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The Strongbox Security System^tm Usage and Requirements

The Strongbox Security System^tm has three requirements as to how your web server is set up and how your HTML is coded. Most professional webmasters will already have their links coded correctly anyway, so normally they do not need to be adjusted at all.

We can help get your site ready for the Strongbox Security System^tm if needed. For example, in some cases links within your members area may need to be adjusted and we can do that with our search and replace scripts.

Execution of CGI scripts

We will need to be able to run CGI scripts in a normal fashion. Most servers have a standard setup so that CGI scripts can be executed. A typical server configuration has this directory named "/cgi-bin/" and it is usually located either at the same level as the site's document root, or one level up from the document root (so it can referenced by using "../cgi-bin/"). Also, most standard server configurations already have this directory created, the ScriptAlias defined within the site's VirtualHost, and set up with either the setting "AllowOverride All" or at the very least "AllowOverride FileInfo". The Strongbox Security System^tm is no different, and will need to be able to execute CGI scripts as well, from a directory that is named "/cgi-bin/".

Wildcard ServerAlias

To use The Strongbox Security System^tm, you must be able to access your site from ANYTHING.your-site.com (catch-all sub-domains). Some hosts set this up by default. On other hosts we can help get it setup for you and it's not a big deal. We have recently begun keeping a list of which hosts will do this for you without a problem and which will not. At the time of this writing, we've found only one host who won't, but dozens who will. Check our compatibility list to see if your host is listed.

Link syntax Options

The other thing is that your members area links can't be full URLs. You have to use this:

<a href="./gallery1.html"

or this:

<a href="/members/gallery1.html"

instead of:

<a href="http://your-site.com/members/gallery1.html"

If you have links with full URLs in your members area we can do a search and replace to take care of those for you. Linking in this fashion is desireable with or without the Strongbox Security System^tm because it lets you move pages from one domain to another or from one directory to another and they still work. For example, some years ago many processors decided that you weren't allowed to have certain words such as "teen" in your domain name. Webmasters with sites like barelyeighteen.com had to move their sites to new domain names and by linking in the way described above they made the move very easy. With the Strongbox Security System^tm, leaving the domain name out of the links is not only desireable, but required in most cases.

Software dependencies (required Perl modules)

We've tried very hard to make The Strongbox Security System^tm as simple as possible and not depend on any more software than necesary. Thus it does not require MySQL or anything else other than Perl, mod_rewrite, and Apache. So far I haven't found any hosts that needed additional software installed. The Perl scripts use the following Perl modules, all of which are standard modules that are almost always already installed:

• File::Path
• HTTP::Request::Common
• LWP::UserAgent
• Socket

Strongbox can use two Perl modules that aren't always installed. Neither of them is required for for sites that use a plain text password file. DBI/DBD is used by Strongbox only if your usernames and password are stored in a database, such as by NATS, rather than in a plain password file. The DBI/DBD modules are pretty standard, as the are required for any Perl script to connect to a database. You can see if they are installed using this command, which will do nothing if it is installed, but will give an error if not:

perl -e 'use DBD::mysql;'

Strongbox CAN use the Inline module in order to run more efficiently. Strongbox will use it if it's installed, or not use it if it's not. You can check for Inline with:

perl -e 'use Inline'

Either of these modules can be installed using either RPM/yum or by Perl itself using CPAN. To install using yum:

yum install perl-DBD-MySQL
yum install perl-Inline

To install using Perl and CPAN:

perl -MCPAN -e 'install Bundle::DBD::mysql'
perl -MCPAN -e 'install Inline'