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How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

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boobear52
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How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by boobear52 »

I have been running WD for several years from my home web server, but as of late i have been haveing problems with it. I have cumulus running on the server now but am haveing problems setting up the files etc to serve it to the web.

My setup is as follows. Windows xp sp3 with cis webserver. My directory i want all my webfiles in is c://webfiles

What files and folders do I need to add to this folder and what changes do I have to make to the setup so that I can serve up cumulus on the web?

Thankyou in advance
Cluless in Courtenay
Don
If it's not broke.....don't fix it.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by steve »

You need to do the standard setup as described in 'setting up your web site' in the help, and in the wiki, here -http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Simple_Website_setup

Then you need to get Cumulus to copy the files rather than using ftp. Untick 'include standard files' and 'include standard images' on the 'files' tab of the internet settings, and then list the standard six templates (indexT.htm, todayT.htm, yesterdayT.htm, recordsT.htm, gaugesT.htm, trendsT.htm) in the left hand column (using full paths), and the full path that you want each one copying to on the right hand side, using the same file names but with the 'T' removed, e.g. C:\webfiles\index.htm and so on. Tick 'process' but not 'ftp', 'realtime' or 'binary' for each one.

Put the name of the destination images folder in the 'Copy images to folder' box, e.g. C:\webfiles\images
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by boobear52 »

Thankyou Steve for your fast response. All is working, but have 2 small problems. The graphs screen has some error text at the bottom and the trends page will not load the graphs. If you have time can you see if you know what this might be.

Thankyou
Don

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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by steve »

boobear52 wrote: The graphs screen has some error text at the bottom
The gauges page, yes? This is because the real-time wind gauges require the realtime.txt file. You can either remove the gauges (instructions are in the gaugesT.htm file), or, to get them working, in the internet settings tick 'enable realtime' and then add the realtime.txt file to the list of files to be copied. The source file is in the Cumulus installation folder (e.g. C:\Cumulus\realtime.txt), and the destination needs to be C:\webfiles\realtime.txt. Same settings as for the other files, but in addition tick 'realtime'.
and the trends page will not load the graphs.
The javascript which swaps the image files uses a trick to prevent browsers from caching the images; it adds a pseudo-random number to the image URL based on the date and time. Your web server doesn't support this so the URL fails. This is the code, in the trendsT.htm file:

Code: Select all

<script type="text/javascript">
function changeImage(im) {
	document.images["graphs"].src = im + "?" + new Date().getTime();
}
</script>
This produces a URL like this: http://weatherlive.ath.cx/images/temp.png?1301939303563

If your server can't handle that, you'll need to delete the relevant code, so the above becomes:

Code: Select all

<script type="text/javascript">
function changeImage(im) {
	document.images["graphs"].src = im;
}
</script>
But bear in mind that this means that browsers will cache the images, so won't download new ones when they change.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by boobear52 »

You were right on the money Steve. I changed to a better web server and volia...all working great.

Thankyou very much for your help.

Don
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by GraemeT »

Don,
I recommend using Abyss webserver software from http://www.aprelium.com/
It's easy to set up and there's a free version if you only need 1 host, or US$59.95 for the all-singing, all-dancing version.
Cheers,
Graeme.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by gemini06720 »

GraemeT wrote:I recommend using Abyss webserver software...
Graeme, the Abyss Web Server software appears to be somewhat outdated ... :( ... no update since January 2009 ... there have been at least 2-3 updates of PHP since then... :|

I would be more inclined to recommend these two excellent and free server software, WampServer (version 2.1a released December 24, 2010) and my favourite, XAMPP (version 1.7.4 released January 26, 2011)
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by GraemeT »

Yes Ray, the most recent Abyss update was 21 Jan 2009, but I don't really believe the latest release date is always the best indicator of a software product's worth.

My recommendation is based on ease of use, compatibility, security, reliability and cost, over the 4 years I've been using it.

The current versions of php, perl, asp, etc. are all fully supported. In fact, asp.net is supported natively.

I have experimented with both WAMP and XAMPP, as well as a Linux-based Apache server and decided that Abyss fitted my requirements perfectly.


Cheers,
Cheers,
Graeme.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by boobear52 »

Abyss is what I went for, and it has been working like a charm. Has anyone tried the new version of cumulus??

Don
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by serowe »

gemini06720 wrote:
GraemeT wrote:I would be more inclined to recommend these two excellent and free server software, WampServer (version 2.1a released December 24, 2010) and my favourite, XAMPP (version 1.7.4 released January 26, 2011)
e very careful, if using XAMPP, and note that it does NOT work on Vista and Windows 7 64 bit OS's. The doc's for XAMPP don;t even mention W7, but, more specifically, whilst they state 32 bit OS's, they make absolutely no mention of 64 bit.

This, btw, isn;t hearsay - I set up a new XAMPP W7 64 bit 1.7.4 installation last week - well, tried to - had nothing but troubles and after doing a few searches for 'XAMPP Windows 7 64 bit problems' found that a lot of users are a bit peed off because the previous version (1.7.3) does work on 64 bit systems.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by gemini06720 »

serowe wrote:...found that a lot of users are a bit peed off because the previous version (1.7.3) does work on 64 bit systems.
Indeed, version 1.7.4 has been known to be somewhat 'flaky'...

There has been some controversy (read, strong disagreements) between the original XAMPP designer and new younger designers who join the design team over the past months, so much so that the original designer left/quitted and brought with him all the source code for XAMPP (for which he held all the copyrights :twisted: ) ... so that new team had to start from scratch... :evil: ...and the best they came up with was version 1.7.4 ... unstable on way too many computers and lacking much of utilities that were included in all previous releases of XAMPP (did not know about the lack of 64 bit support)... :roll:
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by serowe »

Ahhh thanks - wasn't sure of the story behind the problems but that fits.

The 64 bit issue has, apparently, only come up in the last 2 months or so, and, like a few others, I got caught out badly.

1.7.3 works well anyway so, to be honest, not worth upgrading.
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by gemini06720 »

serowe wrote:The 64 bit issue has, apparently, only come up in the last 2 months or so, and, like a few others, I got caught out badly.
It is odd that it took more than four months for the 64 bit issue to come out - XAMPP version 1.7.4 was, after all, released on/around January 26, 2011 :roll:
serowe wrote:1.7.3 works well anyway so, to be honest, not worth upgrading.
Indeed, 1.7.3 has been very reliable. I have been able to update (with some tweaking) my version of XAMPP (ie: 1.7.3 ) to run PHP version 5.3.5 and mySQL version 5.1.41... :geek:
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Re: How to setup Cumulus to run on home server?

Post by GraemeT »

Don,
The one and only issue I've had with Abyss is that when running several virtual servers on AbyssX2, if one virtual server is restarted, it resets the up-time for all, but it's not really a problem for me.
If you're using the free AbyssX1, you'll find it will upgrade to AbyssX2 without any hiccups.

Here's my system info page: http://weather.gktnet.com/sysinfo.php

[Edit: Forgot to mention, Abyss is also available for Linux, MacOS-X, and FreeBSD]


Cheers,
Cheers,
Graeme.
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