Security Filter: Controlled Access to Web Pages


Installing the Security Filter

The installation procedure of the Security Filter is divided into a set of steps. All of them have to be executed properly before the system can be run.

1. Download the Security Filter

At the moment there are four different ports of the Security Filter.

The Security Filter Download page takes to a second page containing various compressed files. These are the compressed files:

You should download the set files corresponding to your system.

2. Decompress the Security Filter Distribution Files

2.1 Windows

The distribution files are "pkzip" archives.

Supposing that the files set has been downloaded in the directory

c:\tmp

these are the commands that have to be executed:

c:                              (the actual target disk must be put
                                 here, so instead of c: we could
                                 have d:, e: and so on)
cd \                            (to go to the root)
pkunzip -d c:\tmp\htm_w32.zip   (to decompress the HTML files)
pkunzip -d c:\tmp\sf_w32.zip    (to decompress the Security
                                 Filter files)
pkunzip -d c:\tmp\uti_w32.zip   (to decompress the registration
                                 utilities)

When using a Windows version on "pkunzip" care must be taken so that the ordinal directories/files names are kept.

2.2 UNIX Platforms

The distribution files are "tar" archives, compressed with "gzip".

Supposing that the files set has been downloaded in the directory

~/tmp

these are the commands that have to be executed:

cd ~                                      (to go to the home
                                           directory)
gzip -dc ~/tmp/htm_xxx.tgz | tar xvf -    (to decompress the HTML files)
gzip -dc ~/tmp/www_xxx.tgz | tar xvf -    (to decompress the Security 
                                           Filter files)
gzip -dc ~/tmp/uti_xxx.tgz | tar xvf -    (to decompress the
                                           registration utilities)

3. Setting the WWW Server

The World Wide Web Server has to be set up in such a way that the Security Filter can be properly accessed. In other words it is necessary to copy the Security Filter in the server "cgi-bin" directory or make sure the directory where the Security Filter is located can be seen by the server via an "alias". Supposing that the server is similar to the NCSA one, hereafter are listed the required changes.

3.1 "access.conf"

In the file "access.conf" an entry similar to the following has to be inserted. This change will make the SWWINGS directory visible to the WWW Server. The actual syntax of the SWWINGS directory name depends on the operating system. In this example the Windows syntax has been used.

<Directory C:/SWWINGS/>
</Directory>

3.2 "srm.conf"

In the file "srm.conf", and namely in the "alias" section, an entry similar to the following has to be inserted. This change will allow the Security Filter to be seen by the server. The actual syntax of the SWWINGS directory name depends on the operating system. In this example the Windows syntax has been used.

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ C:/SWWINGS/BIN/

Preparing for the first run

After all the steps described above have been performed, it will be necessary to define the start-up file secfil.ini as described in the previous chapter. When all the necessary files have been created (or updated), it will possible to use the Security Filter.

NOTE

It is recommended to put the Security Filter, as well as the registration utilities, in a different directory than the original ones. The batch files "go.bat" (or "go" in UNIX) in SECFIL and UTILS directories will put these executable files in the directory /SWWINGS/BIN. It is also recommended to add this directory to the environment variable PATH; this way the Security Filter and the registration utilities will be directly available.