• FAQ for the Desktop program
• FAQ for Web Edition competition organisers.
• Installing the Web Edition
• Error during install: System DLLs corrupt or missing
• Setting up permissions on: UNIX : Windows
• Error 404 and competition is hosted by FTS
• Error 401 or 403 when uploading or downloading - UNIX
• Error 401 or 403 when uploading or downloading - Windows NT
• Error 4 when uploading
• Error 22 when uploading
• Error 23 or 32 when uploading
• 'Permission Denied' when uploading 'stub.dat'
• Error 407 when uploading or downloading
• Error 404 when uploading or downloading
• How do I get the web front end to work with IIS 5.1 (Windows XP) or IIS 6 (Windows Server 2003)
• Error 404 accessing the scripts or after clicking on 'click here to continue' link - Windows NT
• Error "flock() unimplemented on this platform"
• Browser attempts to download the perl script instead of running it
• How do I set up IIS 6 to work with Perl?
• My scripts fail with something like "Can't locate MD5.pm in @INC".
• Installing on a MAC with OSX.
• Manually downloading and uploading your files.
• If your question isn't answered here

Q: Suggested procedure for installing the web edition.

A: It is recommended that you download and install the Web edition at the PC of the person who is going to be the competition Organiser. This is so that the install program can create appropriate program groups and shortcuts on their machine. You do NOT need to install this part of the program onto the web server.

Since the Organiser is the only person that will be using this component of the software you can install either to the local c: drive or to a network drive. We tend to recommend installing to a shared network drive only because the program folder would then usually be included in a network backup routine.

This initial installation program will install the Desktop (or client) software onto the PC or network. It also copies files and instructions for the web server component into appropriate folders. It will display a 'readme' file which gives detailed instructions on what and how to install onto your web server. We recommend that you print this information for reference.

The next step is to install the scripts onto your web server. Following the instructions in the readme should suffice, but if you do run into problems then there is extensive information on this page regarding possible problems and their suggested solutions.

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Q: As soon as I try to run the install I get an error message - "Could not initilize instalation - System DLLs corrupt or missing. Access is denied."

A: This message is caused because your anti-virus/anti-spyware program is blocking the install program. Users have specfically reported this problem with Trend Micro PC-cillan Internet Security Suite.

In order for the install to succeed you need to allow it to run. You can do this either by clicking on the 'Always Ignore' button on the pop up that may appear at the time as the error. Alternatively you need to go into the PC-cillan 'Main Console', select 'Virus & Spyware Controls', select 'Protection Against Spyware' and click on the green tick that say 'On and select 'Off'. Then re-run our installation file. After you have installed our program you may wish to turn 'Protection against Spyware' back on.

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Q: How do I set up permissions on my UNIX web server to allow the Web edition to work?
A: The install script (install.pl) should set up the permissions on your web server correctly. In the unlikely event that it hasn't work, or if they have been inadvertently changed, follow these instructions.

Generally, under UNIX the user that your web server runs as should own the directories and files for your web competition. This is “nobody” on most servers. The command for changing the owner of a file or directory should look something like:

chown nobody. tipping

Please check your operating system documentation if this does not work.

Each directory requires different file permissions to allow your web competition to run correctly. To check permissions once you have the scripts executing, go to the admin page (admin.cgi) and click on the check permissions link. This will check the permissions required for the web interface to upload files to the web front-end.

A list of directories and the required permissions follows. Replace any references to the tipping directory with the directory name that you specified for question 4 of install.pl. The chmod commands are run from the directories specified for questions 1 (<html>) and 3 (<cgi-bin>).

In some installations, you may need to decrease the rights for the cgi scripts to 744 (read, write,execute;read;read) to get the scripts to run correctly.

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Q: How do I set up file system permissions on my Windows web server to allow the Web edition to work?
A: Generally, under Windows the user that your web server runs as must haves rights to all of the directories and files for your web competition. This is “IUSR_machinename” where machinename is the name of the computer that the web server is running on. In addition to this, you must configure Internet Information Server (IIS) to allow the scripts to run and run and write from particular directories.

To modify the file permissions on a directory, run Windows Explorer, browse to the relevant directory, right click on it and choose properties, choose the security tab

If the IUSR_machinename account isn't in the list of users, add it. Do not use the Everyone user in it's place, it will not work properly.

Each folder can have its security set individually, or the <scripts>\tipping or <html>\tipping directories can have blanket security applied, which can be a security risk.

To check permissions once you have the scripts executing, go to the admin page (admin.pl) and click on the check permissions link. This will check the permissions required for the web interface to upload files to the web front-end.

A list of directories and the required permissions follows. Replace any references to the tipping directory with the directory name that you specified for question 4 of install.pl.

You may also need to set up the IUSR account to be able to execute the perl executable. So for the directory that perl.exe is in (by default c:\perl\bin\) grant the IUSR account Read & Execute permissions.

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Q: I get Error 404 and my competition is hosted on www.footytipping.net.au
A: The first thing to check is that your competition is available from a browser. To do this, open up your browser, e.g. Internet Explorer, and type in what you think is the address for your tipping competition scripts. This will most likely be http://www.footytipping.net.au/cgi-bin/yourname/tippers.cgi, where yourname is the name of your competition specified by Footy Tipping Software. If you get to this page the scripts are working fine on the web site and the address must be incorrect in the Web Interface Connection options tab.

Go into Options, and the Connection tab, using the above address to tippers.cgi as an example the web server scripts URL would be like http://www.footytipping.net.au/cgi-bin/yourname/ - please include the trailing forward slash (/).

If your cannot get to http://www.footytipping.net.au/ then you have a problem with your Internet connection and you will have to talk to your local IT administrator, if you are in a company, or your ISP. The problem is possibly one to do with proxy software being used to control your connection to the internet.
If you can get to http://www.footytipping.net.au/ then contact Footy Tipping Software to verify the set up is correct on our web server.

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Q: My web server is UNIX and I get "Error 401" or "Error 403" when I try to upload or download from the web competition, and my browser displays a login dialog box when I go to the competition pages.
A: This sometimes occurs when your web server has special web server permissions set on the cgi-bin directory. Verify that all of the permissions are set correctly before you go any further - see UNIX Permissions. If the problem persists after checking these, check to see if there is a .htaccess file in the cgi-bin directory or in any directory above it. These files allow a web master to fine tune whether access to a particular directory requires a password. If there is a file, please contact your web master to check why it is there and how to change this behaviour for your competition directory.

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Q: My web server is Windows NT or Windows 2000 and I get "Error 401" or "Error 403" when I try to upload or download from the web competition, but my browser connects to the site with no problems.
A: This occurs when your web server has authentication set on the scripts directory. Verify that all of the permissions are set correctly before you go any further - see Windows Permissions. If the problem persists after checking these, verify that the directory where the scripts reside has the following settings specified in the IIS administration program:

• Basic Authentication should be off
• Anonymous Authentication should be on
• "NTLM" or "NT Challenge/Response" or "Integrated Windows Security" is turned on.

NTLM security must be turned on to allow the anonymous user to be authenticated to the machine.

If you are still having problems, then you will have to consult the documentation for IIS to ascertain where the problem lies.

Some users have reported that the scripts give a 401 error unless Directory Browsing is selected in the Properties window of the Scripts virtual directory.

Q: I get "Error 4 - The scripts on the website are out of date" when I try to upload things to the web competition.
A: This is because you have installed the latest edition of the program on your PC, but have not installed the latest version of the required scripts on your web server. You can not use last season's scripts for this season's competition and will need to install the latest version of the scripts. If your competition is being hosted by FTS then you will need to request they update your hosted site.

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Q: I get "Error 22 Upload failure" when I upload things to the web competition.
A: This usually occurs because either the directory that the files are uploaded to cannot be found by the web server software, or the web server software does not have the correct file system permissions to the directory.

Check to make sure that the directory exists and if it does, follow the instructions in the Permissions section for UNIX or Windows servers. If it does not exist, create the directory and then follow the instructions in the relevant Permissions section.

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Q: I get "Error 23 Access denied" or "Error 32 Permission denied" when I upload to the web competition.
A: This is caused by the web server not having the correct file system permissions. Follow the instructions in the Permissions section for UNIX or Windows servers to verify that permissions are set correctly in all directories of the competition.

Q: When I upload to my competition, it gives me a permssion denied error when uploading stub.dat. I can't find stub.dat on the site anywhere. What does it mean?

A: The Web Interface uploads a small file called stub.dat when it needs to tell the Web Front End to regenerate index.htm in the html directory.

To fix this problem, follow the step on how to fix permissions on either Windows or Unix,

Q: I manually inputted some tips to the desktop and saw a green tick beside the tipper's name. After uploading to the website, there was no green tick on the website making it look like that they didn't tip.

A: Tips are only ever downloaded from the web site, never uploaded. If you want to see a tick next to the tippers name then you would need to put the tips in via the web pages (you can use your Organiser password when asked for the Tipper's password). These tips will eventually end up in the Organiser program when you do a download. It is slower to enter tips this way, but is the only way you will see the green tick.

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Q: I get "Error 407  - Proxy Authentication required" when I try to upload or download from the web competition.
A: This would indicate that you have web proxy server and you need to specify a proxy server and port and also check the prompt for proxy username and password option on the Connection tab of the Options.

If this problem still occurs, then you may have a windows based proxy server that requires a proprietary authentication method. The Web Interface does not support this method and you will have to contact your Proxy Administrator to find another option for you to authenticate to your proxy server, for instance by allowing you to use Basic authentication.

As a last resort, you may have to manually upload files to your competition.

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Q: I get "Error 404: Unable to resolve host name or IP address" when I try to use the Web Interface to upload or download from the web competition.
A: If the Web Interface shows this error and you are able to connect to your competition using your browser and you are using Windows 95/98/ME, it is likely that you have, or have had, Personal Web Server (PWS) installed on your machine. PWS causes the Web Interface to fail to connect to your web competition. Either uninstall PWS, use a different machine or attempt to use just the IP address of the Web Server instead of the name.

As a last resort, you may have to manually upload files to your competition.

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Q: How do I get the scripts to work with IIS 5.1 (as shipped with Windows XP) or IIS 6 (as shipped with Windows Server 2003)?
A: For both of these servers, you will more than likely need to create a scripts virtual directory.

You should now have a scripts virtual directory. From this point, you should probablycheck the file system permissions for the directory that you have created.

If you are using IIS 6 you will also need to allow Perl CGI extensions to run. Under the Web Service Extensions folder, select Perl CGI Extentions. Change the status from "Prohibited" to "Allowed".

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Q: I get "Page connot be found, 404" when I try to access the scripts or when I click on the "Click here to continue" link on the index page.
A:This problem is either caused by file system permissions or because you don't have a virtual directory set up in IIS for the scripts directory.

To set up a virtual directory, go into the Internet Services Manager (in control panel), right click on the web relevant web server (usually called the default), then choose New->Virtual Directory. A wizard will be displayed. For alias, type 'scripts', and for the directory, browse to the directory into which your footy tipping scripts directory is installed. e.g. c:\inetpub\scripts. On the Access Permissions page, ensure that Read, Run scripts and Execute are enabled.

If this does not resolve the problem, please refer to the Windows file system permissions section.

If you are running IIS6 then you will need to allow Perl CGI extensions to run. Under the Web Service Extensions folder, select Perl CGI Extentions. Change the status from "Prohibited" to "Allowed".

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Q: I get an error "flock() unimplemented on this platform"

I am running Personal Web Server (PWS) on Windows 95, 98 or ME: As of the 2002 season, we no longer support running the Web edition on PWS. This is due in part to the need to support file locking within the product. Other options for running the software include running it on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP with Internet Information Server (IIS).

I am running on some other platform: Although we endeavour to offer the Web edition on as many platforms as possible, some of the programming code that we may not work on all platforms. In this case we are using file locking (flock()) to maintain the integrity of certain files used during the operation of the scripts.

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Q: I am running the scripts on Windows NT, 2000 or XP and when I browse to one of the scripts, my browser attempts to download the perl script instead of running it.
A: You need to manually associate perl scripts with the perl scripting engine in the IIS administration program (Internet Services Manager). These instructions are for Windows 2000 & XP (IIS 5):

1. In internet service manager, go to the directory that you have your scripts in, eg Scripts\tipping, right click and choose properties.
2. On the virtual directory page, choose the Configuration button (you may have to click on the Create button first).
3. On the App Mappings page, click on the Add button.
4. In the Executable edit box, enter the following:

   C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "%s" %s

   (Assuming perl is installed in the default location)

5. In the Extension edit box, enter ".pl" (without the quotes).
6. Click on the Limit To radio button and in the edit box, enter:

   GET,HEAD,POST

7. Clear the Script Engine check box.
8. Check the 'Check that File Exists' check box.

   

9. Choose OK, then OK, then OK.

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Q: How do I set up IIS 6 to work with Perl?
A: There have been some reports of problems getting the Web Front End working in IIS version 6. This information has been sourced from the ActivePerl web site, and should help:

To configure ActivePerl to work with IIS 6 on Windows 2003:

1. Load the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager applet from Window's Administrative Tools menu.
   
   
2. Select the desired system, then select Web Service Extensions.
   
3. Check to see if the "Perl CGI" extension is in the list. If it is, make sure that it is "allowed". Change it if necessary, then move on to step 6. Otherwise, move to step 4.
   
4. Click Add new Web service extension.
   
5. Enter a descriptive Extension name (such as "Perl CGI"), then enter the following string in the Required files field:
   
   C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "%s" %s
   
   As necessary, modify the path to the Perl executable on the selected system. Check Set extension status to Allowed. Click OK.
   
6. Create a virtual directory for the Perl scripts.
   Expand the Web Sites folder in the IIS Manager and right-click Default Web Site. Select New | Virtual Directory.... Use the wizard to specify the location of your Perl CGI programs. On the Access Permissions page, ensure that Read, Run scripts and Execute are enabled. (The default location is often c:\inetpub\scripts in which case the alias would be set to 'scripts').
   
   
7. Right-click the new virtual directory and select Properties. On the Mappings tab of the Application Configuration page, ensure that ".pl" extensions are mapped to the Perl interpreter specified above. (Enter the same string in the Executable Path field as shown in step 3.) Some users have reported that the scripts give a 401 error unless Directory Browsing is selected.
   
   
8. In order to run Perl scripts, ensure that Perl CGI Extentions are "allowed". Under the Web Service Extensions folder, select Perl CGI Extentions. Change the status from "Prohibited" to "Allowed".
   

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Q - My scripts fail with something like "Can't locate MD5.pm in @INC".
A: This is caused by some new code that needs Perl 5.8.0.

There are three possible solutions to this problem:

1. Install the latest version of Perl. The latest version for Windows can be downloaded from www.activestate.com. If you are using a Unix variant, you can get the latest version from www.perl.org.
2. Download the MD5 module from CPAN at www.cpan.org. You can also use the CPAN functionality that is usually included in most Perl distributions. Please refer to your Perl documentation on how to use this service.
3. The offending piece of code is in util.pl. If you feel confident, you can change it yourself.
   
   Find the hashPassword routine, which looks like this:
   
   sub hashPassword
{
  my ($s) = @_;
  if ($util::config{UseMD5})
  {
    use Digest::MD5 qw(md5_hex);
    return md5_hex(uc($s));
  }
  else
  {
    return crypt(uc($s), 'FT');
  }
}

   and make it look like this:

sub hashPassword
{
  my ($s) = @_;
  return crypt(uc($s), 'FT');
}

Save the file and everything should be OK.

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Q - Can I install the scripts on a Mac web server.
A: Yes. You should follow the Unix/Linux readme and whilst we haven't tried this ourselves a Mac user has supplied the below information:

The answers to the perl install.pl questions

1. HTML directory: /Library/WebServer/Documents
2. Scripts part of URL: /cgi-bin
3. CGI/Scripts directory: /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables
4. Competition directory: /tipping
5. Web server user name: www
6. Path to the perl exec: /usr/bin/perl

Please note this was done on a iMac with a standard install of OSX.
It is for the system websever - not a user webserver (it is possible for each user on an OSX box to have their own webpages, which are stored in a different location to that which has been noted above).

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Q - Manually downloading and uploading your files
A: You may choose to download or upload from the web pages themselves:
if the Web Interface cannot connect to your competition on your web site;
if you have chosen to disable the automatic upload/download option in your Interface;
if you are not on the machine where the copy of the Interface resides;
or if you want to upload a filename with more than eight characters.

Instructions for manually downloading and uploading are given here.

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Q - I didn't find the answer that I was looking for. How do I contact you?
A: First, you may wish to have a look at our Web Edition FAQ for Competition Organisers. For more info on PERL for UNIX visit www.perl.com. If you have a Windows server, the most useful source of information we have found is the FAQ page at www.activestate.com, or otherwise you can find our contact details here.

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