IIs install

[Fairlight]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 01:28:23PM -0800, Richard Hane may or may not have
proven themselves an utter git by pronouncing:
> Chris,
>
> First thanks for the info.  As you can see I am also copying this to the
> fp list for further input because frankly I am confused.
>
> When using fpWeb on Apache I don't have to do anything with any of the
> tables.  All I have to do is load the executible batch files and a
> few other files (ie. HTMLs) to a specific folder from where they are
> 'called'.
>
> I do not understand why IIs would be so different than Apache.  Maybe I
> don't understand what you are saying.
>
> Anyone else want to chime in?

Mr. Yerry's response was..."educational".  Can I say, "Avoid like the
plague?"

The whole precept of what he was doing was trying to access fP data
directly, rather than through the actual fP binaries wrapped in CGI.
Altogether the wrong move most of the time.


> I own Howie's fpWeb and like it but I don't want to use Apache as my web
> server.

Well here's a silly question...  Shouldn't Howie be supporting fPWeb?
Can't you ask him how to use it under IIS?  :)

For my part, here's my free advice:

1) Install filePro somewhere on a local drive (say, c:\filepro).

2) IIS generally has a default web server set up.  The default path as I
remember it is c:\inetpub.  Under that, there should be a cgi-bin
directory.  Any script you want run should be placed, therefore, in
c:\inetpub\cgi-bin\ and called with http://host.com/cgi-bin/scriptname from
the browser.  Mind you, this was for the default IIS setup on Win2K3.

3) Your scripts should use clerk or report from the regular filepro
installation directory.

4) You should set either all of cgi-bin, or at least the individual scripts
to run as the same user that was used for installing filepro.  In Apache,
you'd take one of two approaches...either 1) use cgiwrap or suexec to run
just the scripts as filepro, or 2) run apache in its entirety as filepro.
Since Windows is at best quasi-secure anyway, I simply change cgi-bin to run
all scripts as Administrator (which is what most places use to install fP
with anyway), along with the password for said account.  I totally ignore
and override the IIS default account for cgi-bin, since it's been the path
of least resistance.  (Good luck trying to find out what the web user's
"real account" is, and how to install fP as that "user"...I think it's a
pseudo-user of some sort.)

That should do it.

I've done IIS + OneGate + fP on multiple IIS machines.  It's not hard, as
long as you get the locations, environment, and permissions correct.

If Howie can't/won't help under IIS and you need further help, I'd be
willing to help further offlist, at my normal rates.

mark->