 this configuration should be used:
 130
 131 [homer]
 132 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 133 httproot = /
 134 aliases = marge bart
 135
 136 Using this, the users whose usernames are "marge" and "bart" use the same
 137 configuration as "homer". Place any number of username seperated by whitespaces
 138 here.
 139 Note: If one of the users mentioned as an alias and an individual configuration
 140 section for this user exists too, the one mentioned as an alias is ignored.
 141
 142 If there are some files marked as inaccessible using the "forbidden"
 143 configuration option in the main configuration file, but some users should have
 144 access to these files, you may clear the default value of "forbidden":
 145
 146 [homer]
 147 fileroot = /var/www/homer/htdocs
 148 httproot = /
 149 forbidden =
 150
 151 Using this, "homer" has access to all files in "/var/www/homer/htdocs".
 152
 153 Notes
 154 -----
 155
 156 Symbolic links are treated as files, no matter where they point to. The user is
 157 just allowed to see the path where the link points to, he is allowed to delete
 158 the link, to rename it and to overwrite it by renaming an other file. Nothing
 159 else is allowed.
 160 Accessing a symbolic link pointing to a directory also caused a very strange
 161 effect: It was possible to access this directory, but you could not access the
 162 objects in it.
 163 I had to do it in this way because of the very stupid behaviour of abs_path()
 164 from the Cwd module: This function is just able to detect the absolute path of
 165 directories.
 166 Hard links are not affected by this.
 167
 168 ------------------------------------------------
 169
 170 (C) 1999-2000 Roland Bluethgen, Frank Schoenmann
 171 (C) 2003-2005 Patrick Canterino
 172
 173 E-Mail: patrick@patshaping.de
 174 WWW:    http://devedit.sourceforge.net/