19-Sep-2012

Building the new site
Setting up the new structure using VWCMS proves to be more complex than expected. Even translating the current homepage into VWCMS format is not as easy as expected. However, the kit comes with all documentation in the right format so there is a very god example on how things must be changed.
So I use that as the template, trying to transfer the existing homepage into VWCMS format – and, eventually, at least one of the downloaded templates. But it takes time to find out how it really works…. But taking little steps at a time, I get a good idea how the whole things works. It is q requirement to have a web display and a terminal session at hand, side by side…

Update

But that paid off, soon enough. By applying small changes to a file on the terminal, and immediately refresh the browser, the result can be viewed, and if changes are required, what and where is easily found.

Once the basic layout has been determined (I still need to do some style changes, but these are minimal), the next thing is to change and add content. But that was quite a different matter.

It took some digging why adding or modifying data didn’t really work suing the web-based editor; of course the the data can be added or modified directly in the file (it does have advantages not using a database!) but it should of course be possible to use the supplied editors. As it turned out: there is one file, _included.conf, that holds the [readonly] directive, and ;I placed the $$ADVISE$$ macro (that should show this) a bit out-of-sight, at the bottom….

One this directive was removed, it all worked. For the time being, I have left the documentation that Mark Daniel has written, available for reference.

We’ll get there, step by step. It won’t be very long before at least the home page of the site is renewed!

By the way: IE9 has trouble with the javascript-based editor in WordPress (at least, this version). But although the font is really small, it seems to work with the same editor in VWCMS….

11-Sep-2012

Locating the right layout
Now I have VWCMS running, it’s time to locate the right format for my homepage. Of course, I could fall back onto the current one, but it would be nice if there is a new look and feel on the site 🙂
So I searched for free website templates and I came along Wix.com. They offer a nice tool to create your site – but it has to run on their servers, and to link the domain to the site, it’s no longer free….
Second sources is freewebsitetemplates.com that offer a number of ‘free’ templates to be created on…wix.com.
Nevertehless, they offer downloadable, CSS-based templates that I can now install to have a look. Since this installation is rather standard, it is possible to automate the basics, and si I now can just run a procedure to do just that:

Create a directory tree under VWSCM_ROOT – if needed. Some packages have the directory spec in the ZIP-file, others don’t. By examining the location of index.html in the zip file; if there is no directory in front, it must be created and it must be mentioned as target directory. Otherwise, UNZIP will create the tree, so the target is VWCMS:[000000]
Next, locate two files form VWCMS_ROOT:[STARTER} to that directory.
Now the site must be added to the configuration:
Add new lines to VMSCMS_CONFIG: and add them to WASD_CONFIG_MAP.

It meant a small change in the WASD mapping configuration:

# VWCMS

pass /tinymce/* /tinymce/*

[includefile] wasd_config:vwcms_test.conf

# Public web

and this file wasd_config:vwcms_test.conf is extended by the procedure, as well as the VWCMS configuration file, by open/append and writing the appropriate lines.

One other thing is needed: INDEX.HTML must be renamed to _SITE.HTML, and a line must be added:
<link href="_vwcms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
must be added directly after
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

I did this by copying each line of INDEX.HTML to _SITE.HTML, and add this extra line if the line read contains “HREF=STYLE.CSS” (I uppercased the content for the equation).
In most cases, this worked, but in some, the line read spans multiple lines in the view, so you need a small edit of _SITE.HTML, but that shows immediately..

LAst but not least: Change protection of all files to W:RE, and indeed, in most cases the templates can be visisted.

This makes it easy to adapt the template to fit my needs.

04-Sep-2012

VWCMS runs
Mark Daniel, who created the WASD webserver, also created a content management system, VWCMS (Vms Web/WASD Content Management System) that I have tried a few years ago – as a beta (version 0.something). Today’s version is 1.2.1 – and that offers sufficient possibilities to be useful, so I decided to give it a try.
The problem I ran into is that it looks the documentation lacks some maintenance, because if you stick to the docs, it doesn’t work, there are some things to keep in mind; here, one more, WATCH comes in handy. What you need to do will be descibed on this site – one day.
After I pushed the question on the WASD mailing list, I got the answer to get at least the example running. Now I have to find a template to build a new web 🙂

03-Sep-2012

No surprises
The automated maintenance program run last Saturday – without surprises. Even the new WASD environment has been handled correctly. The only thing to watch are the WASD logfiles of July that seem to be missing. But these have been saved before.
Mail statistics
Here as well: no surprises…..
PMAS statistics for August
Total messages    :   7689 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :   2159 =  28.0 o/o (Files: 31)
Relay attempts    :    189 =   2.4 o/o (Files: 25)
Accepted by PMAS  :   5341 =  69.4 o/o (Files: 31)
 Handled by explicit rule
        Rejected :   4804 =  89.9 o/o (processed),  62.4 o/o (all)
        Accepted :    194 =   3.6 o/o (processed),   2.5 o/o (all)
 Handled by content
       Discarded :     83 =   1.5 o/o (processed),   1.0 o/o (all)
    Quarantained :    216 =   4.0 o/o (processed),   2.8 o/o (all)
       Delivered :     44 =    .8 o/o (processed),    .5 o/o (all)

As for this weekend, the number of spam messages is, again, very low. Perhaps the blocking of certain addresses, based on FTP access, does help, or there are indeed a number of sites taken offline. Or infected PC’s have been switched of in the weekend?
One thing, though, to dive into: almost every day, there is a peak in CPU usage and paging between 18:00 and 21:00, system time. But the web log seems to show no real increase in the number of accesses, or bytes transferred, so it must be something else: Samba, perhaps, when a PC comes online?