Setup and Administration

Before users can access PortWeb, it needs to be configured via the PortWeb Administration page. This page is accessed by issuing the “adminshow” command to the PortWeb plug-in.

Using the Administration Module

To access the plug-in, enter the appropriate URL for the platform hosting the web server:

Windows

http://yourserver/scripts/PortWeb.dll?adminshow

(Where “yourserver” is the IP address or domain name of your web server.)

Macintosh

http://yourserver/.PortWeb?adminshow

(Where “yourserver” is the IP address or domain name of your web server.)

With WebStar, you can also access PortWeb’s Administration module via the Plug-ins page of the WebStar administration pages.

You may be asked for an administrator name and password. For more information on authenticating administrators, see Authentication.

The resulting web page should look something like:

There are three sections to the Administration module, which are explained in detail below. The Submit button at the bottom of the form allows you to save any changes you’ve made. The Reset button clears any changes you’ve made to the form.

1. Served Catalogs

The Served Catalogs section identifies the mappings between particular catalogs and their web “aliases.” Using aliases allows the user to pass in a shorter request (i.e. “dogs” instead of “D:\Portfolio\Files\Catalogs\dog database.fdb”).

It also has the added advantage of not requiring an Administrator to rewrite all of their HTML pages (and response templates) because the location of a catalog has changed. Instead, changing the mapping in the Administration module will keep all the templates current.

The administration module will display all the current mappings (both active and inactive) and two additional lines to add new mappings. If you want to enter more than two mappings in one session, simply enter the first two and click Submit to get a new form that contains the new mappings and two new lines in the form. To permanently delete a mapping, clear the Alias, Path, and Password entry fields and then click the Submit button.

There are four components for a proper catalog mapping: Alias, Path, Password, and Enabled.

Alias

This should be a short, easily remembered name by which the catalog will be referred to when specifying which catalog to search via PortWeb. Avoid using spaces and non-standard non-ANSI characters (such as trademark symbols, ellipses, etc.) in this name, or you will have to take special steps to encode the alias in the your HTML pages.

Path

This is the full path to the Portfolio catalog. The catalog can be either a file on disk or a catalog being served by a Portfolio Server.

Local (on disk): To reference a local path, simply type in the entire path name, such as:

The disk can be in any location accessible via the file system of the computer hosting PortWeb. Note that some Macintosh characters do not map to the ISO-standard character set used on the Internet. If your catalog’s path has odd characters (such as copyright symbols, curly-quotes, etc.) you will probably need to change the path on disk to work over the Internet properly.

Served Native: To reference a Macintosh or Windows catalog (same for both) being served by a Portfolio server, use the following format:

Important: The word “portfolio:” must be all lower-case.

Important: When connecting to a served Portfolio or SQL catalog, be sure that the pathname containing “portfolio” is all lower-case. If it is not, the connection will fail.

Served SQL: To reference a catalog being served on an SQL server, use the following format:

Important: The word “portfoliosql:” must be all lower-case.

Password

This is the Reader password for the catalog, if one has been specified. If there is no password for the Reader level of the catalog, simply leave the field blank. Note that because higher-level passwords work for lower levels (i.e. you can log into Reader mode with a Publisher password), it will work to use any of the four access levels’ passwords in this field.

Note: PortWeb only supports Level-based passwords when giving access to catalogs. If your catalog is set up with User-based access, users will not be able to connect to the catalog.

Enabled

This checkbox shown on the Administration page indicates whether the mapping is currently active. When this checkbox is unchecked, PortWeb releases the catalog. This is useful when you want to deactivate a catalog temporarily without having to delete and re-enter all the information on the entire line.

When a mapping is enabled, PortWeb opens a connection to the catalog. As a result, you cannot open a Portfolio catalog in Administrator mode or with the Portfolio Server while PortWeb is connected to that catalog.

Be aware that if you have a served catalog enabled in your list, the catalog will become inaccessible via PortWeb if you close that catalog on the Portfolio Server and then reopen that catalog on the Portfolio Server. As a result, you will get an empty page returned if you make a requests using this served catalog. To remedy this, return to the PortWeb Administration Module page and resubmit the page (with that mapping enabled).

If the Administration page displays an unchecked “Enabled” box after you submit it, verify that the path was entered correctly. Also verify that catalog is not opened exclusively by a Portfolio client. If you are trying to access a served catalog, make sure you are using the appropriate syntax. See Path.

2. Collections

The Collections section controls the duration for which Collection records should be kept in the database. Simply specify the number of days for which the users’ collections should be retained. Bear in mind that the collection database’s file size will increase the longer you retain these records.

Authentication

In order to access the Administration module, you must have administrative access to the web server. PortWeb will attempt to authenticate that you have such privileges before displaying the Administration module page. Most web servers have their own unique mechanism for validating administrators.

Some web servers do not have any authentication at all; in these situations, PortWeb will check to see whether you are accessing the administration page from the same machine (based on IP address) as the web server itself. If you attempt to access the Administration module from a remote machine on a web server that does not support authentication, the attempt will fail.

WebStar 2.0: You must access the Administration module through WebStar’s administration page. The usual URLs (http://yourserver/.PortWeb?adminshow) may not work. When accessed through WebStar’s administration page, PortWeb will allow any user in the “pi_admin” realm to read and change settings. (See the WebStar manual for more information on security, realms, and users.)

WebStar 3.0 and 4.0: If you access PortWeb administration through the usual URL (http://yourserver/.PortWeb?adminshow) or through WebStar's administration page, PortWeb will allow any user in the Administration realm to read and change settings. You can also specify the realm for PortWeb administration (i.e. http://yourserver/pi_admin.PortWeb?adminshow), and PortWeb will allow users in that realm to access PortWeb administration. (See the WebStar manual for more information on security, realms, and users.)

AppleShare IP: PortWeb requires that you access the Administration module from the machine running PortWeb.

Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000 Server Internet Information Server and Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000 Workstation Peer Web Services: With the “Basic Authentication” setting checked in the Service Properties dialog, the user will be prompted for a name and password. Any user who belongs to the “Administrators” group on the server computer will be properly authenticated and allowed to view and edit the PortWeb Administration module.

Personal Web Sharing Server for Windows 95 and Windows 98: Most versions of PWS do not support authentication. In these situations, you must access the Administration module from the machine running PortWeb.