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csCounter Help File and Installation Instructions

1. Installation
2. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
3. Troubleshooting


Installation.

Unzip the zip file on your local computer. It should extract to a cgi-script directory with a csCounter directory inside. Inside the csCounter directory you will find an images directory, a data directory, and the various files needed for csCounter. Depending on your server's capabilities follow either of these 2 sets of instructions:

If you have the ability to run Perl scripts outside your cgi-bin directory:

  • Make sure your FTP program is set to transfer htm, html, pl, and cgi files in ASCII mode. The images and other files should be transferred in BINARY mode.
  • With your FTP program select the entire cgi-script directory and upload it (and its contents) to the root directory of your website. This would be the same directory where your homepage is located.
  • With your ftp program go to the csCounter directory (which is inside the cgi-script directory) and CHMOD the csCounter.cgi file to 755.
  • Open csCounter.cgi with your web browser to go into setup mode. If your website is http://www.domain.com then the URL should be http://www.domain.com/cgi-script/csCounter/csCounter.cgi. If all goes well this will give you a screen with various configuration variables.
  • Change the username and password to your liking and click the save button. This will auto-create a setup.cgi for the script. If you get a permission denied error or an error saying that t_login.htm couldn't be found when you hit the save button, you will need to CHMOD the csCounter directory to 777 and the data subdirectory to 777. Then go back to the setup screen and then you should be able to save the configuration information.
  • Go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-script/csCounter/csCounter.cgi?command=login and enter the username and password you configured for the script to enter the management screen to create and edit your calendars.

If you can only run Perl scripts inside your cgi-bin directory:

  • In your cgi-bin directory, create a directory called csCounter. Inside the csCounter directory, create a directory called 'data'.
  • In your document root directory (same directory where your home page is located), create a cgi-script directory. Inside the cgi-script directory create a directory called csCounter.
  • Inside the cgiscript directory create a directory called images. You should end up with something like:
    cgi-bin/csCounter
    cgi-bin/csCounter/data
    cgi-script/csCounter
    cgi-script/csCounter/images
  • Upload all the files in the cgi-script directory within the zip file to the csCounter directory.
  • Upload the contents of the data directory to the data directory.
  • Upload the images directory to the images directory.
  • CHMOD csCounter.cgi to 755 and then open csCounter.cgi with your web browser.
  • If your website is http://www.domain.com then the URL should be http://www.domain.com/cgi-bin/csCounter/csCounter.cgi. If all goes well this will give you a screen with various configuration variables.
  • Change the Image URL variable to point to the images directory you created. For example, http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-script/csCounter/images .
  • Change the username and password to your liking and click the save button. This will auto-create a setup.cgi for the script. To change the username or password at a later date, simply edit the $username and $password variables in the setup.cgi file. If you get a permission denied error or an error saying it can't find the t_login.htm page when you hit the save button, you will need to CHMOD the csCounter directory to 777 and the data subdirectory to 777. Then go back to the setup screen and then you should be able to save the configuration information.
  • Go to http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-script/csCounter/csCounter.cgi?command=login and enter the username and password you configured for the script to enter the management screen to create and edit your counters.

NOTE FOR WINDOWS USERS:
Some windows servers require you to use absolute paths to all the files. If that is the case you will get an error that says it can't find various files when you open csCounter.cgi from your webbrowser. To fix this, open csCounter.cgi with an ascii editor like notepad and toward the top of both scripts you will see $basepath = './'; 
Change that to $basepath='/path/to/installed/directory';
An example would be something like
$basepath = 'c:/inetpub/wwwroot/cgi-script/csCounter';
Note: The normal 'windows' backslashes should be converted to forward slashes in perl.


Note About Permissions: In you get a permission denied error when you try to save the configuration settings when installing the script, you will need to chmod the csCounter directory to 777, the data subdirectory to 777. Then you will need to go back to the setup screen and you should be able to save the settings.


 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Does csCounter require me to have a website?
Yes, csCounter will only run through a web server. It will not run on your local computer.

My server does not allow me to run Perl scripts, can I still run csCounter on my site?
No, you can only run csCounter on your site if your hosting service allows you to run Perl scripts.

I am installing on a windows server what does CHMOD mean?
CHMOD is a way to change permissions of files on a UNIX based server. It is not applicable for windows servers so you can ignore the instructions where it mentions CHMOD. If you have problems saving files or permission denied errors then you will have to contact your hosting service so they can configure the directory so the web server has write access to it.

How do I know what the various paths are on my server?
Usually this is information your hosting service will provide you when you first set up your account with them. You can also look on your hosting service's website to see if they have an FAQ or support section that might tell you how to determine what your path is.

Can I 'brand' the script or remove where is says CGIScript.net.
Yes.. you are welcome to modify the html pages anyway you like as long as you maintain the copyright information in the script itself.

There is no setup.cgi file included in the zip file.
The setup.cgi file is created automatically when you first run the script. It is not included in the zip file. However, there is a setup.cgi.example file that you can rename to setup.cgi if you want to manually configure the variables instead of going through the autosetup procedure.


Troubleshooting

I uploaded the files and when I run csCounter.cgi I get a 500 server error. 
500 Server errors are usually caused by incorrect FTP transfer modes or permissions problems. To make sure the file was uploaded in the correct mode, download the csCounter.cgi file off the server to your computer in BINARY mode and then reupload it back to the server in ASCII mode. Some FTP programs, like WS_FTP for example, will say its transferring in ASCII mode but instead transfers it in binary mode on some occasion. This seems to be most prevalent when your website is controlled by the Plesk web management system.

I forgot my username and password. How do I find out what it is?
The username and password variables are stored in the setup.cgi file.

I installed the script and everything seems to be working fine but I can't view the images in the script.
This happens when you have the images and CSS files installed in your cgi-bin directory. Cgi-bin directories won't allow you to view normal files in them. They will usually give you either a 500 server error or a forbidden error message if you try to view them directly from your cgi-bin directory. If you are installing in the cgi-bin directory, follow the cgi-bin installation instructions.

I really would like to run the script from on directory outside my cgi-bin directory. How can I set that up?
If you have the apache web server running your site, then sometimes you can use an .htaccess file to configure the directory to run scripts. To do this, open up notepad and type:
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
Options +ExecCGI

Save that file as .htaccess and upload it to the csCounter directory. Make sure there is a period in from of the name (.htaccess) and make sure there is no 'txt' extension. If there are problems with the name, you should be able to rename it correctly from your FTP program. If you get a forbidden error message instead of it displaying the source of the script, you might be able to just try
Options +ExecCGI in your .htaccess leaving out the AddHandler line. If when you do this you get a 500 server error.. this usually means you are forbidden to use these directives in the .htaccess file. If that is the case you need to delete the .htaccess file to be able to view files in that directory again. It is also more common than not that .htaccess files are hidden by the FTP server. When you upload the .htaccess file.. many times you won't be able to see it in the directory listing. If this is the case, what you can do is create a blank .htaccess file and just reupload that back to the server as opposed to deleting the file.

I get a forbidden error message when I try to run script.
This is usually caused by the script not being set to executable. Make sure the file permissions are set (CHMOD) to 755.

I am running a windows server. I know I can run Perl scripts on my site but when I try to run csCounter.cgi I either get a 500 server error or it displays the source of the script.
Many windows servers are set to only run files with a pl extension. What you can do is rename csCounter.cgi to csCounter.pl and then open csCounter.pl and change the line that says:
$in{'scriptname'} = "csCounter.cgi";
to
$in{'scriptname'} = "csCounter.pl";
Reupload the file and then try to open csCounter.pl with your web browser.

I have a windows server and when I try to run the script I get a 'can't locate libs.cgi' error message.
Open csCounter.cgi and where it has the line:
$basepath = './';
Change that to the full path to the csCounter program. Example:
$basepath = 'c:/inetpub/wwwroot/cgi-script/csCounter';

Also, make sure you use forward slashes in your path names instead of the normal windows backslashes.

When I try to log in, I get an error messages that says it can't find the page and the URL has in(cgiurl) in it.
That indicates you are trying to open one of the html files directory. You never go directly to any of the html template files. All access to these pages are through the script. Use csCounter.cgi or csCounter.cgi?command=login to log into the script.


If you have any other program or questions, please email contact@cgiscript.net


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