Creating a new BBS

The Objective - a Simple BBS

The ambition is to make an exact copy of the sample news forum at http://agnes.vestris.com/db-cgi/intensive/agnes?StiAgnes+StiAgnesHTML , on your site. You do not have many steps to perform and virtually no technical knowledge is required. This QuickStart guide is intended for both beginners and advanced power users and you should use it whenever you need to create a new forum, hosted on your server or remotely hosted @ Vestris Inc., Switzerland.

Download Sample Template Files

Create a new directory, for example agnes on your site, to which you wish to add a news forum.

If you are using an ftp or a telnet client to upload files to your site, it should allow you to create new directories with the mkdir command. Here's an example:
> ftp big-server Connected to big-server 220 big-server FTP server (Version 6.2/OpenBSD/Linux-0.10) ready. User (big-server:(none)): foo 331 Password required for foo. Password: 230- Linux 2.0.36. 230 User foo logged in. ftp> cd public_html ftp> mkdir agnes ftp> ls -la drwxrwxrwt 4 foo bar 15360 Oct 2 16:33 . drwxr-xr-x 7 foo bar 1024 Apr 7 1999 .. drwxr-x--- 2 foo bar 1024 Oct 2 16:33 agnes -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 21234 Jul 19 19:23 index.html 226 Transfer complete. ftp>

Download the files, listed below, to your computer and place them in the agnes directory, that you have just created. To download the files, click on the right mouse button on the link below and use the Save Target As command.

The header.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/header.html ) is used to show the list of articles, archives and allows to navigate through the posts on the bbs.
The article.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/article.html ) is used to show each individual article.
The follow.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/follow.html ) is used to reply to articles.
The postnew.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/postnew.html ) is used to post new articles to the bbs.
The search.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/search.html ) is used to search through existing articles.
The preview.html template ( http://agnes.vestris.com/en/templates/preview.html ) is used to preview newly posted articles or replies.

Alternatively, you can download these files via anonymous ftp from ftp://ftp.vestris.com/pub/agnes/templates/

To upload these files to your remote server, use ftp or any other method you are using to upload files to your website. For example:
> ftp big-server Connected to big-server 220 big-server FTP server (Version 6.2/OpenBSD/Linux-0.10) ready. User (big-server:(none)): foo 331 Password required for foo. Password: 230- Linux 2.0.36. 230 User foo logged in. ftp> cd public_html ftp> cd agnes ftp> mput *.html 200 PORT command successful. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'header.html'. 226 Transfer complete. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'article.html'. 226 Transfer complete. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'postnew.html'. 226 Transfer complete. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'search.html'. 226 Transfer complete. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'follow.html'. 226 Transfer complete. 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 'preview.html'. 226 Transfer complete. ftp> ls -la drwxrwxrwt 4 foo bar 15360 Oct 2 16:33 . drwxr-xr-x 7 foo bar 1024 Apr 7 1999 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 2124 Jul 19 19:23 header.html -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 1234 Jul 19 19:23 article.html -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 2124 Jul 19 19:23 postnew.html -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 2123 Jul 19 19:23 search.html -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 2124 Jul 19 19:23 follow.html -rw-r--r-- 1 foo bar 3123 Jul 19 19:23 preview.html ftp>

Note

It is important to download all these files and that they are made accessible using your browser. Make sure you have navigate to your site, and see the content of the template pages, for example http://www.big-server.com/agnes/header.html.

Create the BBS!

Follow the link to create a new bbs from the agnes management page (/cgi-bin/agnes?manage+add). If you are creating a remotely hosted @ Vestris Inc., Switzerland bbs, please navigate to http://agnes.vestris.com/cgi-one/AgnesDirector .

Fill the form that appears.

Your contact name will be used by the administrator only and is not visible to bbs users.
Your contact email is known to your administrator only and is not visible to bbs users.
The aGNeS alias is a unique keyword that defines your bbs and cannot contain special characters.
The url of the demo pages should be the root for the template pages, which you have downloaded in the previous step.
The file names should remain intact, unless you have changed them. It is possible to rename these as php3, asp, etc. Note, that you must change the files on your server before you submit this form.
The password should be known to you only, it is used to administer the new bbs. A password reminder may be sent to your contact email if you cannot remember it.

Press the confirm button. In case of success, your new bbs will be created and a link to it will appear. In case of failure, read the troubleshooting section below.

Troubleshooting

Error: invalid header.html file, must contain at least a valid aGNeS tag

aGNeS was able to retrieve the header.html file that you have specified, or at least got a response from the server when requesting the later. You might see a response under the error messages: a typical one is 404, which means that the file could not be found, 401, which means that the file cannot be read due to permission settings, etc.

First, try to navigate to the exact url that is output by aGNeS. If you are unable to view the downloaded template file, that is what you must fix first. If you can see the aGNeS template, look at the source of the document and find the  commented tag. If the later cannot be found, you have not properly downloaded the template document, follow the procedure again.

Some sites use redirector services to wrap all requests into pages with publicity banners. Look at the generated code again, you might notice an internal redirect to the real url of your template page. That is the url you should use. That url might be dynamic and change often, you should try to use a different web provider, if that is the case.

Error: this alias is already used

A BBS with the same alias already exists. A different user has created a board with the same name, you should choose a different alias. Letters and numbers are allowed, which gives you lots of combinations. It is not very important what the BBS alias is, it is just used to internally reference it and all urls contain the alias.