Hello,
I had posted in another thread, but its no longer relevant, those errors were resolved.

I followed the instuctions at https://wiki.synchro.net/config:webv4 which got me working on v3.17.
I was able to verify that it was working by going to localhost on the computer where sbbs was running. Two configuration issues was there was no DarkMode Switch (not availabe in 3.17 ?), and there was no ability to login. The Forum and Files menus worked.

Once I upgrade to v3.18, I had a few issues where the initial page was not displaying, but I downloaded a more recent version of the webv4 folder and it now displays the web page as it did in ver 3.17.

I now have four configuration issues
1. It only show guest, no option to login or register as new user
2. I have the slider at the top for Dark Mode, but sliding it to set Dark Mode does nothing.
3. When going to the Files Link on top, no page is displayed (this worked on v3.17)
4. I have the ftelnet page on the main screen, (have not configured), will work on this once the three above are resolved

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Mon Mar 29 2021 07:22:56

Once I upgrade to v3.18, I had a few issues where the initial page was not displaying, but I downloaded a more recent version of the webv4 folder and it now displays the web page as it did in ver 3.17.

What did you do with the new webv4 folder that you downloaded? If you tried to merge the contents of your old one with the new one, something could've gone wrong there.

1. It only show guest, no option to login or register as new user

If it "shows" guest where the "Log in" link would normally be, then something is screwed up.

Check that you have a "guest" setting in modopts.ini -> [web]. This should be set to the alias (username) of a valid guest account on your BBS. Make sure that account exists. Make sure you're comfortable with its security level, etc.; unauthenticated visitors to your site will effectively act as this user.

2. I have the slider at the top for Dark Mode, but sliding it to set Dark Mode does nothing.

This could be a problem with your browser (which one do you use?) or it could be a problem with how you updated. There were some changes and a new file in webv4/root/css/, and if you didn't copy them over, dark mode won't work.

3. When going to the Files Link on top, no page is displayed (this worked on v3.17)

This may be related to your guest account problem. Let's try to sort that one out first and see what's left to fix afterward.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

When I downloaded the new webv4 folder, I remove the one that was currently there. and replaced. it.

I decided to take the Windows 7 desktop that was in standby (in case the Windows 10 didn't work out) and I did a fresh install of SBBS 3.18, ran thru the install, started the Synchronet Control Panel, and went the the setup Wizard, Then used a telnet client to log in as the first user, logged out, and back in, it asked me to create the guest user, I said yes, then logged out.
I think went to my browser (Firefox) and went to http://localhost , when the page loaded, All menu items worked, I could go to forum, files and home, the ftelnet worked. And there was an option to Sign-in and Register.

Everything was working perfectly. I shut everything down, copied over the user.dat and names.dat files from the v3.18 from the Windows 10 computer. and copied them to the Windows 7 computer that I just did the fresh install on, Restarted the Synchronet Control Panel, Went to User -> Editor and checked to make sure that all my users were there, and they were. I tested out connecting and using my password, worked just fine. We to open Firefox and go to http://localhost , and back to only guest, no logon , no register button.

What is different from a fresh install, and creating the 1st user and the Guest user on second logon, and the user.dat /names.dat that I copied over ? Well for one thing, in the fresh install, the Sysop is #1 user, and Guest is #2 user. In my older install, with the upgrades, #1 user is the Sysop, but the Guest User is #75, I didn't add the guest user until later on.

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Mon Mar 29 2021 13:17:05

? Well for one thing, in the fresh install, the Sysop is #1 user, and Guest is #2 user. In my older install, with the upgrades, #1 user is the Sysop, but the Guest User is #75, I didn't add the guest user until later

The guest user number shouldn't matter at all - just the alias, which must match what you have in modopts.ini (or I think it will try to look for a user named "Guest" by default).

Not sure what the problem could be, but I'll see if I can think of something later. Meanwhile I'm sitting on a bunch of changes to webv4 which will be added soon, so perhaps an update in the near future will help.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

Well I definitely have a user with the alias of guest. I think I will experiment and rename the #2 user to guest and see what happens.

Will let you know what happens.

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I took my database user and changed the second user to the guest account, and I still have the issue. When its a new database, with only the sysop and guest (as #2) user. It works like its designed to work.

When its working, the header has the BBS Name, Home, Forum, Files Dark Toggle Switch, and Login (with dropdown to login)

When its NOT working, the header has the BBS Name, Home, Forum, File, Dark toggle Switch, and guest (with dropdown that is logout and mail) No option to login - its like it auto logging in as guest ?

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Tue Mar 30 2021 08:42:07

I took my database user and changed the second user to the guest account, and I still have the issue. When its a new database, with only the sysop and guest (as #2) user. It works like its designed to work.

Is there any chance that there are two user accounts on your system which share the same alias, one of which is marked as deleted? If the deleted one has a lower user number than the not-deleted one, it might be getting picked up first. I doubt if I accounted for this scenario when doing the guest user lookup.

If that ends up being the case, just change the alias/username on the first/deleted account to something other than your guest user name.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

I just checked thru my database of user, to make sure there is only one guest account.

When I do open the webpage, why does it automatically login as guest ? is there a setting somewhere that does that ?

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I think I have all the issues resolved, after going line by line thru modpots.ini, services,ini and sbbs.ini, comparing from a fresh install to my upgraded versions, there were quite a few lines that were possibly very very outdated causing some of the issues. As a plus it helped me clean up those ini files.

in the modpots.ini under the [Web] section there is "guest = Guest", in my database of users my guest account (both name and alias) was all lower case "guest", when I modified it and changed it to "Guest" , it no longer auto logged on as guest, all the menu items at the top work, including the Files. The fTelnet works as well, the last was Dark Mode, but when i uncommented "darkmode_allow" darkmode now works.

There is a new menu item "More" and under that is "User List". is that visible to everyone ? or just me as sysop ?

One other observation. When I have a Web browser open to localhost to view the web page, if it try to recycle the Web Server, It will hang untill I close the browser (Will that only happen if I have the page open locally ?)
I was also seeing when I shut down Synchronet Control Panel, I would get a popup asking if I wished to shut down the web server ? is that also becuase I had a web browers open to localhost ?

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Tue Mar 30 2021 20:42:15

I see that you've solved your problem. Thanks for reporting it. It's kind of a bug, but not really, but I'll fix it in the near future.

When I do open the webpage, why does it automatically login as guest ? is there a setting somewhere that does that ?

If you're not logged in, webv4 logs you in as the guest user. If webv4 can't find the guest user, it quits immediately. This ensures that guests always have limited access, even if that means *no* access.

webv4 was successfully logging you in - uppercase/lowercase doesn't matter here - but at several later times webv4 compares the logged in username against the guest username to decide what to show to the user. Case matters here.

Guests would've seen some visual elements that they otherwise wouldn't (the logout/mail menu, etc.) and wouldn't have seen other things that they normally would've (login, register, etc.) They were still limited by the guest account's permissions as far as what messages and files they could access, etc.

Anyway, I now have in mind a more robust check for whether the user is a guest, which will avoid this problem for others in the future.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Tue Mar 30 2021 22:19:05

One other observation. When I have a Web browser open to localhost to view the web page, if it try to recycle the Web Server, It will hang untill I close the browser (Will that only happen if I have the page open locally

If it happens at all, it'll happen whether you're browsing locally or from some other place on the internet. With webv4 the browser maintains a persistent connection to the server after the page loads, so this may be part of the problem.

I haven't seen my web server refuse to recycle altogether, but I have seen it take a long time to kick over. I'll have a look at that and see if there's anything I can find out.

?) I was also seeing when I shut down Synchronet Control Panel, I would get a popup asking if I wished to shut down the web server ? is that also becuase I had a web browers open to localhost ?

Probably. I haven't used the Control Panel in a long time, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to behave or if this is a prompt you can turn off. If you said "yes", did your webserver shut down even if the browser/tab was still open?

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Tue Mar 30 2021 20:42:15

When I do open the webpage, why does it automatically login as guest ? is there a setting somewhere that does that ?

everyone is a guest *until* they login... guest == anonymous... the real question is why you are not seeing the login option...


)\/(ark

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■ Synchronet ■ The SouthEast Star Mail HUB - SESTAR

There is a new menu item "More" and under that is "User List". is that visible to everyone ? or just me as sysop ?

in each directory (ie ../webv4/pages; ../webv4/pages/More; ../webv4/sidebar, etc) there is a webctrl.ini file (similar as .htaccess) that is used to control access. if you have ../webv4/pages/More/001-userlist.xjs you can control access to that file (or directory) in webctrl.ini [*001-userlist.xjs] AccessRequirements = Level 50 REST NOT G .. would stop Guest from access to that file

One other observation. When I have a Web browser open to localhost to view the web page, if it try to recycle the Web Server, It will hang untill I close the browser (Will that only happen if I have the page open locally ?) I was also seeing when I shut down Synchronet Control Panel, I would get a popup asking if I wished to shut down the web server ? is that also becuase I had a web browers open to localhost ?

yes, that delay in recycling the server is because the web browser is still open and until the browser is closed (closing the tab still keeps the persistence). The Synchronet Control Panel is doing it's intended job by asking to shutdown web server. BTW an unidentified visitor to the web is considered user.number = 0; which is considered Guest.

Hope this helps (and is not entirely incorrect :)

~mortifis
~Ephram

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■ Synchronet ■ Realm of Dispair telnet alleycat.synchro.net:2323 ssh:2222 web 82

I haven't seen my web server refuse to recycle altogether, but I have seen it take a long time to kick over. I'll have a look at that and see if there's anything I can find out.

Probably. I haven't used the Control Panel in a long time, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to behave or if this is a prompt you can turn off. If you said "yes", did your webserver shut down even if the browser/tab was still open?

I will have to look to see if there is an option to turn it off. But when I do click on yes, it does take a little while longer to shutdown. If there is not webpage open and there is no persistent connection it shuts down quickly.

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in each directory (ie ../webv4/pages; ../webv4/pages/More; ../webv4/sidebar, etc) there is a webctrl.ini file (similar as .htaccess) that is used to control access. if you have ../webv4/pages/More/001-userlist.xjs you can control access to that file (or directory) in webctrl.ini [*001-userlist.xjs] AccessRequirements = Level 50 REST NOT G .. would stop Guest from access to that file

I found the webctrl.ini for the more pages. and its set for Level 50 REST NOT G, it also has AccessRequirements = level 90 which would mean anyone level 90 and above would have access to that page i.e. sysop = 99 :)

yes, that delay in recycling the server is because the web browser is still open and until the browser is closed (closing the tab still keeps the persistence). The Synchronet Control Panel is doing it's intended job by asking to shutdown web server. BTW an unidentified visitor to the web is considered user.number = 0; which is considered Guest.

Well that might be an issue, if someone on the web has a webpage open to my site, and I need to recycle the web service to make a change, then I am theoretically on hold until all pages are closed, or I force the Control Panel to close.(which I would rather not do), And if that were the case, and need to really really make that change, then I would force the connection to disconnect.

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Re: Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to Mortifis on Wed Mar 31 2021 08:56 am

Well that might be an issue, if someone on the web has a webpage open to my site, and I need to recycle the web service to make a change, then I am theoretically on hold until all pages are closed, or I force the Control Pan to close.(which I would rather not do), And if that were the case, and need really really make that change, then I would force the connection to disconnect.

Another thing to consider, in this day-and-age of bots and web crawlers, as long as connections are being made to your webserver it will not recycle until all of the connections settle down. Changes made to web pages (edited; added; deleted, etc) or a change to any webctrl.ini will not require the web server to recycle. If you are changing modopts.ini; services.ini; sbbs.ini, etc, that requires a recyle, those services will recycle and update and if those changes do not affect the webserver then techically there is no harm, the changed services will update and when webserver is freed up it will recycle also.

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■ Synchronet ■ AlleyCat! BBS Lake Echo, NS Canada alleycatbbs.com

Another thing to consider, in this day-and-age of bots and web crawlers, as long as connections are being made to your webserver it will not recycle until all of the connections settle down. Changes made to web pages (edited; added; deleted, etc) or a change to any webctrl.ini will not require the web server to recycle.

That is good to know. every time I made a change, i was recycling the web services to make sure I could see the changes.

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I see that you've solved your problem. Thanks for reporting it. It's kind of a bug, but not really, but I'll fix it in the near future.

Thank you, I did solve it, Now that I switched the server from upgrade/development to production, the Files menu is not working again. I just get the Header at the top, and the sidebar on the right side. While this is not a game changer to keep on the new platform, if I cant get it to work, I will just remove the Files Option, no like I have a ton of files to offer.

Does the Files Menu index get built each time someone click on the File Menu ?

Is there any kind of debugging logging from the webv4 that can be turned on to see what is happening when a user clicks on the Files Menu ?

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Fri Apr 02 2021 08:42:33

upgrade/development to production, the Files menu is not working again. I just get the Header at the top, and the sidebar on the right side. While

Sounds like the Files page script itself is probably exiting abnormally. Either that or perhaps you're logged in as guest or as a user who can't see any file libraries/directories.

Is there any kind of debugging logging from the webv4 that can be turned on to see what is happening when a user clicks on the Files Menu ?

Nothing particular to the Files page, although your web server log might show you an error message when you load the page, which might reveal the problem.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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■ Synchronet ■ electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com

Sounds like the Files page script itself is probably exiting abnormally. Either that or perhaps you're logged in as guest or as a user who can't see any file libraries/directories.

I am going tot the page, not logging in as a user.

This is the webctrl.ini that is in the Pages folder. :

AccessRequirements = level 90
Authorization = Digest
[*games.xjs]
AccessRequirements = LEVEL 50 AND REST NOT G

its only restricing the access to games to anyone at least level 50 and not guest right ? so Files page should be available. ?

Nothing particular to the Files page, although your web server log might show you an error message when you load the page, which might reveal the problem.

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I set the logging to debug: and see this :
a request GET page=002-files.xjs and sends a file that is 0 bytes, with a connections aborted by peer on send ?

4/4 02:07:33p 1716 HTTP connection accepted from: 127.0.0.1 port 62166
4/4 02:07:34p 1716 Request: GET /?page=002-files.xjs HTTP/1.1
4/4 02:07:34p 2396 Sending file: C:\sbbs\temp\SBBS_SSJS.10064.2396.html (0 bytes)
4/4 02:07:34p 2396 Connection aborted by peer on send
4/4 02:07:34p 4204 HTTP connection accepted from: 127.0.0.1 port 62167
4/4 02:07:34p 1716 Sending file: C:\sbbs\temp\SBBS_SSJS.10064.1716.html (0 bytes)
4/4 02:07:34p 4204 Request: GET /api/events.ssjs?subscribe=nodelist HTTP/1.1
4/4 02:07:35p 2396 Session thread terminated (2 clients, 7 threads remain, 220 served)
4/4 02:08:15p 1716 Request: GET /?page=000-home.xjs HTTP/1.1
4/4 02:08:15p 1716 HTTP Logoff (user #75) from line 1899
4/4 02:08:15p 4204 JavaScript: Done executing script: C:\sbbs\webv4\root\api\events.ssjs (41.09 seconds)
4/4 02:08:15p 4204 Sending file: C:\sbbs\temp\SBBS_SSJS.10064.4204.html (0 bytes)
4/4 02:08:15p 4204 Request resolved to: C:\sbbs\temp\SBBS_SSJS.10064.4204.html

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Re: 3.18 webv4 configuration help
By: JohnBWilloughby to echicken on Sun Apr 04 2021 11:36:44

This is the webctrl.ini that is in the Pages folder. :

AccessRequirements = level 90
Authorization = Digest
[*games.xjs]
AccessRequirements = LEVEL 50 AND REST NOT G

I'll have to take a closer look at webv4's webctrl.ini support, because I know that this is the default for that file but it doesn't look correct to me.

In any event, if this was the cause of the problem, guests probably wouldn't be able to view any of your pages, not just Files, so I doubt if that's related.

its only restricing the access to games to anyone at least level 50 and not guest right ? so Files page should be available. ?

I'm not concerned about webctrl.ini so much as the access requirements that you may have set up in scfg for your file libraries and file directories. webv4 will not show the user any file libraries or dirs that it does not have permission to view; this is separate from whether it shows the page or not.

a request GET page=002-files.xjs and sends a file that is 0 bytes, with a connections aborted by peer on send ?

Something's going wrong but I'm not sure what or where. Not enough detail to go on, I'm afraid.

The Files page will get a big overhaul soon though. Perhaps this will be fixed then.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com
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