dbengine - a plug 'n play Web interface for mySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle

dbengine

This manual page documents briefly the dbengine CGI program.

This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML format; see below.

dbengine is an interface between the WWW and PostgresSQL, Oracle or mySQL which provides simple access to any existing database within just a few minutes.

If anything doesn't work as expected it's most likely that some of the variables internal to dbengine.cgi are not configured properly.

Therefore open the file you specified during setup as configuration file and/or the CGI itself in your favorite editor and change the few available variables to values that are valid for your local system as follows:

$config_file

(in dbengine.cgi)

default: /usr/local/httpd/cgi-bin/dbengine/dbengine.conf

Location of the configuration file generated by Makefile.PL during setup. This file contains most of the other variable initialisations. Therefor it is absolutely neccessary that this file reference in dbengine.cgi is correct.

@path_to_local_modules

(in dbengine.cgi) default: /usr/local/lib/perl5

This can hold a reference to the directory where your perl extensions have been installed.

$dbasetype

no default

This has to be set to either of the values postgres, mysql or oracle.

$server

default: localhost

Domain of the server where your database lives. The default value should most likely work for you. (PostgreSQL only)

$port

default: 5432

Port of the database server as specified for the compilation of PostgreSQL. The default value should most likely work for you. (PostgreSQL only)

$user

default: postgres

User to access the database with. (PostgreSQL only)

$passwd

default:

Password (if any) to access the database using $user. (PostgreSQL only)

$defdb

default: cis [Oracle: cis/zwerg ]

Postgres: Name of the default database which will be used in case no database is specified when the CGI is called.

Oracle: Name of the default user which will be used in case no user is specified when the CGI is called followed by "/" and the password which is required to access the tables of this user.

$descdb

default: cisinfo [Oracle: cisinfo/zwerg ]

Postgres: Name of default database with additional display and relation informations. If there's no such database available and no valid alternative given wen the CGI is called dbengine will try to find its information in the database that conatains your standard data.

Oracle: Name of default user with additional display and relation informations followed by "/" and the password which is required to access the tables of this user. If there's no such user available and no valid alternative given wen the CGI is called dbengine will try to find its information in the database that conatains your standard data.

$oraTWOTASK

default:

TWO_TASK environment variable for access to external databases which don't reside on the local machine. (Oracle only)

$oraSID

default: CIS

ORACLE_SID environment variable as reference to the database dbengine shall use. (Oracle only)

$oraSID

default: /opt/oracle/actual/product/8.0.5

ORACLE_HOME environment variable as reference to the local database installation directory. (Oracle only)

$htdocs

default: /usr/local/httod/htdocs/

Absolute UNIX path to the document-root directory of your WWW Server.

$abs_cgi

default: /usr/local/httpd/cgi-bin/dbengine/

Absolute UNIX path to directory where dbengine.cgi shall be installed.

$templ

default: /usr/local/httpd/cgi-bin/dbengine/template/

Absolute UNIX path to folder where template .html files can be stored for processing. dbengine will use these to create pages with your data on the fly that look nicer then what comes out of the default algorithm.

$tmp

default: /tmp/

dbengine sometimes generates temporary web pages which have to be saved to files. Therefore you'll have to create a folder which is writable for the HTTP server and accessable for our CGI. .P I simply created a folder called "/tmp" inside my htdocs folder. Set this variable to the "absolute" path to a folder for temporary .html files..P "Absolute" for this path means always relative to your httpd document root directory since this is "abolute" for any .html files. Therefore this can be considered an "absolute http path".

$language

default: english

If you want dbengine to provide German output you should set this to "german".

$bgcol

default: #C4DDFF

Background color for the generated pages. The default is a light blue.

$bgPath

default: /bgimages/

This one has to be set to the absolute http path to the folder where optional background images for the to generated frames are saved. .P "Absolute" for this path means always relative to your httpd document root directory.

$bgType

default: .jpeg

Filename extension to be used for the automatic generation of backgrund image names..P If a file "$htdocs$bgPath$dbase$bfType" exists this will be used a background image for the current database with name $dbase.

$menuBackground

default: menuBG.jpeg

Default filename for the optionally integrated backgrund images in the menu frame. The file has to be located in $htdocs$bgPath..P This one will be overridden if a file "$htdocs$bgPath$dbase$bfType" exists this will be used a background image for the current database with name $dbase.

$mainBackground

default: mainBG.jpeg

Default filename for the optionally integrated backgrund images in the main frame. The file has to be located in $htdocs$bgPath.

$smarttable

default: 1

Turn on or off the display of smart tables. Can be set to "0" or "1".

$maxwidth

default: 45

Maximum width of an automatically generated text field.

The programs are documented fully in the HTML documentation.

This manual page was written by Jeremy Malcolm <terminus@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).