Back to Home

---

FaqMan Installation

The FaqMan code is pure Perl, and as such it is pretty easy to move and install. There are, however, some environmental issues to note.

PostgreSQL Database

FaqMan stores it's data in a PostgreSQL database. The table structure is described in the Database Structure portion of this code documentation.

The information that controls the database connections which FaqMan makes is stored at the top of the faqman.pm file. This information needs to be adjusted if FaqMan moves. The DBI Perl module needs to be installed on the system.

Spell Checking

FaqMan does some spell checking on new and modified Faqs which is supported by two pieces of outside code:

The spell program is a non-interactive Unix program which simply takes a document/file/pipe and prints to stdout a list of words it feels are misspelled. Other spelling checkers often work interactively which is not desired. The common Unix program "ispell" conatains a flag which allows "spell" emulation.

IPC::Open2 Perl module. This module is required to open a "double pipe" to the spell program, allowing input to be sent and stdout to be captured.

Set User ID Script "updatecommon"

The "updatecommon" program runs an rsync command to bring the remote common directory up to date. It has several special requirements:

• Set User ID - the script needs it suid bit set.
• There is often a seperate Perl interpreter which handles suid scripts for additional security. On qna-dev.cac this was "sperl". Make certain that the interpreter (first line) declaration is adjusted to use a suid-enabled Perl interpreter.
• The user which owns this script must have no-password ssh access to red.cac. (use a ssh authorized_keys file)
• The user's account on red must have write priviledge for the common directory. This can currently be established by having the user added to the "faqfindr" group.

CronTabs

The FaqMan code uses the cron daemon to automate three functions:

• Out of Date Reminders: The script "reminder" is called by crontab twice a month to drop an email reminder to Faq owners that their faqs may need updating if they are older than 6 months.
• Update Common Directory: Once a night the common directory is synced up with the database. This can also be done manually at the admin interface.
• Weekly log rotation. The FaqMan keeps a record of the activities it does, and the log shouldn't grow too big.

the current crontab looks like this:

 #min	 hour	 dom	 moy	dow(0=sun) command

 # Twice a monthy out-of-date reminder
 0       12      10      *       * cd /qna/httpd/htdocs/faqs; ./reminder;
 0       12      25      *       * cd /qna/httpd/htdocs/faqs; ./reminder;

 # Nightly Common Directory update
 0       1       *       *       * cd /qna/httpd/htdocs/faqs; ./updater;

 # weekly faq log rotater
 30      1       *       *       0 cd /tmp/faqs; rm faq.log; touch faq.log; chmod o+w faq.log;

Text Logging

FaqMan currently writes some text logs to /tmp/faqs/faq.log. This location should be changed or made to roll as desired.

---

Back to Home