Precedence Network Computer and NetManager
Administration

  1. When I alter web-pages and try to reload from the NC they don't change

    You are using Squid as a proxy which has a powerful RAM and disc cacheing system. The cache will have cached your pages and you will need to force them to be reloaded. For example, if you are altering index.html in general (i.e. the URL http://ncserver/general/index.html) you will need to do the following:
    1. Log into the server as root
    2. The reload command will reload a certain URL. However, the cache will cache pages according to a specific URL and so the URL must be specified exactly. For example, the same page could be accessed with different URLs, e.g.
      • http://ncserver/general/
      • http://ncserver/general/index.html
      • http://1.0.128.254/general/
      • http://1.0.128.254/general/index.html
      When using reload you should specify the exact URL. The NCs will request 
      http://<IP address of server>/general/
      and so this is the URL that should be given.
    3. The command syntax is: 
      reload <URL>
      The above syntax will give no indication of a successful attempt (though any errors will be reported). If you have applied hotfix 6, you can also use the -v flag which will print all the HTML retrieved to the screen: 
      reload -v <URL>
    4. If you specify a URL that doesn't end in .html, the reload program will automatically try to reload index.html from the directory given. i.e. 
      reload http://1.0.128.254/general/
      will reload the URLs:
      • http://1.0.128.254/general/
      • http://1.0.128.254/general/index.html

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  2. I'm using an ISP that forces me to use their web cache/proxy if I want http access (e.g. Edex). How can I use the auto-hotfix command?

    Apply the latest hotfixes. The latest version of the hotfix command will automatically determine whether to use a proxy.

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  3. I want to set up a password protected set of web pages

    Apache (the webserver) is incredibly powerful. It wouldn't have such market dominance if it wasn't flexible. Apache is configured by having a text file with directives (in Apache-speak) followed by values. For instance the following line is in the configuration files to make Apache listen on port 80: 
    Port 80
    Luckily, you don't need to edit any of the central Apache configuration files as they can be overridden on a per-directory basis. To do this, you need to create a .htaccess (or /htaccess from RISC OS) in the directory. So for instance, in the private sub-directory in the webadmin pages there is a .htaccess file that contains the following: 
    AuthUserFile /usr/local/etc/httpd-admin/passwords/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName ServerAdmin
AuthType Basic
<Limit GET POST PUT>
require user D-E-L-E-T-E-D
</Limit>
    (You can miss out the Limit directive if you want all access methods to be password protected). The lines mean: N.B. Users referred to above bear no relation to actual users on either your NT server or on the NCManager.

    So for instance, if you want to have only one user name which can be used by all staff to access http://ncserver/staff/ you should create a file called .htaccess in the subdirectory staff in the home directory of www. 

    AuthUserFile /etc/webusers
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName "Staff Pages"
AuthType Basic
require user staff
    You will then need to create the user name in the file /etc/webusers which you will find easier if you have applied hotfix 63. There is a command called htpasswd which will set up passwords for you. Hotfix 63 puts a link to htpasswd in a directory which is in your path. This means instead of having to type /usr/local/apache/bin/htpasswd to run it, you will just need to type htpasswd. The syntax of htpasswd can be seen if you just type htpasswd with no arguments: 
    htpasswd [-c] passwordfile username
The -c flag creates a new file
    Therefore, the first time do the following: 
    htpasswd -c /etc/webusers staff
    and enter the desired password when prompted. And that's all there is to it!

    Or at least it would be in the ideal world. By default, Apache is set up to be very secure and to not allow .htaccess files to override any of the main configuration. This means that you will need to edit /etc/access.conf (once you've put Hotfix 63 on) and change the following: Just under <Directory /usr/export/home/www> you will see a line (row 46) that says 

    AllowOverride None
    Change this to: 
    AllowOverride AuthConfig
    Save the file and then type apachectl restart to restart the web server with the new configuration. Without changing this setting Apache will ignore the .htaccess files and not prompt for a password.

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  4. How do I set the date or time on my NCManager or Netmanager?

    Is the server an old Xemplar RiscPC-based server?

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