Hosting Your Own Ringlink Webring

Okay, so you've looked at the alternatives and you just don't like what you see. Webring is too simple and stupid. RingSurf is good but who knows, some day it may be sold or something and anything could happen then. Bravenet is too slow and not very sophisticated. You could use someone else's Ringlink server, but you would rather just do it yourself.

One option you have is to privately host your own Ringlink system. This is actually very simple (I had never used CGI before when I began with Ringlink and I was able to get it up and running in about 3 hours -- and 2 hours of that were trying to correct an error that I made by uploading with Microsoft FrontPage) and very fulfilling.

The first thing you will have to do is find a host which allows you to run user installed CGI routines. These are not hard to find, but you will almost certainly have to pay for the service. Only a rare few free hosts allow this kind of thing, as it requires more support and service from the host than otherwise. Besides, when someone wants to use CGI they are generally willing to spend a few dollars a month (at least that's my experience).

Ringlink Hosting Requirements

In order to install Ringlink, you need the following things:

For Unix/Linux:

  • CGI access
  • Perl 5 or later
  • The libwww-perl package
  • sendmail or SMTP

For Windows NT or 2000 running IIS:

  • ActivePerl or similar package installed
  • SMTP or Sendmail (shareware package that emulates sendmail)

I have personally used Ringlink on FreeBSD (a form of Unix), Red Hat Linux and Windows 2000 running IIS 5.0. 

On Windows 2000, I installed ActivePerl (IIS supports Perl but does not come with it) and a shareware package called Sendmail (I already needed this for other Perl routines).

When I hosted my site on a FreeBSD or Linux box, Ringlink simply worked. Of course, I made sure that Apache, Perl and the other requirements were provided.

Simple Things To Remember

  1. Review the "readme" file thoroughly before you begin.

  2. Once you begin using CGI routines, you can no longer use Microsoft Frontpage to upload your site. Frontpage simply does not understand what to do with these files. I wasted about 2 of the 3 hours during the first time I installed Ringlink before I realized this was the problem.

  3. Upload your files in ASCII mode. If you upload them in binary mode then you will receive many strange errors.

  4. Set the proper protection codes. On Windows 2000 running IIS, you must set the scripts to "Execute". Many of the errors that commonly occur on new installations are the result of improper protection codes.

Quick Installation Instructions

  1. Before you can do anything, you need to find a host which allows user-installed CGI routines to be executed. This host must also support PERL 5. I've found Linux, Unix or FreBSD systems are ideal. Ringlink also works on Windows 2000 running IIS, although you must make sure it supports Perl (ActivePerl is a great free product which provides this support).

  2. Download the Ringlink package to your own computer. I've found it's a good idea to save the zipped file on my own hard drive permanently for those times when I've needed to go back and reinstall.

  3. Extract the files from the zipped (or TAR) container onto your hard drive using a program such as Winzip. Ensure that the directory structure remains intact. When you are finished extracting, you should have a structure like that shown below.

  4. Read the "readme" file to get the exact installation instructions.

  5. Find out the location of Perl on your host. If it is different than "/usr/bin/perl" (a location which is common to virtually all hosts) then you will need to modify each and every .pl file. Otherwise you will not need to edit them at all.

  6. Edit the rlconfig.pm file and modify it to match your site.

  7. Use your favorite FTP program to:

    1. Create the following sub-directories in your cgi-bin directory.



      /cgi-bin/ringlink
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/data
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/images
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lang
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lang/mo
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lib/
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lib/Locale
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lib/Mail/
      /cgi-bin/ringlink/lib/MIME/

      Remember that Unix and Linux servers (using the Apache webserver product) are case sensitive.

    2. Upload the Ringlink code to the new directories. These match the directory names that were created when you extracted the files to your hard drive. Remember that everything (excluding images) must be uploaded in ASCII format.

      Note: if your server does not support files with a file type of .pl, then you should be able to change the file type to .cgi with no problems.

    3. Set the protection codes as specified by the "readme" file. Most FTP programs have an interface on their menus to allow protection codes to be set on files.


      Using FTP Surfer


      Using CuteFTP

      data directory is set to 777 (owner-rew, group=rew, world=rew)
      mo directory is set to 777 (owner-rew, group=rew, world=rew)
      all .pl files set to 755 (owner=rew, group=re, world=re)

  8. Run the langinstall.pl script to create the specialized language files required by Ringlink. Do this by entering:

    http://YOURSITE/cgi-bin/ringlink/langinstall.pl

    This will take a few seconds and, if you've installed everything correctly, will create the language files.

  9. Once you've got it up and running, use the various supplied subroutines to create your rings and set up your parameters.

  10. Test your new Ringlink system. What I like to do is create a ring, add a site or two, then delete the ring. I also pay particular attention to the emails that are sent, as I've found that some host email configurations have issues which need to be worked out.

  11. Customize as you see fit.

Upgrading To A New Version

New versions of Ringlink are released once in a while. If you insist on customizing the routines yourself, then you will have to merge in any customizations by hand.

If you are like most of us, you can just perform the following steps:

  1. Download the new code and extract the files.
  2. Read the "readme" file.
  3. Create any new directories on your server.
  4. Upload the files (in ASCII mode) and set the proper protection codes.
  5. Do not upload the "rlconfig.pm", as this has all of your custom settings. Do, however, review the old and new versions side-by-side to ensure that any possible changes are made.
  6. Since your data should be in a separate directory you do not need to worry about overwriting any of these files.
  7. Test everything to be sure it still works. When I install a new version I test by creating a new ring, adding a site, and then deleting the ring. When testing it is a good idea to pay particular attention to the email messages that you receive.

 

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