WebSubRev v0.62 (beta): Web-software for Conference Submission and Review Written by Shai Halevi from IBM Research Distributed under the Common Public License (CPL v1.0) See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.php Installing the software: ======================== One of the goals of this software was to make administration as easy as possible. In particular, you never need to run scripts etc. In principle, to install this software you just unpack the zip file in some directory in your web tree (call it the BASE directory), point your browser at that directory and off you go. However, that method of installation requires the web-server to be able to write files in the web-tree, which in some cases is considered a security risk. I therefore provide also a non-web-based installation method, as explained below. Prerequisites: -------------- This is a PHP/MySQL software, which means that to use it you must have a MySQL server and a PHP engine (and your web-server must supports PHP and MySQL). I tested the software with PHP 4.3.9 and MySQL 4.1.20 (and earlier versions of it were tested with PHP 4.3.2 and MySQL 3.23). It may work even with older versions but I cannot test it. Also, proper functioning of this software depends on "proper" functioning of you web-server. In particular, some issues that I came across are: * The web-server (and the PHP engine) must be willing to upload files. For example, in one system that I used to test it, the PHP engine was configured to only allow uploads of files upto 500KB (and I was wrecking my brains as to why I can only upload pdf and not postscript files..) In my case it turned out that I had to change the parameter LimitRequestBody in php.conf (which on that system was somewhere under /etc/httpd/). * The web-server must be able to send email. For example, if this is a Windows machine then the variable SMTP in php.ini should be set correctly. * If the server is set-up with PHP in safe mode, then everything under the BASE directory must have same owner. (Also everything under the UPLOAD directory -- see below.) If safe_mode_gid is set in php.ini then instead of having the same owner they need to have the same group. Web-based installation: ----------------------- To use this method, simply copy the contents of the webtree directory to somewhere in your web tree (call it the BASE directory), making sure that the web-server has permission to write in the "init" sub-directory of the BASE directory. During the installation process you would need to specify another local directory where the uploaded submissions would be stored, called the UPLOAD directory. If you don't specify anything, the UPLOAD directory defaults to the subdirectory "subs" under the BASE directory. The UPLOAD directory need not be in the web-tree, but the web server must be able to read and write in that directory. After copying the files to the BASE directory (and setting the permissions), point your browser to the page chair/initialize.php under the BASE directory. You will be asked to provide various details (including the UPLOAD directory and the MySQL access details), and these values will be used to initialize the site. You will then be taken directly to the customization page in order to customize the site for the conference (see below). At this point the web server no longer needs to write to the "init" subdirectory, so you can change the permissions to make that directory read-only. Non-web-based installation: --------------------------- An alternative method of installation (in Unix systems) is to change directory to the directory where you unzipped this software (above the "webtree" and "tools" directories) and from the command prompt do % ./tools/mkNewConf.sh confname where confname is a short-name for the conference (e.g., xyz2007). It is recommended that you read this script before running it, and you can optionally modify it to set some default values. This shell script will ask you for the locations of the BASE and UPLOAD directories (and other parameters) and then it will install the software in the BASE directory, setting the permissions as needed. The script will then print out the username and password that are needed in order to access the customization page. A word about web-server configuration: -------------------------------------- The Web server should refuses to serve anything from the sub-directories "includes", "init", and "subs" (under the BASE directory): If the server agrees to serve content from subs/ and the installation uses the default setting of putting the submissions there, then anyone who knows the internals of the system would be able to download these submission. There are already .htaccess files for Apache with the appropriate directives in place, but these must be enabled by setting the option "AllowOverride Limit" on the container directory in the apache configuration file. Customizing the site: --------------------- Before it can be used, the site still needs to be customized for the conference. This is done from the page chair/customize.php under the BASE directory. In this page the program chair can specify the conference name, deadlines, program-committee members and many other parameters. Links are provided from this page to the documentation page, where you can find some additional explanations about the role of different parameters. All the parameters that are specified in this page can be modified later from the administration page. Once the customization is done, the site is ready to accept submissions. You are shown a receipt page that includes links to the submissions page and the administration page, as well as the username and password that you need in order to access the administration page. Also, an email message with the same information is sent to the program chair. Experimenting with the software: -------------------------------- I wrote a small testing package for the purpose of experimenting with the software. To use this package, copy the contents of the "testOnly" subdirectory to the BASE directory where you installed the software itself *before* you customize the installation. This testing package adds 53 dummy submissions and 17 dummy PC members to the conference database. Troubleshooting: ---------------- Most of the parameters of the software are stored in the "parameters" table in the database. The details of the database itself are stored in the file init/confParams.php under the BASE directory. If you have problems with the software, looking at these parameters may provide some hints as to the source of the problem.