Oily Rag 1: Running 3.5-Apollo Service

Oily Rag: Be prepared to get your hands dirty.

Installing 3.5-Apollo as a Service is made very easy using an impressive script written by Olajide. The script does an excellent job, however I found a few paths that were not changed. I cover these later.

How to Install

Unpack a clean copy of Uniform Server to any folder you like. (Please read this first Path problems)

1. Do not run the servers (if running, close them down).
2. Navigate to folder *\Uniform Server\udrive\plugins\Services
3. Double click on file Run.bat. This starts the installation process.

The process starts by creating a folder named UniServerX.X on C drive. The process is automatic. Every folder and file are duplicated from the current installation. As each file is processed you will see its name added to a list of files displayed.

Processing converts all relative paths to absolute paths reflecting their new location. Towards the end of this process some files at the new location are moved within the structure while others are replaced. Translating all files to their new location is relatively fast; when completed, the servers are installed and started as a service.

Note: If you wish to save space, you can delete the clean copy used for installation.

Server Location

The script defaults to creating a folder named UniServerX.X on C drive. To change these defaults:

1. Open file w2c1.pl (located in folder: *\Uniform Server\udrive\plugins\Services )
2. Locate the line: $pathc="c:/UniServerX.X"; change it as required.

• e.g. $pathc="e:/mpg/main_server"; (note: use forward slashes)

Note: There is no restriction on folder depth, but ideally keep it to a single folder.

The ideal would be to allocate a dedicated drive for the server and dispense with any folders - you might gain a slight speed increase.

Control

Of importance are two control files created in folder UniServerX.X: Install.bat and Uninstall.bat. These effectively replace the old start and stop batch files.

• Install.bat Starts the servers and installs them as a service. In addition it starts your browser and redirects to apanel.
  (When you restart your PC your servers will automatically start)
• Uninstall.bat Stops the servers and uninstalls the services.
  (When you restart your PC, your servers will not automatically restart. Use Install.bat to start the servers.)

Copy your web pages to folder C:\UniServerX.X\www. To view these, type '''http://localhost''' into your browser address bar.

Note: The file names are referring to the service and not the physical installation. Uninstall.bat does not remove Uniform Server or any files.

How to remove or uninstall Uniform Server

If you wish to completely remove Uniform Server from your PC, first run Uninstall.bat which stops and uninstalls all Uniform Server services. All that remains is to delete the folder C:\UniServerX.X and all its contents.

Path problems

After installation, the following apanel links, Admin Virtual Hosts, PHP configuration, Apache configuration produce errors and Server documentation fails to display the directory.

For some reason there are seven files with paths that do not get updated during the installation process.

Solution - 1

Manually edit the following seven files:

Open file:	aconfig.php
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\home\admin\www\
Locate line:	42
Change the line from:	$apache = new Config ("/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf","#");
To:	$apache = new Config ("c:/UniServerX.X/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf","#");

Open file:	pconfig.php
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\home\admin\www\
Locate line:	40
Change the line from:	$PHP = new Config ("/usr/local/PHP/php.ini",";");
To:	$PHP = new Config ("c:/UniServerX.X/usr/local/PHP/php.ini",";");

Open file:	vhost.php
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\home\admin\www\
Locate line:	17
Change the line from:	$httpd_conf_sti = "/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf";
To:	$httpd_conf_sti = "c:/UniServerX.X/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf";

Open file:	httpd.conf
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\usr\local\apache2\conf\
Locate line:	533
Change the line from:	Alias /docs "/docs/" <Directory "/docs/">   Options Indexes Includes   AllowOverride All   Order allow,deny   Allow from all </Directory>
To:	Alias /docs "c:/UniServerX.X/docs/" <Directory "c:/UniServerX.X/docs/">   Options Indexes Includes   AllowOverride All   Order allow,deny   Allow from all </Directory>

These two discovered by Svens see forum

Open file:	.htaccess
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\www
Locate line:	21
Change the line from:	#AuthUserFile /htpasswd/www/.htpasswd
To:	#AuthUserFile C:/UniServerX.X/htpasswd/www/.htpasswd

Open file:	.htaccess
Location:	C:\UniServerX.X\home\admin\www
Locate line:	21
Change the line from:	#AuthUserFile /htpasswd/home/admin/www/.htpasswd
To:	#AuthUserFile C:/UniServerX.X/htpasswd/home/admin/www/.htpasswd

Note: The next changes are required only if you have changed the default path from c:\UniServerX.X to whatever.

Open file:	Install.bat
Location:	newpath
Locate line:	6, 9, 14 and 19
Change the line from:	C:\UniServerX.X
To:	newpath

Solution - 2

Manually editing several files gets a bit tedious. I have hacked the installation file w2c1.pl, which you can download from the downloads page and copy it to folder *\Uniform Server\udrive\plugins\Services.

I cannot guarantee its suitability or that I have captured every path. You are welcome to download it and give it a bash at your own risk. I have tested only on XP Home.

Final thoughts

I do have confidence in the above modification so I included a new version of w2c1.pl in the combined bug fix. Before diving in and hacking code, take the easy option and check out the Combined bug fixes page. It consolidates all the bugs I know of and those reported on the forum.

After implementing the combined bug fixes, The Uniform Server 3.5-Apollo is an ace product.

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Ric