Setting up MySQL and Perl on a Windows based server.

This document is intended to be a general help file for installing the prerequisite 3rd party software required to run Webdata.
Webteacher Software does not support the MySQL or Perl installer programs.
If you have any difficulty with the installation of MySQL or Perl, please consult the
resources indicated on the product home pages.

There are 3 things which a Windows machine must have in order to run Webdata Pro.

   1.A web server
   2.ActivePerl (with MySQL modules)
   3.MySQL

1. The web server.

Before proceeding to step 2, you should be able to put a test HTML page (yourpage.html) into your web server's root directory and browse to it by typing http://localhost/yourpage.html into Netscape or Internet Explorer.
 

2. ActivePerl

Note (2/7/03): We've been experiencing difficulties recently due to an incomplete PPM repository
(see step 4 below for an explanation) with ActivePerl 5.8.0. Go to http://ppm.activestate.com/PPMPackages/ and
click on ActivePerl8xx, or whatever the latest version is, choose 'Windows', and verify that DBD-mysql
is in the directory. If it is, please notify us at support@webteacher.com so that we can take down this notice.
If DBD-mysql is not present, download an earlier version of Perl. ActivePerl 5.6.1 is known to be stable and has
DBD-mysql in its PPM repository.

If you are running Windows 95, 98, or Me, you will need the Windows Installer 2.0. A link is provided.
More current versions of Windows come with Windows Installer automatically, so you can just grab the first link, "Windows – MSI".
Install using the default options. It should enable IIS functionality by default.
 

Create and test a cgi-bin

         print "Content-type: text/html\n\nHello World!";

Now point your web browser to http://localhost/cgi-bin/test.pl. You should see "Hello World!" appear on your screen. If it doesn't, restart your computer and try again. If you still have problems, see Appendix A.

Before proceeding to step 3, you should be able to get "Hello World" to appear when browsing to "test.pl".

3. MySQL

To test the installation, click the Start button, choose "Run" and enter this into the box.

c:\mysql\bin\mysql

         Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
         Your MySQL connection id is 3 to server version: 3.23.25-beta
         Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer
         mysql>

Type "quit" and hit the Enter key to exit.

Before proceeding to step 4 you should be able to bring up the MySQL monitor. If you have problems, see Appendix B.
 

4. The DBI and DBD Perl modules

         ppm
         install DBI
           (type "y" to confirm)
         install DBD-mysql
           (type "y" to confirm)
         exit
 

These usually install without a hitch. You can test it by entering the following command into a DOS window:

         perl -e "use DBI;use DBD::mysql"

If the modules are installed correctly, you should not get any error message, just a new command prompt.

If you do have problems, consult the documentation or support options on the ActiveWare web page.

Before proceeding to step 5 you should have installed the DBI and DBD-mysql modules correctly.

5. Create passwords for MySQL

A MySQL root password (rootpass) __________________
A name for your Webdata Pro database (dbname) ________________
A username for a MySQL account to access your Webdata Pro database (dbusername)_____________
A password for dbusername (dbpassword) _____________________
A password to enter into Webdata Pro when logging in as admin (adminpass) ____________________
 

In the following instructions, replace all occurrences of the words in parentheses above with the value you chose next to that word.

In a DOS window, enter the following commands:

cd c:\mysql\bin

mysqladmin -u root password rootpass

mysql mysql -u root -p
  (enter rootpass at the prompt)

You should now have a mysql> prompt.
CREATE DATABASE dbname;

INSERT INTO user VALUES ('localhost','dbusername',password('dbpassword'),'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N', 'N');

INSERT INTO db VALUES ('localhost','dbname','dbusername', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y', 'Y');

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

QUIT

And finally, to test your new account and password...

mysql dbname -u dbusername -p
Enter your password at the prompt. If you get "Welcome to the MySQL monitor..." then everything worked, type "quit" to exit. If you get an "Access Denied" error, you need to log in as root (start at line 3 above) and try again.

Before proceeding to step 6 you should have created and tested your MySQL database, user, and password.

6. Install the software

APPENDIX A - Problems running Perl CGI scripts.

The steps below will configure the Microsoft Personal Web
Server and IIS to run Perl5.

1.Click on Start, Run, regedit.exe
2.Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
3.Expand System
4.Expand CurrentControlSet
5.Expand Services
6.Expand W3Svc
7.Expand Parameters
8.Expand Script Map
9.Right click within the right pane/frame (of Script Map) and select New, string value.
10.Enter .pl
11.Modify .pl and enter the full path to the perl.exe program along with "%s %s"
example: e:\Perl5\bin\perl.exe %s %s

11.Create additional entries for ".cgi" and ".plx"
12.Exit Regedit.
13.If MS PWS is running then, then start and stop http services.
 
 
 

APPENDIX B - Problems running MySQL.