mod-pubsub-developer — Developer list for mod_pubsub

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] Intent to do damgage

[Tom <tom...@sl...>]

On Tue, 10 Dec 2002, Asynch Messaging wrote:

--]When you use mod_pubsub (or any pub/sub messaging) it's better to think
--]about each participant having the state rather than a single server.

This would work out great for the game idea. Many games often require that
some of the other players units, hands, etc, remain hidden to the other
players. Thus each players state is all that is known localy to them, When
the state info of each player comingles at the server level(?) the new
states for each player can be computated and sent off.

--]If you want the server to have some cool logic - don't think of mod_pubsub
--]as the place for that logic. Just add another listener that gets the events
--]and does the computation and spits out new events.
--]So mod_pubsub isn't the center, its the in-between.

mod_subpub is the layer which gathers the various player states and
reports back the new states/state changes..The engines of aggression, the
computational aspect, that is a layer above/below? I think I see the(tm)
light.


--]the game, rather than the particular UI of the day. The client can still be
--]a browser, but it isn't a page-flipping thing, it's mostly script and
--]dynamic html.

Yep, thats what Im counting on, and why I am starting small with small
piece/card count games. (www.cheapass.com)

--]Model the game concepts and the information exchange between participants
--]and you are most of the way there.

Build it and they will come?

Im learing.

-tomwsmf

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] Intent to do damgage

[Asynch M. <asy...@ho...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom" <tom...@sl...>


> Enough of my ramblings, somtimes between now and next year I should find
> time between diapy changes to install and start testing out ideas. Any
> thoughts on the matter would be happily used and appreciated.

When you use mod_pubsub (or any pub/sub messaging) it's better to think
about each participant having the state rather than a single server.
Although mod_pubsub will hold onto the events for as long as you want
(essentially making them permanent 'resources' - think of a config file that
you subscribe to & you always get notified if it changes) it's more meant to
distribute state changes in order to synchronize state across machines.

If you want the server to have some cool logic - don't think of mod_pubsub
as the place for that logic. Just add another listener that gets the events
and does the computation and spits out new events.

So mod_pubsub isn't the center, its the in-between.

What's neat about mod_pubsub (or any URI based event notification) is that
you can do direct 'information modeling' with web technology rather than
'user interface design' with the web. The URLs correspond to the concepts of
the game, rather than the particular UI of the day. The client can still be
a browser, but it isn't a page-flipping thing, it's mostly script and
dynamic html.

Model the game concepts and the information exchange between participants
and you are most of the way there.

[Mod-pubsub-developer] public pub-sub

[Joyce P. <tru...@ya...>]

Hi all, I've managed to get a public mod-pubsub server up at:

http://mod-pubsub.thrillerguide.com

Feel free to play on it, give demos, whatever.  Also note how slow it
is.  This is a reasonable server at a decent data center with a fatty
pipe, so I think with the current code (untuned) this is about as
good as it gets.  JP

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Intent to do damgage

[Tom <tom...@sl...>]

Some of you know me, the rest will know now...Hiya

Anyways....I played with KN stuff a few yarns ago and liked what I saw but
as with many things in the vast interconnectedness sphere of doing lost
the thread between lunch and a meeting on a DOA project on forest products
and word perfect macros.

But now I have been reawakened. I have for many a moon loved the idea of
using the web browser as the default front end for apps. Why reinvent the
wheel when there are folks doign what I need already. The main downside
has always been the stateless classless tasteless way browsers do certian
things, interaction being several of them.

A littel tidbit about what I am, I like games. Not so much first person
shooters or the latter day saints of vice, but old skewl baord games,
from avalon hill stylings up to cheapass goodness and on to home crafted
stuff. I even put out a zine on the subject (
http://sourceforge.net/projects/countermoves/ )

So whats this to you? Well I think, as with many a technovation, pr0n and
game will carry the lead in numbers better than reruns of Kate and Alley
or yetanothertexteditor.

The holy grail of the old skewl gamer has been to find a cross platform
mehtod of playing the dusty crusties real time anytime with folks far
flung across the thoughtshpere. So far what has been had are closed soruce
os locked process and formats that make it impossible to really spread the
love. The only real insanely great (on paper) project has been QUB
(http://qub.sourceforge.net/) but its so OS locked its as bad as the
others inthat regard.

Hence the browser, hence mod_pubsub.

The server would know the state of the board, the lay of the terrian, the
cards in each hand, the users could then survey the deal, make a move, and
watch what happens.

Simple case, checkers...or better yet, something like Kill Dr Lucky.
Complex case..Advanced Third Reich.

Also, in the first mode the whole thing is simply being the real world
equiv of game table, board, card, dice etc with no rules knowledge needed.
let the users move. In the Nth case the server could do rules
interpetation, move checking, heck even be an AI oppenent.

The key thing is all the users would need to play is a browser that can
deal with mod_pubsub.


Ok its a rough idea. but there it be. Its the bee in my bonnet and this
might be the thing that makes it able to be.

Enough of my ramblings, somtimes between now and next year I should find
time between diapy changes to install and start testing out ideas. Any
thoughts on the matter would be happily used and appreciated.


-tomwsmf

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: Go forth and decentralize...

[Elias S. <el...@cs...>]

Gah, deja vu! I've been thinking of starting a mod_pubsub project for a 
little while now but really had very little idea of where to start. The 
development of event notification for the web is a little daunting, 
given the strong oppinions that are out there about how it should be 
done. I just sent Adam an email asking to be added to the developers 
group on sourceforge... Very exciting!


Elias



Rohit Khare wrote:

> [...]
> Three years later, KnowNow's founding vision has become conventional 
> enough wisdom that we're announcing mod_pubsub, a new open-source 
> project to add decentralized event notification to the Web -- and, by 
> the way, transform an ordinary Web browser into a rich client without 
> installing any new software.
> [...]
> Have at it!
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-pubsub

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Go forth and decentralize...

[Rohit K. <Ro...@Kn...>]

[feel free to redistribute]

I'm here at Supernova, listening to Jeremy Allaire talkin' 'bout a 
revolution: "Rich clients supporting new programming models, based on 
Web Services with real-time, persistent messages streaming between PCs 
and edge devices -- enabling two-way, even N-way, collaboration."

As Apple once famously advertised: Welcome.

Three years later, KnowNow's founding vision has become conventional 
enough wisdom that we're announcing mod_pubsub, a new open-source 
project to add decentralized event notification to the Web -- and, by 
the way, transform an ordinary Web browser into a rich client without 
installing any new software.

Jeremy added, "The industry discussion of Web Services has been far too 
focused on back-end, app-to-app integration." Amen! There's huge 
potential in making the "last mile" all the way to the edge intelligent 
as well, not dumbed down into pixel-pushing languages like HTML and 
Flash.

Mod_pubsub exposes a bit of this vision as well. It's an experiment on 
KnowNow's part to circulate lots of the prototype code we wrote in our 
first year, including not only instant messaging & presence, but even 
SOAP services to the desktop and XML content routing.

It's a very flexible toolkit, though inherently performance-limited 
(it's a Perl CGI script). We expect experimentation will be good for 
the community and for KnowNow, Inc.

Have at it!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-pubsub

[Mod-pubsub-developer] KnowBuddy - issues

[Asynch M. <asy...@ho...>]

I put KnowBuddy on my test server - running the KN server, not mod_pubsub
CGI - and have a few issues

- index.html uses <html> and <frameset> - this doesn't work
- had to change the <script src=> for running on KN server rather than
mod_pubsub
- images in \img are bogus - probably checked into CVS as ascii rather than
binary
- can't remember how to get 'auth' to happen so I'm somebody other than
anonymous

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: CVS permissions for new kn_apps folder

[Asynch M. <asy...@ho...>]

Okay nevermind.
I couldn't give up so I found actual well-written documentation on
SourceForge - even /I/ could follow it.
I was using an older SSH client that wasn't doing much for me.
I already had an RSA public key uploaded to SourceForge (from my 'Destiny'
project) - I just forgot about it.

Anyway.... the "kn_apps/knownews" app is uploaded.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Asynch Messaging" <asy...@ho...>
To: <mod...@li...>
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 8:09 PM
Subject: [Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: CVS permissions for new kn_apps folder


> I hate WinCVS, CVS, SSH and all that crap.
>
> SourceForge doesn't allow straight CVS access - it isn't secure enough.
> So you have to use SSH - and correctly configure it, and then configure
> WinCVS to use it instead of talking directly to SourceForge. And WinCVS is
> super flaky with respect to actually using the setting you set.
>
> This happens every time I hook up to a new project, whether its KnowNow,
> Apache or SourceForge. KnowNow even required that I generate an RSA public
> key & somehow magically get it installed on the server. Kind of a catch
22.
> I could try that with SourceForge too, but there aren't that many hours in
> the day, and in the end I just don't care.
>
> I give up. All this bullshit to upload four text files. What has the world
> come to...or rather what hasn't it left behind.
>
> here's the four files. If the attachments make it though the byzantine
> coagulation of software - that just might be too easy to communicate -
> somebody else can add the stuff.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joyce Park" <tru...@ya...>
> To: "Asynch Messaging" <asy...@ho...>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 2:58 PM
> Subject: Re: CVS permissions for new kn_apps folder
>
>
> > Hi Mike, as far as I can tell you only need to be on the Developer
> > list of a project to check in to CVS -- and you are, so you should be
> > able to.  JP
> >
> > --- Asynch Messaging <asy...@ho...> wrote:
> > > Joyce,
> > > I'm trying to add a sample app to CVS called knownews (streaming
> > > rss news
> > > viewer) and Idon't think I have CVS permissions to add files.
> > > I think I created the knownews folder, but no files will go in.
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> > http://mailplus.yahoo.com
> >
>

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: CVS permissions for new kn_apps folder

[Asynch M. <asy...@ho...>]

I hate WinCVS, CVS, SSH and all that crap.

SourceForge doesn't allow straight CVS access - it isn't secure enough.
So you have to use SSH - and correctly configure it, and then configure
WinCVS to use it instead of talking directly to SourceForge. And WinCVS is
super flaky with respect to actually using the setting you set.

This happens every time I hook up to a new project, whether its KnowNow,
Apache or SourceForge. KnowNow even required that I generate an RSA public
key & somehow magically get it installed on the server. Kind of a catch 22.
I could try that with SourceForge too, but there aren't that many hours in
the day, and in the end I just don't care.

I give up. All this bullshit to upload four text files. What has the world
come to...or rather what hasn't it left behind.

here's the four files. If the attachments make it though the byzantine
coagulation of software - that just might be too easy to communicate -
somebody else can add the stuff.




----- Original Message -----
From: "Joyce Park" <tru...@ya...>
To: "Asynch Messaging" <asy...@ho...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: CVS permissions for new kn_apps folder


> Hi Mike, as far as I can tell you only need to be on the Developer
> list of a project to check in to CVS -- and you are, so you should be
> able to.  JP
>
> --- Asynch Messaging <asy...@ho...> wrote:
> > Joyce,
> > I'm trying to add a sample app to CVS called knownews (streaming
> > rss news
> > viewer) and Idon't think I have CVS permissions to add files.
> > I think I created the knownews folder, but no files will go in.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> http://mailplus.yahoo.com
>

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] Welcome to Perl Harbor Day.

[Joyce P. <tru...@ya...>]

OK, I released a new package and opened the developer list to the
public.  JP

--- Adam Rifkin <Ad...@Kn...> wrote:
> To our glorious and revolutionary mod-pubsub-developer team,
> 
> Welcome to Perl Harbor Day!  The Oyster has opened and the Perl is
> beautiful.  Thanks to everyone who contributed sand to this effort
> while
> in Silicon Valley.
> 
> Joyce cleaned up the installer guide two weeks ago and I just
> checked
> three new applications into the kn_apps directory -- chatbar,
> knowbuddy,
> and pager.  Mike Dierken, if you check your topiczero application
> and
> your Google newsfeed sensor into the distribution that would be
> really
> swell and I'll give you 50 karma points redeemable for the kudos of
> your
> choice.
> 
> Joyce, can you please make a mod_pubsub-2002-12-07 release and put
> it on
> the front page as the new distribution?  Thanks in advance... You
> ARE
> the mod_pubsub deity!!

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

[Mod-pubsub-developer] libpubsub project

[Adam R. <Ad...@Kn...>]

mod_pubsub should be like the Borg, and assimilate as many other =
projects as possible. Here's a nearby planet to get us started:

from http://bluebat.dnsalias.org/software/libpubsub/index.html

	libpubsub
	Description
	libpubsub provides everything to setup a simple publish/subscribe =
environment. If you are looking for a way to let several processes (not =
necessarily on the same host) exchange information with each other in a =
very easy (read at the moment: simple) way, libpubsub may interest you!=20

	The main target is the usage in c++ applications. But the package =
includes a tool to let even shell scripts get in touch with pubsub ;-)=20

from the README:

	Before I decided to create libpubsub I searched the net several days =
for something like libpubub. I've found two packages which may also be =
used for interprocess communication over networks:
	- xmlBlaster
	- jabber

	But the first was much to complex and oversized for my purposes (beside =
the fact, that the c++ part was not in a very usable state and needed =
many other libraries to do something).

	The second was smaller but also too powerful for my simple needs. The =
publish/subscribe part of jabber was in a *very* experimental state.

	So if libpubsub does not do what you want, and you are willing to spent =
several hours (days?) in exploring and understanding xmlBlaster or =
jabber, just do it :-)

-Adam

[Mod-pubsub-developer] OpenThought.

[Adam R. <Ad...@Kn...>]

We've often thought about bridging mod_pubsub with Jabber and
Pushlets... here's another project, OpenThought, that might be worth
considering bridging... (OpenThought =3D Pushlets - Java + Perl)

   ;) Adam


http://openthought.net/whatisit.php

OpenThought Definition
OpenThought is a powerful and flexible web application environment.
OpenThought applications are different from other web applications in
that all communication between the browser and the server is performed
in the background. This gives a browser the ability to receive data from
the server without ever reloading the currently loaded document. Data
received can be displayed automatically on the existing page, can access
JavaScript functions and variables, and can load new pages.
Additionally, OpenThought completely manages all of your session data
for you. These features give the look and feel of a full-blown
application instead of just an ordinary Web page.=20

Background
We often find outselves waiting around for webpages to load. While a bit
painful, many have gotten used to this. I haven't :-)

When going from one webpage to another, the amount of content that
actually changes is often minimal. But if our browser has been told not
to cache it -- which is often what happens with dynamic webpages -- we
have to download again everything we've already downloaded on the
previous page. As Jar Jar would say, "How wude!"

One of OpenThought's major features is that it allows you to set up an
application using just one screen. After a given user loads that screen,
they'll never have to load it again, for the life of that application.
Content can be exchanged back and forth from the server and client, all
without causing that page to refresh or reload. Upon receiving new
content, OpenThought dynamically displays it within your browser. And
OpenThought offers a lot more than this. OpenThought can provide a full
environment for your applications. It's not always practical to squeeze
screens upon screens of data into one page. If you want to have several
pages, thats fine. OpenThought provides you with an environment where
session data is maintained for you, across any number of pages.
OpenThought gives you an easy way of tieing together multiple web pages,
and allows you to build applications which act like "real" applications.
When an application is required, some people would decide to build it in
Tk, Visual Basic, or any number of other systems which offer a visual
interface. But then, your application is either not available on the
web, or you have to create a seperate web interface to interact with the
backend. And this seperate interface no longer looks or acts like your
application, it acts like an ordinary webpage, requiring several screens
to get the same amount of content that your application offered in one.
By not ever needing to reload the page, OpenThought offers this
application look and feel that's been missing from the web. This allows
you to create just one interface, for both LAN and web use.

Technology
OpenThought has several components that make it work. On the server end
is mod_perl, with various perl modules designed to assist you in
communicating with a browser. On the client end is the browser -
currently Netscape 4.0+, Mozilla 0.8+, Internet Explorer 4.0+, and Opera
6 all work. The page loaded in the browser utilizes HTML, CSS, and
Javascript to process data.. but this is all done for you, you don't
have to know anything about DHTML in order to make this work for you.

The secret to how the browser can communicate with the server without
reloading the page are two hidden frames. These frames are invisible to
a user of your application, and completely stay out of the way of your
interface. Utilizing all these components, the OpenThought demo
application (included with the distribution) has been clocked at round
trip times of 26 milliseconds -- that's 26 milliseconds between the time
you click a button in your web application, until it displays the data
in your browser. Thats smokin! Obviously, depending on your application,
processor, and network congestion, your times may vary :-)

To build an application utilizing the OpenThought Engine, you would use
Perl and HTML. Drivers to allow other languages to utilize OpenThought
are being planned. This includes support for SOAP, XML-RPC, and even
Jabber.

With OpenThought applications, OpenThought stays in the background and
does the dirty work for you. All you have to do are these 2 things:

1. Create an HTML page (a screen) for your application.=20
2. Write the code on the server to deal with the data sent to and from
the user.=20

Thats it! OpenThought already has built into it the necessary Dynamic
HTML for all of this to work together. All you have to do is tell
OpenThought where to put the data. Which, mind you, is quite easy :-)

There is a demo application that comes with the code. You can use that
as a base to starting a web application of your own.

Has this captured your interest? Go download the code, install it, and
try it out. If you have any input whatsoever, please feel free to let me
know! I look forward to hearing from you.
-Eric (eric at openthought.net)

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Welcome to Perl Harbor Day.

[Adam R. <Ad...@Kn...>]

To our glorious and revolutionary mod-pubsub-developer team,

Welcome to Perl Harbor Day!  The Oyster has opened and the Perl is
beautiful.  Thanks to everyone who contributed sand to this effort while
in Silicon Valley.

Joyce cleaned up the installer guide two weeks ago and I just checked
three new applications into the kn_apps directory -- chatbar, knowbuddy,
and pager.  Mike Dierken, if you check your topiczero application and
your Google newsfeed sensor into the distribution that would be really
swell and I'll give you 50 karma points redeemable for the kudos of your
choice.

Joyce, can you please make a mod_pubsub-2002-12-07 release and put it on
the front page as the new distribution?  Thanks in advance... You ARE
the mod_pubsub deity!!


Statistics at Day #30:
----------------------
# of mod_pubsub developers: 9 [includes developers at Amazon, Inktomi,
and Apple!]
# on mod_pubsub developer mailing list: 10 [includes a developer at
Sleepycat, too!]
# of mod_pubsub developer mailing list posts to date: 13 [roughly one
post every two days]
# of downloads to date: 36 [slightly more than one download per day]
# of sample applications checked into mod_pubsub distribution: 37 [not
too shabby]
# of mod_pubsub logo designs considered so far: 1 [we need something
with a cute animal]
# of total Web page views: 734 [not bad for a first month that was very
quiet]
Sourceforge total project ranking: 7242 [only 7241 projects have more
activity than us!]


Cheers,
 Adam

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-pubsub/=20




----- Original message:

From: "Asynch Messaging" <asy...@ho...>
To: <mod...@li...>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 14:39:31 -0800
Subject: [Mod-pubsub-developer] New kn_apps sample

I'm in the middle of checking in a new sample app - KnowNews - which is
a streaming RSS news viewer. I just need write access to the CVS
repository...

I have a live version at http://www.topiczero.com/ (the direct link is
http://www.topiczero.com:8000/kn_apps/knownews/)
if you want to see it in action.

This client displays news items as they are published, and lets users
discuss events in a streaming 'comments' section on the right. The
events are not RSS/XML format - a scheduled script does the rss parse &
re-posts the metadata in a simpler format.

This client uses a few known topics that are identified with the
dmoz.org taxonomy location that made the most sense at the time. This is
shown at the top of the page (viewing
/dmoz.org/News/By_Subject/Information_Technology/Internet/ for example.)
Some news items don't have a description, which makes for a terse page
of links.

I also have a script file that pulls RSS files and re-posts individual
items into the appropriate KN topics on the server. Its written in
JavaScript & uses the XMLHTTPRequest object from MS. Needless to say,
this is a windows only thing. The .js file has hardcoded rss source URLs
as well as hardcoded KN server URLs. I set up a 2hr scheduled task on
Win2K so this script will update news items at that frequency.

Feel free to pull in or cross-route or cross-post relavant news items -
just check the names of the properties that the client expects within
the events.

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] New installation instructions

[<wsa...@ap...>]

   World-writable, or writable by the web server user (www, nobody, 
whatever)?  Requiring a world-writable is dumb.  That's your bug if so.

	-wsv

On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 11:35 PM, Joyce Park wrote:

> 3)  You're supposed to create a world-writeable directory called
> kn_events -- but after the mod_pubsub server starts writing to that
> directory, you have to change the permissions again to make its
> subdirectories world-writeable too.  I think this is a bug, I'm going
> to file it.

[Mod-pubsub-developer] New kn_apps sample

[Asynch M. <asy...@ho...>]

I'm in the middle of checking in a new sample app - KnowNews - which is a
streaming RSS news viewer.
I just need write access to the CVS repository...

I have a live version at http://www.topiczero.com/ (the direct link is
http://www.topiczero.com:8000/kn_apps/knownews/)
if you want to see it in action.

This client displays news items as they are published, and lets users
discuss events in a streaming 'comments' section on the right. The events
are not RSS/XML format - a scheduled script does the rss parse & re-posts
the metadata in a simpler format.

This client uses a few known topics that are identified with the dmoz.org
taxonomy location that made the most sense at the time. This is shown at the
top of the page (viewing
/dmoz.org/News/By_Subject/Information_Technology/Internet/ for example.)
Some news items don't have a description, which makes for a terse page of
links.

I also have a script file that pulls RSS files and re-posts individual items
into the appropriate KN topics on the server. Its written in JavaScript &
uses the XMLHTTPRequest object from MS. Needless to say, this is a windows
only thing. The .js file has hardcoded rss source URLs as well as hardcoded
KN server URLs. I set up a 2hr scheduled task on Win2K so this script will
update news items at that frequency.

Feel free to pull in or cross-route or cross-post relavant news items - just
check the names of the properties that the client expects within the events.

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] New installation instructions

[Joyce P. <tru...@ya...>]

> > I wrote an install.doc explaining how to get this working with
> > IIS and the ActiveState Perl.  It had pictures and everything.  
Oooh, that sounds like just the thing.  I suppose we could kind of
agree that Windows users are unlikely to do much with Perl in
general, and that we won't try to address that part of the community
until we get a C version... but it's nice to have a stopgap.  I know
from experience with PHP that there are a lot of Windows people we'll
eventually need to address if we want to have a big userbase, and you
can't make them compile much.

> I wrote clENS (now pubsub.py) to make it easier --- if
> you have Python installed, you just run the script, and it works.
Are Windows users any more likely to have Python than Perl?

> > > 2)  I hate the whole .htaccess thing
> > Totally agree with you.
> Now, I think, most people have their own servers.
How about if I rewrite the installation doc to have httpd.conf as the
default, but also give directions for the .htaccess thing?  One of my
issues is that I found I had to set AllowOverride to All for the
default, docroot, AND mod_pubsub/cgi-bin directories to get this to
work.  Very annoying, not the way it was documented, insecure, and
you wouldn't be able to do that on most shared servers anyway.

> > > kn_events
> It would surprise me if it created subdirectories it couldn't
> write to.
Hmmm, maybe I was tripping.

> It's mod_perl clean; you can run it in
> Apache::Registry.  I'll see if I can post notes on how to do this
> soon.
> I'll report on my progress on the main mailing list
Great!  JP


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] New installation instructions

[<kr...@po...>]

Greg Burd writes:
> On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 02:35  AM, Joyce Park wrote:
> > 1)  I'm finding it hard to believe any Windows user could build and
> > run this thing.  Am I wrong?  Is there any way we could make it
> > easier for the Windows masses?
> 
> I wrote an install.doc explaining how to get this working with IIS and 
> the ActiveState Perl.  It had pictures and everything.  I'll see if I 
> can find it.

I know Windows users who could build and run it, but I agree that it
is painful.  I wrote clENS (now pubsub.py) to make it easier --- if
you have Python installed, you just run the script, and it works.

> > 2)  I hate the whole .htaccess thing, and think it causes a lot of
> > trouble.  Are people really going to be running the mod_pubsub server
> > in situations where they won't have access to httpd.conf?  If not,
> > it's much more foolproof to suggest they set the ExecCGI stuff in a
> > <Location> block inside httpd.conf rather than fooling with
> > .htaccess.  I suggest we make this the default.  Anyone opposed?
> 
> Totally agree with you.

Maybe people really won't run it in those situations; the idea was
that someone could install in ~/public_html without needing
httpd.conf access, though.  We wanted easy deployment on
garden-variety web-space accounts.  Now, I think, most people have
their own servers.

> > 3)  You're supposed to create a world-writeable directory called
> > kn_events -- but after the mod_pubsub server starts writing to that
> > directory, you have to change the permissions again to make its
> > subdirectories world-writeable too.  I think this is a bug, I'm going
> > to file it.

What happens if you don't change the permissions?  Does the server
break?  It would surprise me if it created subdirectories it couldn't
write to.

The directory needs to be writable to the mod_pubsub server;
world-writability guarantees that.  I installed the source tarball and
it seemed to work fine, including creating the top-level kn_events
directory.  My Apache uses suEXEC, so the CGI scripts run as me, and I
have write access to the public_html directory.

> While you're at it, why not include the directory in the tar/zip
> archive?

I don't recommend creating world-writable directories, in general, and
I don't think the tarball should include one --- opening up a security
hole as soon as somebody unpacks the tarball doesn't seem considerate
to me.

> > 4)  In my tests at home, I'm only getting about one event per second
> > or two.  Does anyone know how to speed this thing up any?
> 
> There was a way to load the perl code and keep it hot, that would 10x 
> the server.  The perl server was never really "fast".

In some configurations, the CGI server could handle up to four events
per second.  Running it in mod_perl, though, it could handle about 30
events per second.  It's mod_perl clean; you can run it in
Apache::Registry.  I'll see if I can post notes on how to do this
soon.

I'll report on my progress on the main mailing list, so that other
people can see life in the project and don't have to ask things like,
"Why do I only get 1.5 events per second?"

-- 
<kr...@po...>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] New installation instructions

[Gregory B. <gre...@ya...>]

All,

On Tuesday, December 3, 2002, at 02:35  AM, Joyce Park wrote:

> Hi guys, I've just checked in a new INSTALL document, hopefully much
> more idiot-proof.  I added a troubleshooting section with some of the
> many issues I ran into during my various installation attempts.  Some
> questions:
>
> 1)  I'm finding it hard to believe any Windows user could build and
> run this thing.  Am I wrong?  Is there any way we could make it
> easier for the Windows masses?

I wrote an install.doc explaining how to get this working with IIS and 
the ActiveState Perl.  It had pictures and everything.  I'll see if I 
can find it.

>
> 2)  I hate the whole .htaccess thing, and think it causes a lot of
> trouble.  Are people really going to be running the mod_pubsub server
> in situations where they won't have access to httpd.conf?  If not,
> it's much more foolproof to suggest they set the ExecCGI stuff in a
> <Location> block inside httpd.conf rather than fooling with
> .htaccess.  I suggest we make this the default.  Anyone opposed?

Totally agree with you.

>
> 3)  You're supposed to create a world-writeable directory called
> kn_events -- but after the mod_pubsub server starts writing to that
> directory, you have to change the permissions again to make its
> subdirectories world-writeable too.  I think this is a bug, I'm going
> to file it.
>

The first of many.  While you're at it, why not include the directory 
in the tar/zip archive?  What a concept.  This always annoyed me.  
Sure, we can tell them they can put it anywhere, but lets make things 
"just work, out of the box".

> 4)  In my tests at home, I'm only getting about one event per second
> or two.  Does anyone know how to speed this thing up any?
>

There was a way to load the perl code and keep it hot, that would 10x 
the server.  The perl server was never really "fast".

> I just got a dedicated server, so I'm planning to throw a mod_pubsub
> instance up there this week -- any of you who want to play on it, let
> me know.  JP
>
>

-greg

[Mod-pubsub-developer] New installation instructions

[Joyce P. <tru...@ya...>]

Hi guys, I've just checked in a new INSTALL document, hopefully much
more idiot-proof.  I added a troubleshooting section with some of the
many issues I ran into during my various installation attempts.  Some
questions:

1)  I'm finding it hard to believe any Windows user could build and
run this thing.  Am I wrong?  Is there any way we could make it
easier for the Windows masses?

2)  I hate the whole .htaccess thing, and think it causes a lot of
trouble.  Are people really going to be running the mod_pubsub server
in situations where they won't have access to httpd.conf?  If not,
it's much more foolproof to suggest they set the ExecCGI stuff in a
<Location> block inside httpd.conf rather than fooling with
.htaccess.  I suggest we make this the default.  Anyone opposed?

3)  You're supposed to create a world-writeable directory called
kn_events -- but after the mod_pubsub server starts writing to that
directory, you have to change the permissions again to make its
subdirectories world-writeable too.  I think this is a bug, I'm going
to file it.

4)  In my tests at home, I'm only getting about one event per second
or two.  Does anyone know how to speed this thing up any?

I just got a dedicated server, so I'm planning to throw a mod_pubsub
instance up there this week -- any of you who want to play on it, let
me know.  JP

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: libwww-perl

[<kr...@po...>]

pubsub.cgi uses the URI module, so you need to have it installed.

I believe you need MIME::Base64 only if you have a route to a URI that
includes a username and a password,
e.g. http://bob:s3...@so.../cgi-bin/kn.cgi/what/chat
--- this is not really a good idea, though.

It doesn't use HTML::Parser or Digest::MD5 AFAIK.  

libnet provides access to various non-HTTP protocols, such as FTP;
pubsub.cgi doesn't use those either.

I don't think it currently supports routes to https:// URIs, unless
they're in the same event pool, but it might surprise me.  So it
doesn't, AFAIK, use the SSL support in IO::Socket::SSL via LWP.

However, it will run just as happily when you access it via HTTPS as
when you access it via unencrypted HTTP; we used to use mod_ssl, but I
imagine any web server supporting SSL (e.g. Raven, Stronghold, or IIS)
would work fine.


pubsub.py doesn't require any external libraries and doesn't support
SSL or off-host routes.

-- 
<kr...@po...>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] libwww-perl

[Gregory B. <gre...@ya...>]

Hey Joyce,

On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 01:25  AM, Joyce Park wrote:

> Hi guys, I'm working on spiffing up the installation instructions for
> mod_pubsub.  You know how Rifkin always _thinks_ his writing is so
> clear, but it's not?  :-P  Anyway, a couple of questions:
>

My suggestion, keep an eye on Rifkin.  He is on a Mission.  :)

> 1)  Does libwww-perl work on Windows?  If so, with normal Windows
> Perl and ActiveState Perl both?
>

Yep, it works on Windows.  It works with both cygwin's perl and 
ActiveState Perl.  The only difference is how much additional work is 
required after install.  Also note that mod_pubsub should (read: has in 
the past) run via IIS (gack) as well as Apache on Windows.  But who 
would want to do that?

> 2)  The libwww-perl guy suggests that one also have installed several
> other Perl modules, including URI, MIME-Base64, HTML-Parser, libnet,
> and Digest-MD5.  Does anyone know if mod_pubsub requires any of
> these?

Yep, it does require those.  My memory isn't good enough for me to 
remember the exact list but I remember the frustration of going through 
this processes each time.  Both CPAN is and ActiveState's installers 
will fill in the dependent blanks if we integrate with them so that 
would be my suggestion.

>
> 3)  Is mod_pubsub SSL access via libwww, or mod_ssl, or what?
>

I'm no help here, I didn't demo SSL very much.

> Thanks, JP

keep up the good work.

-greg

"I am Jack's uncaught exception." --deleted scene in Fight Club

Re: [Mod-pubsub-developer] libwww-perl

[<wsa...@ws...>]

On Sunday, November 24, 2002, at 10:25  PM, Joyce Park wrote:

> 2)  The libwww-perl guy suggests that one also have installed several
> other Perl modules, including URI, MIME-Base64, HTML-Parser, libnet,
> and Digest-MD5.  Does anyone know if mod_pubsub requires any of
> these?

   You suggest that people use CPAN to install it, which should fetch 
the requisite packages for you.

   Alternately, find install instructions for libwww somewhere and link 
to that, rather than write yet another set of instructions for it.

> 3)  Is mod_pubsub SSL access via libwww, or mod_ssl, or what?

   I have to assume mod_ssl.

	-wsv

[Mod-pubsub-developer] libwww-perl

[Joyce P. <tru...@ya...>]

Hi guys, I'm working on spiffing up the installation instructions for
mod_pubsub.  You know how Rifkin always _thinks_ his writing is so
clear, but it's not?  :-P  Anyway, a couple of questions:

1)  Does libwww-perl work on Windows?  If so, with normal Windows
Perl and ActiveState Perl both?

2)  The libwww-perl guy suggests that one also have installed several
other Perl modules, including URI, MIME-Base64, HTML-Parser, libnet,
and Digest-MD5.  Does anyone know if mod_pubsub requires any of
these?

3)  Is mod_pubsub SSL access via libwww, or mod_ssl, or what?

Thanks, JP

ps  Please remember to respond to the list address,
mod...@li..., instead of to me directly.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

[Mod-pubsub-developer] mod_pubsub initial release....

[Adam R. <Ad...@Kn...>]

It's buggy, undocumented, hard-to-install, and ever-confusing... but out =
there... finally...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mod-pubsub/

 ...files mirrored at...

http://cvs.developer.knownow.com/index.cgi/mod_pubsub/

Several old favorites are in this release -- the names may have changed =
but the code should look familiar: pubsub.cgi, Client.pm, pubsub.js, =
python_pubsub (hello Kragen!), rst's push_manager (needs to be patched =
to work).  Many of the web applications that I could find have also been =
included; I may add others as I find them.

The license is Fred's Apache-style KnowNow license.

Note that "mod_pubsub" (the Apache module) does not yet exist, but it is =
an eventual goal of this project.  Included in this release are the =
tools we think we need to get there.

   Adam


P.S. -- Why has KnowNow decided to release this code right now?  To see =
what, if anything, people try to do with it.  If you'd like to partake =
in this experiment, I suggest you sign up for mod-pubsub-developer and =
chat with the folks there.  More later...

[Mod-pubsub-developer] Re: More progress

[BC S. <bsi...@in...>]

Thanks, Joyce!  By the way, I just joined sourceforge as 'bsittler'.

----- Original Message -----
From: Joyce Park <tru...@ya...>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 18:08:24 -0800 (PST)
To: mod...@li...
Subject: More progress


> Hi guys, I have signed you up for the developer mailing list (except
> Ben, whose Sourceforge username I still don't know).  You should have
> received a welcome message already.
> 
> I've also released our code as a package.  Wasn't sure about naming
> and packaging issues, so I did it in a way that's easy to change or
> branch off later.
> 
> Finally, I also posted a news brief.  I think we are pretty much
> totally in business now.  JP

-- 
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup