[WORK IN PROGRESS]

Comanche User Guide

Revision: 23 Nov 98

 

  1. Introduction
  2.  

    1. What is Apache
    2. Apache GUI project
    3. What is Comanche
     
  3. QuickStart Guide
  4.  

    1. Installation
Windows

[In the future everything will be wrapped in a single install shield and all the proccess will be automatic. No need to install incr widgets, etc]

Requirements: Windows 95, Windows NT

  1. Now install Apache 1.3.3 for Windows from http://www.apache.org
  2. You can download it from http://www.apache.org/dist/apache_1_3_3.exe

  3. Download tcl from scriptics: ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/tcl8_0/tcl803.exe To install it double-click on it and answer yes to everything
  4. Go to http://www.sensus.org/tcl and grab:
  5. Itcl-nt-803.zip

    Tcl-nt-803.zip

  6. Uncompress them using Winzip or a similar tool (http://www.winzip.com). The uncompressed files should go into the C:\Program Files\Tcl
  7. Go to C:\Program Files\Tcl and double click on tcl.reg file. It will associate tcl scripts with the proper interpreter.
  8. Install Comanche: Go to http://www.esi.us.es/~ridruejo/comanche/preview
  9. And download com981105.zip (or a later version). Uncompress it.

  10. Start comanche: just double-click on main.tcl (Comanche takes the location of the apache configuration files and binaries from the registry, so no further configuration is required...)
If comanche does not work and the error message was:
error while autoloading "iwidgets::feedback ....

The solution is:

Short: Change the association of the file extension TCL to point to the
itkwish3.0 interpreter instead of wish80.exe interpreter

Detailed:

Open any folder (i.e. my Computer), go to

the View menu entry on the top
go to Options
find the "TCL Script extension" (press T several times until you
find t)

Press edit
Select the open option
Select Edit...

You will see:
"C:\Program Files\Tcl\bin\wish80.exe"
Change it to:
"C:\Program Files\Tcl\bin\itkwish30.exe"


Press Ok, Ok, Ok...

Try now, it should work

An alternative way can be:
Execute (by double-clicking) C:\Program Files\Tcl\bin\itkwish30.exe
In the console that will appear, type
cd c:/path/to/your/comanche/files       (note the slashes, not backslashes)
source main.tcl
    
    

If still it does not work, it is probably because it can not find the interpreter. Take a look with notepad at that tcl.reg file, change the values in it accordingly:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Scriptics\Tcl\8.0]

@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Tcl"

"PkgPath"="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Tcl\\lib"

(It may be that you have more than one directory called "Program…" and that Program Files is not Progra~1 but Progra~2 or something)

 

UNIX

  1. Go to (http://www.tcltk.com) and download:
  2. ftp://ftp.tcltk.com/pub/itcl/itcl3.0.1.tar.gz

    ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/tcl8_0/tcl8.0.3.tar.gz

    ftp://ftp.scriptics.com/pub/tcl/tcl8_0/tk8.0.3.tar.gz

  3. Copy all of them to the same directory (i.e /usr/local/install) and uncompress them (tar xvfz filename.tgz)
  4. Cd into the tcl8.0.3 directory. Cd into the unix subdirectory. Type:
  5. ./configure

    make install

  6. Cd into the tk8.0.3 directory. Cd into the unix subdirectory. Type:
  7. ./configure

    make install

  8. Cd into the itcl3.0 directory. Cd into the unix subdirectory. Type:
  9. ./configure –prefix=/usr/local

    make install

  10. Now you should have in /usr/local/bin a binary called itkwish3.0
/usr/local/bin/itkwish3.0
  1. Install Comanche: Go to http://www.esi.us.es/~ridruejo/comanche/preview
  2. And download com981105.tgz (or a later version). Uncompress it:

    tar xvfz com981105.tgz

  3. Cd to the directory created, you should see a file called apachectl
  4. Edit it and change the parameters to reflect the appropriate paths to the apache configuration files.

  5. Start apache: type
/usr/local/bin/itkwish3.0 main.tcl path-to-apache-conf-files

Example: /usr/local/bin/itkwish3.0 main.tcl /usr/local/apache/etc

 

 

    1. Guided Tour
You have installed Apache and Comanche. So what’s next?, you ask. Now we will very glad to guide you through Comanche, show you its capabilities and help you know better each other.

To start the program, click on the Comanche icon on Windows or type "./comanche" in the appropriate directory on UNIX.

A logo should pop-up and shortly after the main Window will appear. It is divided in three main areas:

[In the future it will be possible to connect to remote machines or configure more than one installation of Apache in the same machine. By now, you just can configure the local machine, so only "Apache Machine" appears]

Double-click on the Comanche folder. A new blue computer icon should appear hanging from the Comanche folder. If you double-click on it or click on the circle on the left, it will expand and show its contents. You will see at least two Folders, one named "Server Management" and the other "Main Server".

 

To start/stop/restart apache select server management (support for starting/stopping apache as a service in NT will be done in the near future, by now you just have to live with that dos box that will pop up.)

To save the configuration, just press save

To make the server re-read the new configuration, save and then press the restart button.

If you double-click now on the "Main Server" icon, it will expand and show directory and location icons.

If you have defined virtual hosts, they will appear as well, below Main Server. If you haven’t, but you would like, just do the following: Click with the right button of the mouse on the computer icon representing the Apache server where you would like to create the new virtual host. A menu will pop-up, select New->Virtual Host.

 

[In the future there will be a wizard here, explaining the available options (name based/ IP based), etc. Right now, just enter the name of the new virtual host]

The process through one creates a new directory or location is basically the same, select the appropriate Main Server or Virtual Host, right-click and select New->Directory

[The same, in the future a wizard will appear, right now just to enter the name]

To delete a directory is as simple as select it, right-click and choose the delete option

[In the future, support for multiselection & undo]

By now you should be able to create and delete Virtual Hosts, Directories and Locations. Now we will move into how to configure them. Just right-click on the one you want to configure and select the properties entry. A (surprise) properties window will pop up, which is divided in two parts. Think of it as a normal tabbed Windows property page, just with so many tabs that they are arranged and structured on the left (much like Netscape Communicator 4.0 preferences dialog). You can press on the leaves on the left and the corresponding configuration page will display on the right. Double-clicking on the leaves will expand/collapse parts of the tree and allow you to navigate the property pages.

 

After you have made the changes, press the Ok button and they will be stored.

You can see how your changes affected the configuration files if you select the appropriate location or directory in the left pane and choose the conf pane [in the future this changes will be highlighted and also one will be able to edit directly there]

When you are done and configured everything, go to the Server Configuration and save the configuration and restart the server. If something goes wrong you can always use on of the previous configurations [not yet, there will be configuration history, etc... So please back up your files before playing with comanche]

So basically that is Comanche. We hope that you like it and find it useful. The rest of this document describes in depth the available options and describes the way to accomplish common tasks

[to be continued]