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ELOG - Syntax of elogd.cfg
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ELOG - Syntax of elogd.cfg
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<br>
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[<a class="nav" href="adminguide.html">back to Administrator's
Guide</a>]
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<br>
<div class="menu">
* Server : [<a class="nav" href="#global">Global</a>] - Logbooks :
[<a class="nav" href="#general">General</a>] [<a class="nav" href=
"#groups">Logbook groups</a>] [<a class="nav" href=
"#attrib">Attributes</a>] [<a class="nav" href=
"#conditional">Conditional Attributes</a>] [<a class="nav" href=
"#email">E-mail</a>] [<a class="nav" href="#access">Access
Control</a>] [<a class="nav" href="#flags">Flags</a>] [<a class="nav"
href="#themes">Themes</a>] [<a class="nav" href=
"#mirroring">Mirroring</a>] *
</div>
<br>
<div class="Sub">
<i>Global and individual logbook options for an ELOG server</i>
</div>
<hr>
<p>
The configuration file <b><code>elogd.cfg</code></b> contains entries
which define the structure of logbooks and the behaviour of
<code><b>elogd</b></code>. The file has a simple ASCII format. Each
logbook is defined by a <b><code>[&lt;name&gt;]</code></b> section where
&lt;name&gt; is the name of the logbook. The <b><code>[global]</code></b>
section is used for settings common to all logbooks. Each line contains a
setting name, followed by an equal sign and the value for this setting.
Lines starting with ";" are treated as comments.
</p>
<p>
Here is a simple example, which define two logbooks, "<i>Linux</i>" and
"<i>PC</i>":
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
[global]
SMTP host = mailsend.your.domain
[Linux]
Theme = default
Comment = General linux tips and tricks
Attributes = Author, Type, Category, Subject
Options Type = Routine, Software Installation, Problem Fixed, Configuration, Other
Options Category = General, Hardware, Software, Network, Account, Other
Options Author = Stefan, Linus, unknown
Required Attributes = Author
[PC]
Comment = Database PC installations
Attributes = Location, OS, Owner
Options Location = Building1, Building2
Options OS = Linux, Windows ME, Windows 2000
Required Attributes = Location, Owner
Email All = name@address, othername@otheraddress
Use Mail Subject = Location
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
<a name="global" id="global"></a>
</p>
<hr>
<div class="title">
Global options
</div>
<p>
The notation of the following options is such that items enclosed by
<b>"&lt;"</b> and <b>"&gt;"</b> should be replaced by a specific string.
If a value contains blanks (like a complete sentence), it should
<b>not</b> be enclosed in quotation marks.
</p>
<p>
If a setting has a number of possible options, they are shown in the form
<code><b>option1|option2|...</b></code>, meaning that one of the options
(without any vertical bar) should be used. The following options are
specific to the <b><code>[global]</code></b> section:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Port = &lt;port&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies the TCP port under which the server is listening. Default is
80. Can be superseeded via the '-p' command line flag.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>SSL = &lt;0 | 1&gt;</code></b><br>
Turn on Secure Socket Layer transport. If SSL is on, one can connect
via <code><b>https://...</b></code> to the elogd daemon. If the
<code><b>URL =</b></code> directive is used, make sure to use
<code><b>https://...</b></code> instead of <code><b>http://...</b></code>
there. The ELOG distribution contains a simple self-signed certificate
in the <code><b>ssl</b></code> subdirectory. One can replace this
certificate and key with a real ceritficate to avoid browser pop-up
windows warning about the self-signed certificate. The default for
this option is <code><b>0</b></code>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Interface = &lt;interface&gt;</code></b><br>
Specified network interface to listen at. Can be used if several network
cards are in a computer, or if one wants to restrict access to the
local host only, in which case one can use 127.0.0.1 as the interface.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Resource dir = &lt;directory&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies the root directory for ELOG resources like help files,
themes and icons. Can be overwritten with the
<b><code>-s</code></b> flag when starting elogd. If not specified, use
the directory where the configuration file
<b><code>elogd.cfg</code></b> resides. <i>Changing this option requires
a restart of the elogd server</i>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logbook dir = &lt;directory&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies the root directory for logbooks. Can be overwritten with the
<b><code>-d</code></b> flag when starting elogd. If not specified, use
the directory where the configuration file
<b><code>elogd.cfg</code></b> resides. Each logbook data is stored in a
separate directory under this root directory specified by the
<b><code>Subdir</code></b> option. <i>Changing this option requires a
restart of the elogd server</i>. This directory also contains any
password file and user HTML file.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Language = &lt;name&gt;</code></b><br>
The language setting determines the language of the
<code><b>elogd</b></code> output. Not affected by this setting are the
configuration file options and the commands specified with the optional
<code><b>Menu commands</b></code> and <code><b>List menu
commands</b></code>, which have to be specified in English and are
translated automatically by elogd. The attribute names are unaffected
by the language setting and have to be translated manually.<br>
<br>
If a language name is given (currently "<i>german</i>",
"<i>french</i>", "<i>spanish</i>", "<i>dutch</i>", "<i>brazilian</i>"
are supported out-of-the-box), the system searches for a file named
<b>eloglang.&lt;name&gt;</b> containing string translations from
English into that language. <i>If you create a new translation file,
please send it back to the author to be included in future
distributions</i>.<br>
<br>
The online help for <code><b>elogd</b></code> is contained in the file
<b>eloghelp_<i>xx</i>.html</b> where <i>xx</i> are the first two
letters of the language (like "<i>en</i>", "<i>ge</i>" and
"<i>fr</i>"). For new languages, a new file of that type must be
created as well.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>charset = &lt;name&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies the charset of the pages produced by
<b><code>elogd</code></b>. Can be used to switch to Russian or Asian
fonts.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logbook Tabs = [0|1]</code></b><br>
This flag controls the display of "<i>tabs</i>" on top of the logbook
page which allow to quickly switch between logbooks. Default is
<b><code>1</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Main Tab = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
If this option is present, an additional first tab is displayed which
takes you back to the main logbook selection page. The
<b><code>string</code></b> is used for the contents of the tab.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Main Tab URL = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Normally the main tab brings one back to the logbook selection page.
In case one wants to specify a different destination, such as a
special web page outside of elog, one can use this statement
to specify a full URL.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Welcome Title = &lt;html code&gt;</code></b><br>
This optional HTML code gets displayed in the title of the logbook
selection page. It can contain images via <b><code>&lt;img
src="welcome.gif"&gt;</code></b>. These images must be stored in the
resource directory or in the theme directory.<br>
<br>
The following line is an example Welcome Title:<br>
<br>
<pre>
Welcome title = &lt;img src="welcome.jpg"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font size=5 color=white&gt;Welcome to our Elog&lt;/font&gt;
</pre>
<br>
This displays an image and a text below.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Page title = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The string specified here is used for the title of individual logbook
pages. It is also used by most browsers for bookmark names.
&lt;string&gt; can contain substitutions like $&lt;attribute&gt; where
&lt;attribute&gt; gets replaced by the attribute string from each
message. The option <b><code>Page title</code></b> in the
<b><code>[global]</code></b> section is used for the logbook selection
page.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List page title = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The same for the summary or find result page. This may include
substitutions as well, although attribute substitutions make no sense
here, since the summary page may contain many messages with different
attributes.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Selection page = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
When this option is present, a user defined file is displayed instead
of the logbook selection page. This file must be stored in the resource
directory. Alternatively, an absolute path can be used if the file name
starts with a <b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>"\"</code></b>
or <b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).<br>
<br>
It can be completely customized in order to contain logos etc. As a
template, the standard selection page produced by
<code><b>elogd</b></code> can be used.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Guest Selection page = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
The same for installations which have a global password file. This
means that the logbook selection page is also password protected. It
might be however that some logbooks have guest access, in which case
guest access to the selection page should be allowed as well (maybe
with only a subset of the available logbooks). In that case this
options can be used, to show a list of logbooks with guest access.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Protect Selection page = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
Normally, one can see the logbook selection page without having to log
in. If one wants to require a login for the selection page, this switch
can be set to <b><code>1</code></b>. Default is <b><code>0</code></b>.
It is necessary to put the <code><b>Password file = ...</b></code> into
the <i>[global]</i> section of the config file for this to work.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Expand Selection page = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
If this option is not present or set to one, the logbook selection page
is expanded (all logbooks are shown if groups of logbooks are present).
If this option is zero, only the group names are displayed. If one
clicks on a group, its logbooks are shown. Using this option set to
zero only makes sense if one has a large number of logbooks which would
not fit on a single browser window, so collapsing makes sense. Default
is <b><code>1</code></b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>SMTP host = &lt;host.domain&gt;</code></b><br>
This defines the SMTP host needed to send automatic email
notifications. The host name you can get from your email program or
your local system administrator.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>SMTP username = &lt;username&gt;</code></b><br>
Some SMTP server require username/passowrd authentication. This option
specifies the SMTP user name, while the option <code><b>SMTP
password</b></code> can be created or modified via the
<code><b>-t</b></code> switch when starting elogd. This is necessary
since the password is encrypted. To set your SMPT password, enter on
the command line:
<pre>
elogd -t &lt;your password&gt;
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>SMTP port = &lt;port&gt;</code></b><br>
This defines the port under which the SMTP server is listening. The
default is 25, but some newer servers use port 587.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logfile = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies a filename which logs all login/logout activities
and successful user connections for logbooks with user level access.
The the <code><b>logging level</b></code> (see below) is larger than 1,
also read and write accesses can be logged.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logging level = 1 | 2 | 3</code></b><br>
Specifies the logging level. The higher this value, the more
information is logged. Default is <b>2</b>:
<ul>
<li>
<b>1:</b> Log only logins and logouts
</li>
<li>
<b>2:</b> Log also write accesses
</li>
<li>
<b>3:</b> Log also read accesses
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>URL =
&lt;http[s]://host.domain[:port]/[subdir/]&gt;</code></b><br>
If one of the three cases is true:
<ul>
<li>
<code><b>elogd</b></code> runs with <i>SSL</i> enabled
</li>
<li>
<code><b>elogd</b></code> runs under a proxy
</li>
<li>The automatic email notifications contains the wrong URL
</li>
</ul>
<p>
then the URL under which <code><b>elogd</b></code> is running has to
be specified manually with this statement. The URL has to contain the
port number if not the standard port 80 is used or 433 for SSL,
and it has to contain the directory if used under a proxy like<br>
<br>
</p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="10">
<tr>
<td>
<code>URL = http://host.domain:8080/</code>
</td>
<td>
if running on port 8080
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>URL = https://host.domain/</code>
</td>
<td>
if SSL is enabled (SSL = 1)
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<code>URL = http://host.domain/subdir/</code>
</td>
<td>
if running under a proxy
</td>
</tr>
</table>
This URL is then used for any redirection. For example if one submits a
new entry, the URL in the browser reads
<b>...&lt;logbook&gt;/?cmd=Submit&...</b>, containing all the attributes
etc. After the submit this page gets redirected to
<b>...&lt;logbook&gt;/&lt;ID&gt;</b>, where &lt;ID&gt; is the ID of the
new entry. For the redirection via the HTTP "Location:" statement, an
absolute URL is required. Since elogd cannot figure out the complete
URL under which it is running when accessed through an Apache proxy, this
statement is necessary to tell elogd the complete URL.
<li>
<b><code>Relative redirection = 0|1</code></b><br>
Under some circumstances, absolute redirection via a complete URL may
not work. If you access elogd through two different ways simulataneously,
for example directly and via a stunnel connection, a single absolute
URL cannot be used, because one connection starts with <b>http://</b>, and the
other with <b>https://</b>. Another case is when the elogd server has
a dynamic IP address, which changes from time to time. Setting
<b><code>Relative redirection = 1</code></b>,
relative redirection is used. This uses the current URL from the browser,
whatever it is, and only specifies the last part of the URL. It should
noted however that relative redirections are not allowed in the HTTP
standard, but most browsers support it anyhow. Problems have been reported
with the Safari browser. So this option should only be used when it is
really needed.
</li>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Usr = &lt;name&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Grp = &lt;name&gt;</code></b><br>
The user and group to run the elogd daemon under when started by root.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Resolve host names = 0|1</code></b><br>
Resolve remote host names if set to <b>1</b>. If set to <b>0</b>, which
is the default, only IP numbers are stored in any log file. If the
<b><code>hosts allow/deny</code></b> options are used with host names,
this setting must be set to <b>1</b>. If turned on, the DNS server is
contacted on each HTTP request to elog, which can slow down the server
considerably for slow DNS servers.
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<a name="groups" id="groups"></a>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Groups of logbooks
</div>
<p>
If installations have very many logbooks, it can be hard to navigate
between them. To make things more structured, it is possible to build a
hierarchy of logbooks. A logbook group can contain any number of logbooks
as well as other logbook groups. The hierarchy is defined with the the
option
</p>
<p>
<code><b>Group &lt;group name&gt; = &lt;Logbook1&gt;, &lt;Logbook2&gt;,
&lt;other group&gt;</b></code>
</p>
<p>
in the <b><code>[global]</code></b> section of the configuration file.
</p>
<p>
To define following logbook hierarchy:
</p>
<p>
<img src="hierarchy.gif">
</p>
<p>
one would use following statements:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
[global]
Group Linux PCs = Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake
Group Windows PCs = 98, ME, NT, XP, CE
Group CE = 1.0, 2.0
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
The logbook tabs would then look like this:
<p>
<img src="tabs.gif">
</p>
<p>
Where the selected group or logbook becomes blue. The lower
groups/logbooks change according to the selected upper group. Please note
that a logbook can be contained in more than one group, but then it
should not be the first logbook in those groups. The colors of the tabs
and the title bar can be specified in the CSS file.
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Top groups
</div>
<p>
Sometimes groups of logbooks should be completely separate. Imagine two
groups of logbooks, one for the engineering department and one for the
administration department. These groups should have different
administrators, and the logbook tabs at the top of the screen should not
show the logbooks from the other department. Prior to ELOG version 2.4.1,
one had to run two elogd servers in parallel, listening under different
ports. Since 2.4.1, one can achieve the same behaviour using <code><b>Top
groups</b></code>. The configuration could look like this:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Group Linux PCs = Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake
Group Windows PCs = 98, ME, NT, XP, CE
Group CE = 1.0, 2.UL
Top group engineering = Linux PCs, Windows PCs
Top group administration = Employees, Purchases
[global engineering]
Password file = engineers.pwd
Admin user = stefan
[global administration]
Password file = admin.pwd
Admin user = bill
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
Note that there can be a <b><code>[global]</code></b> section for each
top level group of logbooks. The rule is that a configuration setting in an
individual logbook section overrides a setting in the <b><code>[global
&lt;top group&gt;]</code></b> setting, which by itsel overrides a setting
in the <b><code>[global]</code></b> section. This way one can define
settings for all top level groups (such as the SMTP host) in the
<b><code>[global]</code></b> section, and define different password files
and administrators in the individual top level group sections.<br>
<br>
If top groups are used, the root of the elogd server is not accessible any
more. Presume that elogd is accessible normally under
<b><code>http://your.host:8080/</code></b>, this URL becomes invalid for
top groups, to avoid the case that one group can "see" the logbooks of the
other groups. Instead, one has to append the top group name to the URL,
such as <b><code>http://your.host:8080/engineering</code></b> or
<b><code>http://your.host:8080/administration</code></b>. If someone does
not know the top group name, one cannot see the list of logbooks there, so
the groups become completely independent of each other. If this feature is
not wanted, it can be disabled by setting <code><b>Show top groups =
1</b></code>.
<hr>
<div class="title">
Individual logbook options
</div>
<p>
For each logbook, there is a section with the logbook name in square
brackets, so that each logbook can have different options. If an option
is not present in a logbook section, then the system tries to locate that
option in the <code><b>[global]</b></code> section. Thus if the following
options are placed in the <code><b>[global]</b></code> section, they are
defaults for all logbooks. If they are present in the
<code><b>[global]</b></code> and in the logbook section, the logbook
option is used.
</p>
<p>
Here are the available options, by broad categories:
</p>
<p>
<a name="general" id="general"></a>
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
General options
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Data dir = &lt;directory&gt;</code></b><br>
This option is obsolete from version 2.2.5 on and should not be used.
Use <code><b>Subdir = ...</b></code> instead.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Subdir = &lt;directory&gt;</code></b><br>
Each logbook has a separate directory where the logbook entries are
stored, which is controlled by this statement. If the directory does
not exist, it is created autmatically by the <code><b>elogd</b></code>
program. The subdirectory is relative to the logbook root directory
specified with the <b><code>Logbook dir = ...</code></b> option. So if
<code><b>Logbook dir = /usr/local/elog/logbooks</b></code> and
<code><b>Subdir = Demo</b></code> then the logbook data is stored in
<code><b>/user/local/elog/logbooks/Demo</b></code>. If the
<b><code>Logbook dir = ...</code></b> option is not specified, then
<b><code>logbooks</code></b> is used. If the subdirectory starts with a
"/" ("\" under Windows), then it is used as an absolute path
independent of the logbook dir. To see which directories are used,
start <code><b>elogd</b></code> with the "-v" flag.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Comment = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
The comment is displayed on the logbook selection list. The selection
list is displayed if more than one logbook is defined on a host and no
logbook is explicitly specified in the URL.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Theme = &lt;theme&gt;</code></b><br>
A theme determines which layout and colors are used for a logbook,
similar to <i>skins</i> in other programs. The <i>theme</i> option
points to a subdirectory under the <i>"themes"</i> directory which
resides in the resource directory. It contains all files for that
theme. The format of these files is described under the <i>Themes</i>
section.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>CSS = &lt;filename&gt;</code></b><br>
A given theme can contain several Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This
can be usefule if several logbooks use the same images and icons, but
differnt colors. By default, the CSS <i>elog.css</i> is used. This
statement adds an additional CSS, which can overwrite settings from
<i>elog.css</i>. If different CSS'es should be used
for different output media, this can be accomplished with a comma-
separated list in the form
<code><b>CSS = &lt;file1&gt;&amp;&lt;media1&gt;,&lt;file2&gt;&amp;&lt;media2&gt;</b></code>. This will then be
translated into separate style sheet
statements for the different media. For example a statement
<code><b>CSS = default.css&amp;screen,print.css&amp;print</b></code>
will result in the HTML statements:
<pre>
&lt;link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="default.css" media="screen"&gt;
&lt;link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="print.css" media="print"&gt;
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Title image = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
HTML code for the icon in the upper right corner. By default, following
code is used:
<p>
&lt;img border=0 src="elog.gif" alt="ELOG logo"&gt;
</p>
<p>
This code can be replaced by <b><code>&lt;string&gt;</code></b> to
display a different icon file, or to display some text. The icon
image has to be present in the theme directory, which is usually
<b><code>&lt;elog root&gt;/themes/default</code></b>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Title image URL = &lt;URL&gt;</code></b><br>
The ELOG icon at the right upper corner usually points to the ELOG home
page. This URL can be changed to point to a corporate page for example
with this option. The icon can be changed by replacing the
<b><code>elog.gif</code></b> icon in the theme directory. This option
should only be used if the <b><code>Title image</code></b> option is
not used.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Time format = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
This option determines how the date and time of a logbook entry is
displayed. The format of the string is the same as the C function
<a href="strftime.txt">strftime</a>, so a string of <b>%A, %B %d, %Y,
%H:%M</b> yields in a display of <b>Thursday, November 15, 2001,
12:35</b> for example.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Time format &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same, but just for an individual attribute.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Date format = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
This option determines how the date is displayed from attributes which
are of type "date". The format of the string is the same as the C
function <a href="strftime.txt">strftime</a>, so a string of <b>%A, %B %d,
%Y</b> yields in a display of <b>Thursday, November 15, 2001</b> for
example.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Date format &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same, but just for an individual attribute.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Welcome Page = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
By default, the list with the last twenty entries of a logbook is
displayed when the logbook is selected. This can be overridden with
this option, which causes a HTML file to be shown instead of the
message list. This file can contain further links for new logbook
messages of for logbook queries. Here is a simple example of such a
file:
<pre>
&lt;h1&gt;Welcome to the test logbook&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="?cmd=new"&gt;Enter&lt;/a&gt; a new message
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="?cmd=find"&gt;Search&lt;/a&gt; the logbook
&lt;/ul&gt;
</pre>
The file must be present in the resource directory. Alternatively, an
absolute path can be used if the file name starts with a
<b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>"\"</code></b> or
<b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Start page = &lt;command&gt;</code></b><br>
This option can be used to display a different start page.
<b><code>command</code></b> can be either <i>0?cmd=Last</i> to display
the last message, or any other ELog menu command in the form
<b><code>?cmd=xxx</code></b>. To start with the search page, one uses
<pre>
Start page = ?cmd=Find
</pre>
Please note that if another language than English is selected via the <b>
Language = xxx</b> option, the commands have to be in that language as
well (like <i>"Start page = 0?cmd=Letzter"</i> for German).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Submit Page = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
This optional page can be displayed when a new message was submitted in
a logbook. Here is an example:
<pre>
&lt;h1&gt;You successfully submitted a message&lt;/h1&gt;
&lt;a href="?cmd=Back"&gt;Back&lt;/a&gt; to the logbook&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href="?cmd=New"&gt;Enter&lt;/a&gt; another message
</pre>
The file must be present in the logbook directory. Alternatively, an
absolute path can be used if the file name starts with a
<b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>"\"</code></b> or
<b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Message comment = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
This optional comment is displayed on top of the text entry field when
submitting a new message. It can contain a sentence like "<i>Please
enter your message here</i>:".
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Reply comment = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
This optional comment is displayed on top of the text entry field when
replying to an exiting entry. It can contain a sentence like "<i>Please
enter your reply here</i>:".
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Attachment comment = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
This optional comment is displayed on top of the attachment sumbission
section when entering a new message. It can contain a sentence like
"<i>Please upload your attachments here</i>:".
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Menu commands = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies the menu commands displayed on top of a single
logbook page. For certain installations, it can be useful to disable
some commands. Following commands are possible:
<ul>
<li>
<b>New</b> - Enter new logbook entry
</li>
<li>
<b>Edit</b> - Edit current logbook entry
</li>
<li>
<b>Delete</b> - Delete current logbook entry
</li>
<li>
<b>Reply</b> - Submit a reply to current entry
</li>
<li>
<b>Duplicate</b> - Duplicate the current entry with the possibility
to change some values
</li>
<li>
<b>Download</b> - Download a message in ASCII format
</li>
<li>
<b>Find</b> - Search entries in logbooks
</li>
<li>
<b>Last day</b> - Display entries from last day
</li>
<li>
<b>Move to</b> - Move entry to other logbook
</li>
<li>
<b>Copy to</b> - Copy entry to other logbook
</li>
<li>
<b>Config</b> - Edit elogd.cfg (if <b>no</b> "<i>Password file</i>"
is given)
</li>
<li>
<b>Config</b> - Modify/Add user accounts (if "<i>Password file</i>"
is given)
</li>
<li>
<b>Admin</b> - Edit elogd.cfg (if "<i>Password file</i>" is given)
</li>
<li>
<b>Login</b> - Login with user name and password (if "<i>Password
file</i>" is given)
</li>
<li>
<b>Import</b> - Show CSV (comma-separated-values) import page
</li>
<li>
<b>Logout</b> - Logout current user (if "<i>Password file</i>" is
given)
</li>
<li>
<b>Help</b> - General help
</li>
</ul>
<br>
<br>
The commands are always in English, independent of the
<code><b>language = ...</b></code> setting, and are automatically
translated into the specified language.<br>
<br>
If this option is not present, following default is used:<br>
<pre>
Menu commands = List, New, Edit, Delete, Reply, Duplicate, Find, Config, Help
</pre>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Copy to = &lt;logbook list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Move to = &lt;logbook list&gt;</code></b><br>
The commands <code><b>Copy to</b></code> and <code><b>Move
to</b></code> make it possible to copy or move a logbook entry from one
logbook to another. By default, all logbooks except the current logbook
are shown as a possible destination. With the configurations options
<b><code>Copy to = &lt;logbook list&gt;</code></b> and <b><code>Move to
= &lt;logbook list&gt;</code></b> it is possible to specify a list of
destination logbooks, separated by commata. This can make sense if only
certain logbooks make sense as destinations. The flag <code><b>Preserve IDs</b></code>
can be used to keep the entry ID in the destination logbook.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List Menu commands = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies the menu commands displayed on top of the listing
page. Although all commands from a above are possible, only the
commands <code><b>New, Find, Select, Import, Config, Admin, Change
password, Logout</b></code> and <code><b>Help</b></code> make sense.
The command <code><b>Select</b></code> can be used to select multiple
messages for deletion or for moving to other logbooks. Once the
<code><b>Select</b></code> command is clicked, check boxes appear in
front of all entries which let the user select one or more entries. A
new menu bar shows up with a <code><b>Delete</b></code> and optionally
a <code><b>Coyp to ...</b></code> and <code><b>Move to ...</b></code>
button, if these commands are present in the <code><b>Menu
commands</b></code> list. Pressing one of these buttons deletes, copies
or moves all selected logbook entries.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Guest Menu commands = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies the menu commands for guest logins. A guest login
happens if a password file is used, but someone accesses the logbook
for the first time, which means that no username/password is given. In
that case the commands from the guest menu are displayed, which usually
contain a subset of the normal commands. A typical scenario is a
logbook which only has commands to read the logbook on the guest menu,
but no commands to write/edit entries. Instead, the <b>login</b>
command is given in the guest menu, with which one can login as a real
user (username and password have to match those from the password
file), which then allowes full access via the <b>"Menu commands"</b>
list. A typical example for the menu settings for this scenario are:
<pre>
Menu commands = List, New, Edit, Reply, Duplicate, Find, Config, Logout, Help
Guest menu commands = List, Find, Login, Help
</pre>
<p>
Note that the presence of this option opens user access also to the
find result or elog listing page, which usually contains some config
command. So it is useful to combine the <code><b>Guest menu
commands</b></code> option with the following <code><b>Guest List
Menu commands</b></code> option to restrict the access to the find
result page as well.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Guest List Menu commands = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <b>Guest Menu commands</b> but for the find result page.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Menu text = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
If this option is present, and additional menu row above the message
gets displayed with the contents of &lt;file&gt;. This file can contain
arbitrary text, images or links. One example would be following text to
go back to the listing page and display the next <i>Routine</i> entry
and all <i>Routine</i> entries:<br>
<pre>
&lt;small&gt;
&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="?cmd=next&amp;type=Routine"&gt;Next Routine entry&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;|
&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="../?Type=Routine"&gt;All Routine entries&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/small&gt;
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List Menu text = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
The same for the list page. One example would be following text to
switch between the different display modi:<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Filter Menu text = &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
The same for the filter line in the list page.<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Guest Display = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies which attributes are displayed on guest access.
It is possible to display only a subset of all attributes for guest
access, but the full list if someone is logged in (using the option
"Password file"). The <code><b>list</b></code> consists of comma
separated attributes, including the word <i>text</i>, if one wants to
display the entry body text for guests.
<pre>
&lt;small&gt;
&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="?mode=summary"&gt;Summary&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;|
&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="?mode=full"&gt;Full&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;|
&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="?mode=threaded"&gt;Threaded&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;|
&lt;/small&gt;
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<code><b>Top text = &lt;file&gt; | &lt;string&gt;</b></code><br>
The text of this option gets displayed at the top of every Elog page.
It can be a string or a filename which gets displayed. Might be useful
to display company logos etc.
If a file is specified, it must be present in the logbook directory.
Alternatively, an absolute path can be used if the file name starts
with a <b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>"\"</code></b> or
<b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Bottom text = &lt;file&gt; | &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The text of this option gets displayed at the bottom of every Elog page
instead of the little Elog home page link. It can be a string or a
file. It can contain for example a link back to the main logbook
selection page like:
<pre>
&lt;center&gt;&lt;a href="/"&gt;Main page&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/center&gt;
</pre>
Or it can contain other useful links. If a file is specified, it must be
present in the logbook directory. Alternatively, an absolute path can be used
if the file name starts with a <b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>
"\"</code></b> or <b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Bottom text login = &lt;file&gt; | &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The same as <b><code>Bottom text</code></b> but for the login page. This
allows to display a different text at the bottom of the login page. It
can also be used to execute some JavaScript.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Help URL = &lt;URL&gt;</code></b><br>
This URL is used for the Help button. By default, the file
<b>eloghelp_xx.html</b> is returned with the contents of the help page.
Edit this file directly to add site-specific help for all logbooks.
Alternatively, use the <b><code>Help URL</code></b> option to specify
different help pages for different logbooks. It can point to a
site-specific help page via <b><code>http://...</code></b> or to a
local file like <b><code>file://c:/tmp/config.html</code></b>, or to
the name of an HTML file which must be present in the resource
directory.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Message Width = &lt;number&gt;</code></b><br>
This value sets the number of characters per line of the main message
entry field. The default value is 76 (78 for replies), and can be
increased for installations which need a larger window size (like
pasting log files etc.). If both <code><b>Message Width</b></code>
and <code><b>Message Height</b></code> are not given, some JavaScript
code is used which automatically resizes the message window
dynamically to fit optimally into the browser window.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Message Height = &lt;number&gt;</code></b><br>
This value sets the number of lines of the main message entry field.
The default value is 20, and can be changed for installations which
need a different window size. If both <code><b>Message Width</b></code>
and <code><b>Message Height</b></code> are not given, some JavaScript
code is used which automatically resizes the message window
dynamically to fit optimally into the browser window.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Admin textarea = &lt;cols&gt;,&lt;rows&gt;</code></b><br>
This defines the textarea size for the admin page. Default is
<b>80,40</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Display mode = [full|summary|threaded]</code></b><br>
Default mode for search display. On the find entry form, the checkboxes
are set accordingly. The "Last xxx" page uses this setting directly.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Entries per page = &lt;number&gt;</code></b><br>
Number of logbook entries displayed per page in a search result. The
default is 20.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Restrict edit time = &lt;hours&gt;</code></b><br>
If this option is set, a new message can only be edited a certain
number of hours after its creation. This can be useful if one wants to
ensure that old entries cannot be modified. Hours can also be
fractional, like 0.5 for 30 min.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Admin restrict edit time = &lt;hours&gt;</code></b><br>
Same option for admin users. This can be useful if normal users are
not allowed to change entries after "restrict edit time", but an admin
user should be allowed to do so. Setting this to zero disables any
restriction for admin users and they can edit entries forever.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Max content length = &lt;bytes&gt;</code></b><br>
This option restricts the size of attachments. When very large
(&gt;100MB) attachments are uploaded, the elogd server can be busy with
this upload for a longer time and not respond to other requests during
that time. To avoid this, the maximum size of attachments can be
restricted. The server will then refuse to accept larger attachments.
The default is 10485760 (= 10 MB). This option has to be placed into
the [global] section and the elogd server has to be restarted after a
change.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Fonts = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
List of fonts (comma separated) to be shown in the font drop-down box
of the entry edit form. Default is<br>
<br>
<code>Fonts = Arial, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Tahoma, Times New
Roman, Verdana</code><br>
<br>
On Unix systems some of these fonts might not be installed, in which
case they can be replaced by others like <b>Serif</b>,
<b>Sans-serif</b>, <b>Helvetica</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>All display limit = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
If a logbook contains many entries, the list gets divided into pages,
with some page navigation for the next, previous, a specific page and
all pages. If the logbook contains a large number of entries (>500),
the display of all thes entries can take very long and might slow down
the elogd server, especially if the entries are not displayed in
"summary" mode but in "full" mode. Therefore the "All" link should not
be used in the page navigation for large logbooks. The number of
entries from when on the "All" link gets hidden can be specified with
this number, the default value is <b><code>500</code></b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Thumbnail size = &lt;size&gt;</code></b><br>
This option determines the default thumbnail size. To make the
automatic generation of thumbnails working, the ImageMagick package
has to be installed. Refer to the <a href="adminguilde.html#imagemagick">
admin guide</a> for installation instructions. The thumbnail size
<b><code>size</code></b> gets passed to the <b><code>-thumbnail</code></b>
option of the conversion. A value of <b><code>300</code></b> converts
all pictures to thumbnails 300 pixels wide. A value of
<b><code>300&gt;</code></b> converts all pictures to thumbnails 300
pixels wide if they are larger than 300 pixels initially, and leaves
them untouched if they are smaller. A value of <b><code>10%</code></b>
converts all pictures to 10% of their original size. If the
thumbnail size option is missing, the thumbnails will be created
with the original image size, and can then be resized and rotated
interactively with the image manipulation buttons:<p>
<img src="thumbnail.png">
<p>
Setting <b><code>Thumbnail size = 0</code></b> turns off the thumbnail
creation.
<p>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Thumbnail options = &lt;options&gt;</code></b><br>
With this option one can pass additional parameters to the ImageMagick
package. They are passes 1:1 to the <b>convert</b> program. Commonly
used is the <b>-density</b> option to increase the image quality when
converting from PDF or EPS files.<p>
</li>
</ul>
<a name="attrib" id="attrib"></a>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Attributes
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Define a number of attributes for the logbook, separated by commata. A
maximum of 100 attributes can be defined. Typical values are
"<i>Author</i>", "<i>Subject</i>" or "<i>Type</i>". Following values
are not allowed:<p>
<ul>
<li>Text
<li>Date
<li>Encoding
<li>Reply to
<li>In reply to
<li>Locked by
<li>Attachment
<li>Path
</ul>
<p>
since these are used internally by elog.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Options &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Usually, an text field is used for an attribute, where the user can
fill in text of up to 100 characters. If instead a drop-down box with
preset items is better for a given attribute, these items can be
defined with this statement. Up to 100 items can be defined, separated
by commas. To add an option including a comma, encose it in quotations
marks like
<pre>
Options town = San Francisco, "Paris, Texas", "Paris, France"
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Extendable options = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
When using the <code><b>Options &lt;attribute&gt;</b></code> to specify
a list of possible options, this list is fixed. Sometimes it is
desirable to extend the list when a new entry in a logbook is made and
a certain option is missing on the list. By adding the attribute name
to the <code><b>Extandable options</b></code> list, a button appears
next to the attribute in the message entry form which lets you add new
options to the list. The elogd.cfg configuration file is then
automatically updated. When a new logbook entry gets made, the new
option automatically appears in the drop-down box for that attribute.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>ROptions &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <code><b>Options</b></code> above, but using radio buttons
instead of a drop-down box.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>MOptions &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This list allows for "<i>Multiple Options</i>", meaning that an
attribute can have several values simultaneously. When entering an
entry with MOptions, each value from the list is represented by a
checkbox. Unlike with normal options, multiple checkboxes can be
checked for an entry. The attribue value then becomes
<pre>
&lt;value1&gt; | &lt;value2&gt; | ...
</pre>
In the "<i>find</i>" page only one of these values can be specified,
which is then treated as a substring in the search filter.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>IOptions &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This list specifies a set of icons for an attribute. Some icons are
contained in the <i>themes/default/icons</i> directory which can be
used here like
<pre>
Attributes = Author, Icon, Subject...
IOptions Icon = icon1.gif, icon2.gif, icon3.gif, ...
</pre>
New icons are welcome and should be sent back to the author to be
incorporated in the next version.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Comment &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
Optional comment which is displayed below the attribute name in the
entry form. Can be used to explain the attribute somehow.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Tooltip &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <code><b>Comment &lt;attribute&gt;</b></code>, except that the
comment gets displayed as a tooltip (tiny pup-up window) when the user
moves the mouse cursor over the attribute name in the entry form.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Tooltip &lt;attribute&gt; &lt;attribute option&gt; = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <code><b>Tooltip &lt;attribute&gt;</b></code>, but for option
values of a <code><b>MOptions</b></code> attribute. Using this option,
a different tooltip can be shown above each check box of an optional
value for an attribute. Please note that attributes or options with
spaces should <b>not</b> be enclosed with quotes.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Icon comment &lt;icon&gt; = &lt;comment&gt;</code></b><br>
Icons may contain a comment, which is then used in email notifications
instead of the icon file name. One has to add a separate icon comment
for each icon file.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Options &lt;attribute&gt; = boolean</code></b><br>
If an attribute is marked "<i>boolean</i>" this way, a checkbox is
displayed for this attribute.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
This option uses a preset string for an attribute. The string can
contain subsitutions like the ones described under the "<i>Subst
&lt;attribute&gt;</i>" command. One possible application is to use the
login name for the author field like:
<pre>
Preset Author = $long_name
</pre>
If the attribute should be locked at the Web submission, use the
"<i>Locked Attributes = ...</i>" option. If a preset value is given for an
attribute which has an options list, the preset value is selected in the drop
down box by default.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset text = &lt;string&gt; or &lt;file&gt;</code></b><br>
This preset value is used for the main body text. It can be a string or
a file, which must be present in the logbook directory. Alternatively,
an absolute path can be used if the file name starts with a
<b><code>"/"</code></b> (Unix) or <b><code>"\"</code></b> or
<b><code>"x:"</code></b> (Windows).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset on edit &lt;attribute&gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <b><code>Preset &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b>, but evaluated when
editing existing entries.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset on reply &lt;attribute&gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <b><code>Preset &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b>, but evaluated for
replies.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset on first reply &lt;attribute&gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
While <b><code>Preset on reply &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b>, is
evaluated for any replies, this one is only executed for the first
reply to an entry. It can be useful for example to so do something
like this:
<pre>
Preset on first reply Subject = Re: $Subject
</pre>
So the "Re:" only gets added once, and you don't get long chains of
"Re: Re: Re: ....".
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preset on duplicate &lt;attribute&gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <b><code>Preset &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b>, but evaluated for
duplicted entries.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Locked Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
The attributes specified here cannot be modified when a new entry is
submitted. This makes only sense for preset attributes.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Fixed Attributes Edit = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
The attributes specified here cannot be modified when an existing entry
is modified via the <b><code>Edit</code></b> button. This feature can
be useful to preserve the original author of the message, when using
the <b><code>Preset Author = $long_name</code></b> option as described
above.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Fixed Attributes Reply = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
The attributes specified here cannot be modified when an existing entry
is replied on via the <b><code>Reply</code></b> button. This feature
can be useful to preserve the original subject of a message for
example.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Required Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
The attributes specified here are required when a new entry is
submitted. The attribute names are marked with <font color=
"red">*</font> on the entry form.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Show Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Attributes present in this list are shown in the single entry page.
Omitting attributes can make sense for attributes which are
automatically derived from other attributes via the
<b><code>Change &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b> command.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Show Attributes Edit = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
The same as <b><code>Show Attributes</code></b>, but for the entry form.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Propagate Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
With this option, changed in an attribute are autmatically propagated
to all entries of a thread. This can be useful if one has an attribute
"problem status" for example with the options "open",
"under investigation", "fixed". A thread related to a specific problem
can then have several replies. If the problem gets fixed, a new
reply can be made with the attribute "problem status" being "fixed", and
then the propagation causes all entries of this thread to become "fixed".
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Page title = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The string specified here is used for the title of the web page. It is
also used by most browsers for bookmark names. The string can contain
substitutions as described unter the "<i>Subst &lt;attribute&gt;</i>"
option.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Edit Page title = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
The string specified here is used for the title of the entry form. It
is also used by most browsers for bookmark names. The string can
contain substitutions as described unter the "<i>Subst
&lt;attribute&gt;</i>" option.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List display = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Specified the display and order of items in a message listing page or a
search result page. In addition to all attributes, following items can
be specified:<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>ID</code></b> for the entry ID
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Date</code></b> for the entry date/time
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Edit</code></b> to display a column with an edit icon to
directly edit and entry
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Delete</code></b> to display a column with a delete icon
to directly delete and entry
</li>
</ul>
<br>
The restriction to certain attributes can be helpful if many attributes
are defined in a logbook, which usually makes the table too big to fit
in the browser. The default is<br>
<pre>
List display = ID, Date, &lt;all attributs&gt;
</pre>
Which displays the message number, date, and all attributes. The display
of the message body is controlled by the <b><code>Display mode</code></b> and
<b><code>Summary lines</code></b> options. If a search goes over "all
logbooks", an additional colums with the logbook name of each entry is added in
front.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Guest List display = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as <code><b>List display</b></code>, but for guest access (user
level access with password, but not logged in). Please see also
<code><b>Guest display</b></code>. In addition to <code><b>List
display</b></code>, one can optionally specify <code><b>Text</b></code>
as an attribute here. Without that attribute, the summary text of the
entry body is not shown. This makes it possible to show the text for
registered users and hide it for guest access.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Link display = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Normally, each column in the display list contains a link to the
individual entry. If this is not desired, the list of attributes with
links can be restricted to only a subset with this option.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Thread display = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Optional way to specify the line contents in the threaded search
result. Following substitutions are possible:
<ul>
<li>
<b>$&lt;attribute&gt;</b>: The value of the attribute
</li>
<li>
<b>$logbook</b>: The name of the current logbook
</li>
<li>
<b>$entry time</b>: The message date and time, formatted via
"<i>Time format</i>"
</li>
<li>
<b>$message id</b>: The message ID
</li>
</ul>
<br>
A typical example would be<br>
<pre>
Thread display = $subject, posted by $author on $entry time
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Thread icon = &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b><br>
If a logbook uses some icons for an attribute, these icons can be
displayed in the search result page instead of the default icons
contained in the themes directory.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>RSS Title = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
ELOG supports so-called <i>RSS feeds</i>. Once can subscribe to new
logbook entries with RSS readers such as Mozilla Firefox. Once new
entries are submitted to the logbook, the become visible in the
subscripition. By default, all attributes of the last 15 logbook
entries are used as the RSS title. With this option once can changed
this behaviour. Following substitutions are possible:
<ul>
<li>
<b>$&lt;attribute&gt;</b>: The value of the attribute
</li>
<li>
<b>$logbook</b>: The name of the current logbook
</li>
<li>
<b>$entry time</b>: The message date and time, formatted via
"<i>Time format</i>"
</li>
<li>
<b>$message id</b>: The message ID
</li>
</ul>
<br>
A typical example would be<br>
<pre>
RSS Title = $subject, posted by $author on $entry time
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>RSS Entries = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
Number of entries to be shown in the RSS feed. Default is 15.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Subst &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
When submitting logbook entries, attribute values can be substituted by
some text. This text can contain arbitrary fixed text and following
values:
<ul>
<li>
<b>$&lt;attribute&gt;</b>: The entered value of the attribute
itself
</li>
<li>
<b>$host</b>: The host name where <code><b>elogd</b></code> is
running
</li>
<li>
<b>$remote_host</b>: The host name of the host from with the entry
was submitted
</li>
<li>
<b>$short_name</b>: The login name (if password file is present)
</li>
<li>
<b>$long_name</b>: The full name from the password file for the
current user
</li>
<li>
<b>$user_email</b>: The email address from the password file for
the current user
</li>
<li>
<b>$logbook</b>: The name of the current logbook
</li>
<li>
<b>$date</b>: The current date, formatted via "<i>Date format</i>"
</li>
<li>
<b>$utcdate</b>: The current UTC date (GMT) and time, formatted via
"<i>Date format</i>"
</li>
<li>
<b>$version</b>: The version of the ELOG server in the form x.y.z
</li>
<li>
<b>$revision</b>: The Subversion reversion of the ELOG server as an
integer number
</li>
<li>
<b>$shell(&lt;command&gt;)</b>: &lt;command&gt; gets passed to the
operating system shell and the result is taken for substitution.
</li>
</ul>
<br>
Following example use this feature to add the remote host name to the
author:<br>
<pre>
Subst Author = $author from $remote_host
</pre>
<br>
Following example substitutes an attribute with the contents of a
file:<br>
<pre>
Subst Info = $shell(cat /tmp/filename) (Unix)
Subst Info = $shell(type c:\tmp\filename) (Windows)
</pre>
<br>
A special option are automatically generated tags, which are
automatically incremented for each new message. This is achieved by
putting #'s into the substitution string, which is used as a placeholder for
the incrementing index. Each "#" stands for one digit, thus the
statement
<pre>
Subst Number = XYZ-#####
</pre>
results in automatically created attributes <i>"Number"</i> of the form
<pre>
XYZ-00001
XYZ-00002
XYZ-00003
</pre>
and so on. In addition to the #'s one may specify format specifiers which
are passed to the <a href="strftime.txt">
strftime</a> function. This allows to create tags wich contain the
current year, month and so on. Once the date part of the attribute
changes, the index restarts from one. The statement
<pre>
Subst Number = XYZ-%Y-%b-###
</pre>
results in automatically created attributes <i>"Number"</i> of the form
<pre>
XYZ-2005-Oct-001
XYZ-2005-Oct-002
XYZ-2005-Oct-003</pre>
<br>
and
<br>
<pre>
XYZ-2005-Nov-001
XYZ-2005-Nov-002</pre>
<br>
on the next month.
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Remove on reply = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
This option clears one or more (separated by commata) attribute values
from a logbook entry when creating a reply to that entry. This can make
sense for example for the author, since the author of a reply can be
different from the original author.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Quote on reply = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
This flag controls if the original text is quoted in a reply. Default
is <b>1</b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Reply string = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
String used to mark original message lines. Default is <b><code>"&gt;
"</code></b>. Can be empty string ("") if no message marking is
desired.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Subst on reply &lt;attribute &gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Substitution of attributes for replies. This option can be used to
replace the current subject with a "Re: &lt;old subject&gt;":<br>
<pre>
Subst on reply subject = Re: $subject
</pre>
Note that this option works only for the first reply. So a
reply-to-a-reply would still have <b>Re: &lt;old subject&gt;</b>
and not <b>Re: Re: &lt;old subject&gt;</b>. If you want the substitution
for all replies, please use <code><b>Preset on reply</b></code> instead.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Subst on edit &lt;attribute &gt; =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Substitution of attributes for edited messages. This option can be used
to replace the author by the current author for example:<br>
<pre>
Subst on edit author = $full_name
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Quick filter = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies list of comma separated attributes for which a drop-down
filter is displayed in the search result page. By selecting a value
from that drop-down box, only entries with that value are displayed. In
addition to all attributes defined in the <b><code>Attributes
=</code></b> list, the attribute <b><code>Date</code></b> and the
option <b><code>Subtext</code></b> can be listed here. Using the
<b><code>Date</code></b> filter, the last day, week, month and so on
can be displayed. The <b><code>Subtext</code></b> filter works on the
entry body text.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Last default = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
Some logbooks are very big and searching through all entries with
a quick filter can be time consuming. This option sets a default value
for the <code><b>Date</b></code> quick filter, so that by default
only the &lt;n&gt; last days are displayed. &lt;n&gt; has to match
one of the entries of the data quick filter options, which are 1, 3,
7, 31, 92, 182, 364.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Format &lt;attribute&gt; =
&lt;flags&gt;,&lt;css_class_name&gt;,&lt;css_class_value&gt;,&lt;width&gt;,&lt;size&gt;</code></b><br>
Optional formatting parameters for attributes. Following items can be
defined in the comma-separated list:
<p>
Values used for single message display page:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b>&lt;flags&gt;</b> Sum of following flags:
<ul>
<li>
<b>1</b>: Display attribute in same line as previous attribute
</li>
<li>
<b>2</b>: Display radio buttons or check boxes in separate
lines (if applicable)
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<b>&lt;css_class_name&gt;</b>,<b>&lt;css_class_value&gt;</b>
Cascading Style Sheet class names used for cells containing
attribute name or value, respectively. The classes must be defined
in the style sheet file (usually
<i>themes/default/default.css</i>).
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Values used for new message entry form:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b>&lt;width&gt;</b> Width of the text entry field in characters
</li>
<li>
<b>&lt;size&gt;</b> Maximum number of characters allowed.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Default is <i>"0, attribname, attribvalue, 80, 500"</i>. Trailing
parameters can be ommitted, so specifying for example only the flags
is possible.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<code><b>Type &lt;attribute&gt; = date | datetime | numeric |
userlist | useremail | muserlist | museremail</b></code><br>
A normal attribute can contain strings of any type. With this option,
attributes can be forced to be numeric or to be a date/time, or to
consist of a list of all users from the password file. When new logbook
entries are made, numeric attributes are checked to contain only
digits. Note that JavaScript has to be enabled to do this.<br>
<br>
Attributes of type <b><code>date</code></b> are treated as a date.
Their format for display can be controlled by the <b><code>Date
format</code></b> option. Upon entry, drop-down boxes are displayed
which let the user select the day, month and year. Alternatively, a
pop-up date picker using a calendar can be displayed if JavaScript is
enabled. Date attributes are saved internally as seconds since
1.1.1970, and can therefore be sorted propoerly by clicking on the
header of a logbook entry list. On the find page, dates can be searched
for via a start and end date. If date attributes are used in a quick
filter (see above), a drop-down quick filter box is displayed which
lets the user select "last day", "last week", "next week", and so on.
The <b><code>datetime</code></b> type combines a date and time in
HH:MM. The output of this combination is controlled by the
<b><code>Time format</code></b> option.<br>
<br>
If the attribute type is <b><code>userlist</code></b>, a drop-down box
is displayed which contains all user names from the current password
file. This can be useful for example in a bug tracking system, where a
new entry gets assigned to an individual. The type
<b><code>useremail</code></b> is similar, just a list of email addresses
of all registered users. This can be used to send email notification
to assigned people by using this attribute in an
<b><code>Email all = &lt;attribute&gt;</code></b> statement. The type
<b><code>muserlist</code></b> and <b><code>museremail</code></b> are the
same that <b><code>userlist</code></b> and <b><code>useremail</code></b>,
except that several user names or user emails can be selected at once
using check boxes.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Style &lt;attribute&gt; &lt;value&gt; = &lt;style&gt;</code></b><br>
Optional formatting of logbok entries in list mode. For some logbooks
it might be useful to display different entries in a different color
for example. To achieve this, a CSS style sheet can be attached to an
entry based on the value of an attribute. If you have an attribute
called <code><b>importnace</b></code> and you want to highlight
all entries where <code><b>importnace</b></code> is <code><b>severe</b></code>
for example, you can specify following style:
<pre>
Style importance severe = background-color:red
</pre>
For possible formattings, please refer to some CSS documentation. You can
change the colors, font styles and sizes. The style is then valid for the
whole row of that entry.<br/>
<br/>
For empty attributes one can specify "", such as
<pre>
Style importance "" = background-color:red
</pre>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Cell Style &lt;attribute&gt; &lt;value&gt; = &lt;style&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as above, but only for a specific cell containing &lt;attribute&gt;.
Following options
<pre>
Attributes = Author, Status
Options Status = Fixed, Under Process, Not Fixed
Cell Style Status Fixed = background-color:green
Cell Style Status Not Fixed = background-color:red
Cell Style Status Under Process = background-color:yellow
</pre>
for example produce following listing:<br>
<p><img border=0 src="cell_style.png"></p>
</li>
<li>
<code><b>Change &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</b></code><br>
Instead of subsituting an attribute, the original attribute can be kept
and just the output formatting can be changed. This can be very handy
for constructing HTML links out of attributes. Presume that a company
has a telephone book reachable under<br>
<br>
<pre>
http://any.company.com/telbook.cgi?search=&lt;name&gt;
</pre>
where &lt;name&gt; has to be replaced by a search string. Now one can
construct an automatic telephonebook lookup with following options:<br>
<pre>
Attributes = Name, Telephone, ...
Change Telephone = &lt;a href="http://any.company.com/telbook.cgi?search=$Name"&gt;$Name's telephone number&lt;/a&gt;
</pre>
The attribute <b><code>Telephone</code></b> is now automatically
constructed from the attribute <b><code>Name</code></b> and consists of a link
to the company's telephonebook. The advantage of this system is if the URL of
the telephonebook changes one day, only one statement in the config file has to
be changed, while otherways (like with the <b><code>Subst Telephone =
...</code></b> option) all entries would have to be changed manually.
</li>
<li>
<code><b>List Change &lt;attribute&gt; = &lt;string&gt;</b></code><br>
Same option for the list display.
</li>
<li>
<code><b>Execute new | edit | delete = &lt;command&gt;</b></code><br>
It is possible to execute a shell command on the server side after a
new message has been submitted, edited or deleted. This feature has
been used in the past for SMS notifications over a telephone system and
for synchrnonization of the ELOG database with an external SQL
database. The <b><code>&lt;command&gt;</code></b> can contain
substitutions similar to the <b><code>Subst</code></b> command. In
addition the list of all attachments can be referred to via
<b><code>$&lt;attachments&gt;</code></b>. The text body of the entry
can be referred to with <b><code>$text</code></b>. It should
be noted that only the first 1500 characters of the text can be used,
in order not to exceed the limits of the shell. Following (Unix) command
writes a notification into some file:
<pre>
Execute new = echo "New message wiht ID $message id of type $type from $long_name on $remote_host" &gt;&gt; /tmp/elog.log
</pre>
<br>
It should be noted that this feature can impose a security problem. If
someone can edit the elogd.cfg through the <b><code>Config</code></b>
command of elogd, that person can put malicious code into elogd.cfg and
execute it. This is even more severe if elogd runs with root
privileges. To avoid such problems, the execute facility is disabled in
elogd by default and has to be enabled explicitly with the "-x" command
line flag. The administrator has to ensure then of course that only
trusted people can edit elogd.cfg.
</li>
<li>
<code><b>Last submission = &lt;string&gt;</b></code><br>
This option determines what gets displayed on the logbook selection
page in the <i>Last submission</i> colum. The default string is
<code><b>$entry time by $author</b></code>. If a logbook does not
contain an <code><b>author</b></code> attribute, another string can be
chosen.
</li>
<li>
<code><b>ID display = &lt;string&gt;</b></code><br>
This option determines the display of the entry ID. In some
applications, the entry ID can be used as a tag, containing more than
just the ID number. For example
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
ID display = TAG-$message id
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
would display the entry ID as "TAG-1","TAG-2", ... and so on.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Prepend on reply = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
With this option a string can be placed on top of a reply. Using string
substition, this can be useful for adding the author and the date of a
reply, like<br>
<br>
<b><code>Prepend on reply = Added $date by
$long_name\n\n</code></b><br>
<br>
where "\n" causes a line break.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Append on reply = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as before, but gets added after the previous entry.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Prepend on edit = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Append on edit = &lt;string&gt;</code></b><br>
Same as before, but for editing entries.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Sort Attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
For the list display, the entries are normally sorted by their ID.
Alternatively, one can specify one or more (separated by commata)
attributes, which are used for sorting. The first attribute in the list
has the highest priority. Only if two entries have the same value in
the first sort attribute, they are sorted according to the second sort
attribute and so on. To the list of attributes one can add <b>ID</b>,
<b>Date</b> and <b>logbook</b>, although <b>ID</b> makes only sense
together with other attributes, since it is sorted as the primary
key anyhow.
</li>
</ul>
<a name="conditional" id="conditional"></a>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Conditional attributes
</div>
<p>
When entering data into a elog form, it might be helpful to change the
options of the attributes depending on the value of other attributes.
Let's assume you have a logbook containing entries for different
computers with different operating systems. Your elogd.cfg file starts
like that:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Attributes = PC Name, Operating System, Version
Options Operating System = Linux, Windows
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
For the operating system version, you would like a list, but this list
has to be different for Linux and Windows. This can be achieved with
<i>conditional attributes</i>. Simply write following configuration:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Attributes = PC Name, Operating System, Version
Options Operating System = Linux{1}, Windows{2}
{1} Options Version = 2.2, 2.4, 2.6
{2} Options Version = ME, 2k, NT, XP
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
If you enter a new entry into that logbook, the drop-down list for
<code><b>Version</b></code> changes automatically depending on the
<code><b>Operating System</b></code>. Note that you have to enable Java
Script for this to work. Without Java Script, a separate button appears
in the line of the Operating System which has to be pressed to make the
Version list change.
</p>
<p>
The number {1} and {2} in the configuration file are called
<i>conditions</i>. Depending on these conditions, certain other lines can
be activated. So if the Operating System <i>Linux</i> is selected,
condition {1} is true, which selects the line starting with {1} to select
the options <i>2.2, 2.4, 2.6</i>.
</p>
<p>
This technique offers various other possibilities, since any
configuration option can be made conditional by adding a
<code><b>{&lt;n&gt;}</b></code> in front of that line where &lt;n&gt; is
an arbitrary number. One often used possibility is the definition of
forms. Depending on an attribute, the configuration option
<code><b>Preset text = ...</b></code> can be used to copy some
pre-defined forms into the message body, which can then be filled out.
Consider following example:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Attributes = Author, Type
Options Type = Network check{1}, System check{2}
{1} Preset text = network.txt
{2} Preset text = system.txt
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
This causes two text files <i>network.txt</i> and <i>system.txt</i> to be
copied into the message body when a new entry is made. The file
<i>network.txt</i> could look like:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Routers checked: [ ]
DHCP checked: [ ]
Comment: ...
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
This works like a pre-defined form, the user puts X's between the "[ ]"
when that item has been checked. Other possibilities are pre-defined
shift sheets in environments where elog is uses as a shift logbook. The
shift sheet could contain the names of the shift crew, some check-list
for standard tasks etc.
</p>
<p>
Another use of conditional attributes is in conjunction with the option
<code><b>Message comment</b></code>. Depending on some attribute values,
different message comments can be displayed to tell the user what to enter
exactly in the message body for that attribute value.
</p>
<p>
<b><code>Show Attributes Edit = &lt;list&gt;</code></b><br>
When using conditional attributes, it might be necessary to omit certain
attributes under certain conditions, to make the input mask shorter and
maybe change the order of the attributes. With this option, a subset of
all attributes can be specified which get displayed on the single entry
page in the same order as they are specified here. This option mainly
makes sense when used with conditions, such as:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Attributes = PC Name, Operating System, Version, Distribution
Options Operating System = Linux{1}, Windows{2}
{1} Show Attributes Edit = Operating System, Distribution, PC Name
{2} Show Attributes Edit = Operating System, PC Name, Version
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The above statements cause the atrribute <b><code>Version</code></b> to be
only visible when "Windows" is selected, and
<b><code>Distribution</code></b> to be only visible when "Linux" is
selected. If "Windows" is selected, the PC name is shown before the
version.
</p>
<h2>
Multiple conditions
</h2>
<p>
It is possible to define conditions in more than one options list. The
only requiremnt is that conditions are uniquie, meaning that a condition in
one option list cannot be used in another list. This can easily be avoided
by using numbers for one condition and letters for the other condition,
like in the following example:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
Attributes = PC Name, Operating System, Version, Location, Floor
Options Operating System = Linux{1}, Windows{2}
Options Location = Main Building{a}, New Building{b}, Old Building{c}
{1} Options Version = 2.2, 2.4, 2.6
{2} Options Version = ME, 2k, NT, XP
{a} Options Floor = Ground, First, Second
{b,c} Options Floor = Ground, First
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
It is possible to specify an OR of several conditions like in the case
{b,c}. This is also possible over several conditions, like {1,a} would
mean <i>"The PC has Linux or is in the Main Building"</i>. To specify a
AND between conditions, a "&amp;" is used. The condition
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<pre>
{1&amp;a} ...
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
specifies for example the condition "Linux AND Main Building". If
several lines with condition combinations are true, the upper one is used.
</p>
<h2>
Conditions in the list display
</h2>
<p>
Conditional attributes are usually only used for change items
in the entry form. It might however be desirable to have conditional
attibutes also working in the list display (the page where several
entries are shown on a single page). The value of one attribute can then
for example change which other attributes gets displayed via the <B><code>
list display</code></b> option. To enable the evaluation of conditional
attributes for the list display, on uses the option
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<code><b>List conditions = 1</b></code><br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
It should be noted that this option can cause a significant performance
degradation if many conditional attributes are defines, so it should only
be turned on when it is really needed.
</p>
<a name="access" id="access"></a>
<hr>
<div class="section">Access control</div>
<p>
<b>Note: Starting with version 2.9.0, the password level access using
the options <i>Read password</i>, <i>Write password</i> and
<i>Admin password</i> is not supported any more. Please use the user
level access as described below.</b>
</p>
<h2>
Password file
</h2>
<p>
Access control is done on a user level with a password file. When a user
logs in, a session ID is created and placed as a "cookie" in the browser.
Using this cookie, the user can workin on the logbook until the cookie
expires. For this it is necessary that cookies are enabled in the browser.
</p>
<p>
Following options can be used to control the behavior:
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Password file = &lt;file&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Login expiration = &lt;hours&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Admin user = &lt;user list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Login user = &lt;user list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p>
This file contains user names and passwords in XML format, such as
</p>
<ul>
<pre>
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?&gt;
&lt;!-- created by MXML on Tue Nov 07 08:15:51 2006 --&gt;
&lt;list&gt;
&lt;user&gt;
&lt;name&gt;stefan&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;password encoding="SHA256"&gt;Ebx/a.9tFFQ/iUW3mU8GbnPpCVk74jFt56CmiJXVwdm&lt;/password&gt;
&lt;full_name&gt;Stefan Ritt&lt;/full_name&gt;
&lt;last_logout&gt;Tue Oct 17 12:59:47 2006&lt;/last_logout&gt;
&lt;last_activity&gt;Tue Nov 07 08:15:51 2006&lt;/last_activity&gt;
&lt;email&gt;stefan.ritt@psi.ch&lt;/email&gt;
&lt;email_notify&gt;
&lt;logbook&gt;demo&lt;/logbook&gt;
&lt;/email_notify&gt;
&lt;/user&gt;
&lt;user&gt;
&lt;name&gt;midas&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;password encoding="SHA256"&gt;t56CmiJXVwdmEbx/a.9tFFQ/iUW3mU8GbnPpCVk74jF&lt;/password&gt;
&lt;full_name&gt;Midas User&lt;/full_name&gt;
&lt;last_logout&gt;0&lt;/last_logout&gt;
&lt;last_activity&gt;0&lt;/last_activity&gt;
&lt;email&gt;midas@psi.ch&lt;/email&gt;
&lt;email_notify&gt;
&lt;logbook&gt;demo&lt;/logbook&gt;
&lt;/email_notify&gt;
&lt;/user&gt;
&lt;/list&gt;
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The passwords are encoded. New users can either be created by hitting
<b>Register as new user</b> on the login page if <b><code>Self register =
1</code></b> in the configuration file, or by the admin user in the
<b>Config</b> page by pressing <b>New user</b>. The password file resides
in the same directory as the logbooks. When a user is logged it,
the entry for this user can be modified via the <b>Config</b> command.
</p>
<p>
To start a new password file, follow these steps:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Specify a password file name with <code><b>Password file =
&lt;file&gt;</b></code> in the configuration file
</li>
<li>Connect to the logbook. You will be presented with the new user page.
Enter the user login name, full name, email and password, then click
on the "Save" button.
</li>
<li>Add <b><code>Admin user = &lt;user&gt;</code></b> into the
configuration file, using your login name from above
</li>
<li>If you now enter the "Config" page, you can add other users
</li>
<li>Remove the self registration option if you like
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The presence of a password file requires all users to "<i>log in</i>"
using their name and password, except when a guest login is allowed via
the <b>"Guest menu commands"</b> option. An additional advantage of this
method is that the user name can be used as an attribute value for
creating logbook entries. For example, the following line could be added
to the configuration file to fill in the <i>Author</i> and the
<i>Email</i> attributes with the current user name and email:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<code>Attributes = Author, Email, ...</code>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>
<code>Subst Author = $long_name from $remote_host<br>
Subst Email = $user_email</code>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Thus the author name is not user-input anymore, ensuring the entry always
contains the actual user name. For a full listing of substitutions, see
the "<i>Subst &lt;attrib&gt;</i>" option.
</p>
<p>
The user name and password are stored as cookies on the user side. The
expiration is controlled by the <b><code>Remember me</code></b> checkbox
during the login. If unchecked, the cookies expire after the current
browser session. If checked, they expire after 31 days by default, which
can be changed with the <code><b>Login expiration</b></code> option,
giving the expiration time in hours. Setting this to 24 for example,
makes the password expire after one day. If presistent cookies are not
desired, the <code><b>Login expiration</b></code> option can be set to
zero, in which case the <b><code>Remember me</code></b> checkbox is not
displayed.
</p>
<p>
The <code><b>Admin user = &lt;user list&gt;</b></code> is a list of one
or more user names, which have admin rights. They see a button
<b><code>Change elogd.cfg</code></b> on the config page by which they can
edit elogd.cfg through the web. They can also modify other users on the
<b><code>Config</code></b> page, change their passwords or remove them.
In addition, the admin user(s) can delete or edit entries from other
users if <code><b>Restrict edit = 1</b></code>.
</p>
<p>
The <code><b>Login user = &lt;user list&gt;</b></code> is a list of users
who can log in to a specific logbook. This option can be used with a
global password file. If a <b><code>Password file</code></b> is present
under the <code><b>[global]</b></code> section, the registered users in
that password file can log in to all logbooks. It might be required that
only certain users can log in to certain logbooks. This can be achieved
with the <b><code>Login user</code></b> option, places in each individual
logbook section in the configuration file. Only those users listed in
this statement can log in to the logbook where the statement is defined.
This method has the advantage over the option of definining individual
password files for individual logbooks that only one central password
file exists. So if a user changes her/his password, this becomes then
valid for all logbooks. If there would be individual logbook password
files, one would have to change the password in all logbooks
individually.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Self register = 0|1|2|3|4</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
With this option it is possible for new users to self-register an user
account. At the login page, a link is displayed <b>"Register as a new
user"</b> which leads the user to a configuration page where one can
enter the account name, full name and email address. A flag allows for
automatic email notification on new entries on the logbook. These
settings can later be changed with the <b>Config</b> menu command.
</p>
<p>
Setting this option to <b>0</b> disables self registration. With option
<b>1</b>, users can silently register, while setting it to <b>2</b>
causes elogd to send an email notification to the admin user(s). The
option <b>3</b> is used to <i>only</i> send an email notification to the
admin users(s), which then can validate the account and commit it by
hitting the URL given in the email notification. Setting this to <b>4</b>
causes and email notification to be sent to the user, which then can
validate the account herself/himself proving to have a working
email account.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Allow password change = 0|1</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Enables or disabled the ability for users to change their password. If
disabled, the <i>"Forgot password?</i> link in the login page is ommitted
as well. The admin user(s) can always change passwords.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Allow &lt;command&gt; = &lt;user list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Commands can be restricted to certain login names (separated by commas).
For each command in the list defined with the "<i>Menu commands</i>"
option, a list of user names can be specified, which are allowed to
execute that command. If the allow option is not present, all users may
execute that command by default.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Deny &lt;command&gt; = &lt;user list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Used to deny a certain command to a list of users. This can be used to
deny a guest user to enter new messages or modify a message.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Hosts allow = &lt;list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Hosts deny = &lt;list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
These two settings can be used to restrict the access to the logbook to
certain computers. It is similar to the UNIX <i>hosts.allow</i> and
<i>hosts.deny</i> files. The list can consist of individual host names or
IP numbers, subnet masks like <code><b>123.213.</b></code> (note the
trailing '.') or <code><b>.mit.edu</b></code>, or the word
<b><code>All</code></b>. The following rules are applied:
</p>
<ul>
<li>Access will be granted when a host matches a pattern in "<i>hosts
allow</i>".
</li>
<li>Otherwise, access will be denied when a host matches a pattern in
"<i>hosts deny</i>".
</li>
<li>Otherwise, access will be granted.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
These rules are applied <i>before</i> any password is checked. To debug
problems, start <code><b>elogd</b></code> with the "-v" flag, in which
case the rule checking is printed on the screen.
</p>
<p>
The global option <code><b>Logfile = &lt;filename&gt;</b></code> can be
specified to log all user login/logout activities plus all successful
user connections.
</p>
<p>
If any of the password statements are in the <b><code>[global]</code></b>
area of the configuration files, they are used for all logbooks. If one
logs in at one logbook, access is automaticlly granted to all logbooks.
If the password statements are in the individual logbook sections, one
has to log in to each logbook separately.
</p>
<h2>
Kerberos authentication
</h2>
<p>
Starting from version 2.9.0, site authentication has been implemented
in elog using the <a href="http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/">Kerberos</a>
authentication scheme. This widely used system is also used in MS Windows
Domain Controllers, and can be used for site logins, meaning that the
same credentials can be used on all computers of a site.
</p>
<p>
To use that authetication, Kerberos has to be installed on the server
running the elogd daemon. Please read the Kerberos documentation how to
do this or talk to your site administrator. There are packages for Linux,
Windows and Mac OSX. If you compile the elogd program yourself, make sure
to have the flag <code><B>HAVE_KRB5</B></code>> defined in the compilation process.
To configure elogd to use Kerberos, use following options:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Authentication = &lt;method(s)&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Kerberos Realm = &lt;realm&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
where &lt;method(s)&gt; can be <code><b>File</b></code> or
<code><b>Kerberos</b></code> or both such
as in <code><b>Kerberos, File</b></code>. If the authentication option contains
<b>Kerberos</b>, the user credentials are authenticated using the default
Kerberos Realm. This is typically obtained from the file
<b><code>c:\windows\krb5.ini</code></b> (Windows) or
<b><code>/etc/krb5.conf</code></b> (Linux). If another than the default
realm should be used, this can be overwritten with the <b><code>Kerberos
Realm</code></b> option.
</p>
<p>
When Kerberos authentication is used, the password file is still used
to store additional user information such as the full name and the email
address, but the authentication is done via the Kerberos server.
</p>
<p>
If both authentications <code><b>Kerberos, File</b></code> are enabled,
the credentials are first authenticated via the Kerberos server, and - if
not successful - via the password file. This allows combined elog
installations with centralized and local elog accounts. If the Kerberos
authentication was successful, the password in the password
file is overwritten with the encrypted Kerberos password. This allows the
system to work even if the Kerberos server is temporarily not accessible.
</p>
<p>
If the password is changed via the "Change Password" button on the config
page, the system tries to change the password in the Kerberos database. On
some installation it has been found that this does not work, in which case
you have to change your password by other means (such as via the Windows
login if you use a Windows Domain).
</p>
<p>
Beside the Kerberos authentication, elogd version 3.0 and higher can be configured to accept a authentication done
by the webserver.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Authentication = Webserver</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
You can also combine it with other authentication methods as shown for Kerberos.
</p>
<p>
Elogd is then accepting the username set in the Request-Header "X-Forwarded-User" as already logged in.<br/>
To make this work, you need to configure the webserver correctly, as describe in the adminguide.
</p>
<h2>
LDAP authentication
</h2>
<p>
LDAP (lightweight Directory Access Protocol) has been implemented by
vykozlov in a separate branch at <a href="https://github.com/vykozlov/elog-ldap">https://github.com/vykozlov/elog-ldap</a>.
The code has been merged into this distribution on
an as-is basis. Following info has copied from the link above:</p>
<p>
To use LDAP authentication, do the following:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Enable LDAP authentication in the <b><code>Makefile</code></b> by setting
<b><code>USE_LDAP = 1</code></b>
</li>
<li>
Change elogd.cf to contain LDAP authentication:
<ul>
<li><b><code>Authentication = LDAP</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>LDAP server = ldap://example.org:389</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>LDAP userbase = ou=People;dc=example,dc=org</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>LDAP login attribute = uid</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>LDAP register = 1</code></b></li>
</ul>
The <code><b>login attribute</b></code> is from the DN (distinguished name), e.g.
uid=user,ou=People,dc=example,dc=org. The <code><b>register</b></code> flag determines
if LDAP users are automatically stored in the local password file, which is
necessary for email notifications.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Please note that it is not possible to change a password in the LDAP database from within ELOG.
</p>
<h2>
PAM authentication
</h2>
<p>
PAM (Pluggable authentication modules) support has been implemented by Jan Christoph Terasa. To use PAM in elogd,
do the following:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
Compile <b><code>elogd</code></b> with PAM support, by either setting <b><code>USE_PAM = 1</code></b> in the
<b><code>Makefile</code></b>, or by specifying it when invoking <b><code>make</code></b>. If you compile
via CMake, set USE_PAM via ccmake.
</li>
<li>
Enable PAM authentication in <b><code>elogd.cfg</code></b>:
<ul>
<li><b><code>Authentication = PAM</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>Password file = elogd.passwd</code></b></li>
<li><b><code>Self register = 3</code></b></li>
</ul>
The <b><code>Password file</code></b> is used to store the user names and email addresses of PAM authenticated
users, since this information can not be (universally) requested via PAM. For security reasons the password file
does <b>not</b> store a hash of the user password.
Self registration has to be enabled (<b><code>Self register &ge; 1</code></b>) to use PAM authentication.
</li>
<li>
To be able to use PAM, the PAM module in <b><code>elogd</code></b> needs to be able to access the authentication
facilities on the system (e.g. be able to read <code>/etc/shadow</code>). This can be achieved by either running
<code><b>elogd</b></code> as <code>root</code>, or by specifying the appropriate SUID/GUID values for the
binary.</br>
<span style="color:red"><b>WARNING:</b></span> When running elogd as root, be careful when using the <code>-x</code> option
to enable execution of commands via <code>$shell</code>, since the commands will be executed using the access
rights of the user running <code>elogd</code>!</b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
Please note that it is not possible to change the PAM password within ELOG. Instead, please use the available methods
on the system
</p>
<p>
<a name="email" id="email"></a>
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
EMail notification
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Email &lt;attribute&gt; &lt;value&gt; =
&lt;list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email Subject = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email Subject Edit = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email From = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Default Email From = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email Heading = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email Heading Edit = &lt;string&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Omit Email To = 0|1</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Suppress Email to users = 0|1</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Email attributes = &lt;list&gt;</code></b>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Email URL = &lt;URL&gt;</code></b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
To send email automatically when new entries are created in a logbook, a
<code><b>SMTP host =</b></code> entry must be present in the
<b><code>[global]</code></b> section of the configuration file. To submit
an email based on an attribute value, use the statement <code><b>Email
&lt;attribute&gt; &lt;value&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</b></code>. Whenever an
entry is submitted where <b><code>attribute</code></b> is equal to
<b><code>value</code></b>, an email notification is sent to the email
addresses in <b><code>list</code></b>. Several mail addresses may be
supplied, separated by commas. The mail addresses can contain attributes
via the <b>"$"</b> substitution. If a logbook contains for example an
attribute <i>name</i> which contains email names, then one can put
<i>$name@domain</i> to form a valid email address.
</p>
<p>
Multiple <b><code>Email xxx</code></b> statements may occur in a
configuration file. If either the attribute or the value contains one or
more blanks the string must be enclosed with quotation marks, as in:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<code>Email type "Normal routine" = ...</code>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
The statement <b><code>Email All = &lt;list&gt;</code></b> sends an email
notification independent of the type and category. The <code><b>Use Email
Subject = &lt;string&gt;</b></code> statement specifies which text is
used as the email subject. The text can contain
<b><code>$&lt;attribute&gt;</code></b> statements which are substituted
with the current value of that attribute. For a full list of possible
substitutions, see the "<i>Subst &lt;attribute&gt;</i>" option. The
<b><code>Use Email Heading = &lt;string&gt;</code></b> specifies the text
for the email heading line. Default is <i>"A new entry has been submitted
on [host]"</i>. The option <b><code>Use Email Heading Edit =
&lt;string&gt;</code></b> works the same way for updated (edited)
entries.
</p>
<p>
The option <b><code>Use Email From = &lt;string&gt;</code></b> is used
for the "<i>From:</i>" field in the email. Since more and more email
servers do not accept invalid <i>"From:"</i> addresses in order to reduce
spam mail, it might be important that a "real" email address is used in
the <i>"From:"</i> field. If <b><code>Use Email From</code></b> is
present, it is always used. If not, the email address of the currently
logged in user is used for the <i>"From:"</i> field. If no user is logged
in, or the current user has not specified a email address in the password
database, the setting of the option <b><code>Default Email From</code></b>
is used for the "<i>From:</i>" field. Only if this option is not specified,
a generic address <i>ELOG@&lt;hostname&gt;</i> is used, which might be
rejected by the SMTP server however.
</p>
<p>
If the flag <code><b>Omit Email To</b></code> is set to <b>1</b>, the
<i>To:</i> field in the email is left empty instead set to the real email
address of the recipients. This can be useful if one recipient should not
see the email addresses of the other recipients.
</p>
<p>
The flag <code><b>Suppress Email to users</b></code> can be set to
<b>"1"</b> if email should only be sent to the recipients of the
<b><code>Email &lt;attribute&gt; &lt;value&gt; = &lt;list&gt;</code></b>
statements but not to the users who have registerd for automatic email
notification.
</p>
<p>
If one wants to send only some attributes but not all in an email
notification, one can use the option <b><code>Email attributes =
&lt;list&gt;</code></b>, where a subset of the attributes can be
specified as well as their order. <a name="flags" id="flags"></a>
</p>
<p>
The option <code><b>Use Email URL = &lt;URL&gt;</b></code> can be used to
set the URL of the ELOG logbook used in email notifications. This can be
useful if no <b><code>URL = ...</code></b> statement is used form some
reason.
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Flags
</div>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Show text = 0|1</code></b><br>
This flag controls if logbook entries contain a body text. If an
installation only requires attributes, this flag can be set to
<b>0</b>. Default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Enable attachments = 0|1</code></b><br>
This flag controls the attachment submission at the bottom of a message
entry page. If this flag is <b>0</b>, the attachment section is not
displayed. This might be useful for logbooks where attachments are not
used. Default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Show attachments = 0|1</code></b><br>
This flag controls the display of attachments such as images on normal
logbook pages. For logbooks with large images, this flag can be turned
off, so that attachments are only displayed when they are clicked on.
Default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preview attachments = 0|1</code></b><br>
This flag controls the display of attachments in the edit form. If one
one uploads an attachment, but has not yet submitted the entry,
the uploaded attachments are shown at the bottom if this flag is <b>1</b>.
Only ASCII files and images are shown of course. Default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Summary lines = x</code></b><br>
This specifies the number of text lines displayed in a summary page.
Zero displays no text at all. The default is 3.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Summary line length = x</code></b><br>
This specifies the number of charactes of the summary lines. After this
number of charactes, a line break is inserted in long lines to keep the
column width not too wide. The default is 40.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Attachment lines = x</code></b><br>
This specifies the number of text lines displayed for ASCII attachments.
For long ASCII attachments, it can be useful to only display the first
few lines not to make the HTML page too long. The default is <b>300</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Reverse sort = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, all listing pages (the default page view, the
result of a search query and the result of the <i>"Last day"</i> query)
is sorted in reverse order (newest entry down to oldest). The checkbox
<i>Sort in reverse order</i> on the search form gets checked by
default, too. Sorting in reverse order can make sense if there are many
pages of entries, but the ones entered last should be displayed on the
first page. Default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Search all logbooks = 0|1|2</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b> or <b>2</b>, the search form displays the button
<i>"Search all logbooks"</i>. If the flag is <b>2</b>, the button
is checked by default. Setting this flag to <b>0</b> hides this button.
It might be necessary to do this for public logbooks if
there are also protected logbooks. Otherwise the search result would
also display entries from the protected logbooks. The default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Enable browsing = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, browsing (hitting the next/previous button)
is enabled. For some rare occasions it might be necessary to disable
browsing. Default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Filtered browsing = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, browsing (hitting the next/previous button)
can be filtered by individual attributes. If the checkbox next to an
attribute is checked, only messages with the same attribute value are
displayed. Default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Default encoding = 0|1|2</code></b><br>
This specifies the default encoding for new entries. For installations
where entries are normally submitted as plain text, the default can be
set to <b>1</b>. Set to <b>0</b> for <a href=
"http://elog.psi.ch/elog/elcode_en.html">ELCode</a> encoding, to
<b>2</b> for HTML encoding. The default is <b>2</b>, which activates
the built in FCKeditor automatically for new installations. If this
editor is not wanted or people are concerned about cross site scripting,
the default encoding should be set to <b>0</b> or <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Allowed encoding = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
Allowed encoding options. <code><b>&lt;n&gt;</b></code> can be the sum of
following flags:
<ul>
<li>1 : Plain
</li>
<li>2 : ELCode encoding
</li>
<li>4 : HTML encoding
</li>
</ul>
To allow plain and HTML encoding for example, set
<code><b>&lt;n&gt;</b></code> to 5. Default is <b>7</b>. Note that
allowing HTML encoding may cause some security risk, since an elog
entry may contain malicious scripting code. It should therefor only
be allowed for installations where it is really needed and with no
public write access.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Allow HTML = 0|1</code></b><br>
This flag allows or denys the usage of HTML in attributes. Note that
allowing HTML encoding may cause some security risk, since an elog
entry may contain malicious scripting code. It should therefor only
be allowed for installations where it is really needed and with no
public write access. The default value is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Suppress default = 0|1|2|3</code></b><br>
This specifies the default state of the "<i>Suppress Email
notification</i>" button on the new message entry form. For
installations where normally an email notification is not necessary,
the default can be set to <b>1</b>. If an important entry is entered,
users can then uncheck the suppress box. If this value is set to
<b>2</b> , the suppress box is not displayed at all, so that an email
notification is always produced. If this value is set to <b>3</b>, the
email notification is always suppressed. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Suppress Email on edit = 0|1|2|3</code></b><br>
This is the same as <b><code>Suppress default</code></b>, but just for
edited entries. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Resubmit default = 0|1|2</code></b><br>
This specifies the default state of the "<i>Resubmit as new entry</i>"
button on the edit message entry from. If this button is checked, the
current message is removed from its current position in the database
and submitted as a new message. This can for example be useful for
applications where users want to see which records have been updated
recently. If this value is set to <b>2</b>, the resubmit box is not
displayed at all. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Resubmit replies = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is set to <b>1</b> and an entry is resubmited as a new
entry and this entry has replies, all replies of this entry are
resubmittes as new entries as well. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Display Email recipients = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the email recipients are displayed when a
logbook entry is entered which produces an email notification. Setting
this flag to 0 suppresses this display, in case users need not see that
email is being sent and to whom. The default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Email Format = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies what is sent in an email notification. &lt;n&gt; is the sum
of following flags:<br>
<ul>
<li>1 : Send heading line "A new entry has been submitted..."
</li>
<li>2 : Send attributes
</li>
<li>4 : Send URL of logbook entry
</li>
<li>8 : Send message body
</li>
<li>16: Send optional attachments as email attachments
</li>
<li>32: Send logbook name
</li>
<li>64: Send names of optional attachments
</li>
</ul>
So to send for example only the attributes and the URL, set
&lt;n&gt; to <b>6</b>. Default is <b>63</b> (send everything).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Email Encoding = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
Specifies in which encoding an email is sent. &lt;n&gt; is the sum of
following flags:<br>
<ul>
<li>1 : Plain text
</li>
<li>2 : HTML in the form of the plain text, but with ELCode
interpreted
</li>
<li>4 : Full HTML page as shown in elog
</li>
</ul>
So to send email in plain text and full HTML, set &lt;n&gt; to
<b>5</b>. Some email clients have the possibility then to switch from
one view to the other. Default is <b>2</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Max email attachment size = &lt;n&gt;</code></b><br>
This option specifies the maximum allowed email attachment size for
email notifications. Most mail delivery systems have a maximum attachment
size and refuse to accept emails with larger sizes. If the size of an
attachment exceeds this limit, it is not included in the email notificaiton
but rather a link to the attachment on the elog server is used.
The default value is <b>10000000</b> (ten million bytes).
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Back to main = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the "<i>List</i>" button takes you back to
the logbook selection page instead to the last entry of the current
logbook. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logout to main = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the "<i>Logout</i>" operation takes you back
to the logbook selection page instead to the login page. The default is
<b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Logout to URL = &lt;URL&gt;</code></b><br>
If this URL is set, the "<i>Logout</i>" operation takes you to
a specific web page specified in the URL.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List after submit = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the list page is shown after the
submission of a new entry. If this flag is <b>0</b>, the entry just
submitted is shown. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Restrict edit = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, users can only edit their own messages. The
system checks automatically if the currently logged in user matches the
user supplied in an author attribute via the <i>"Preset xxxx"</i>
option. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Expand default = 0|1|2|3</code></b><br>
This setting determines how messages are displayed in threaded mode.
Following options are possible:
<ul>
<li>
<b>0</b>: Only message heads are displayed, no replies. A "+"
indicates which message has one or more replies.
</li>
<li>
<b>1</b>: Messages and replies are displayed, but no message body.
</li>
<li>
<b>2</b>: Messages and replies are displayed together with the
first few lines of the message body. The number of lines is
controlled by the <code><b>Summary lines</b></code> option.
</li>
<li>
<b>3</b>: Messages and replies are displayed together with the full
message body.
</li>
</ul>
The default is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Hidden = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the logbook is not displayed in the initial
logbook selection page and in the logbook tabs. This can be useful for
logbooks which are only accessed for backup or archiving and would
clutter up the logbook list for the normal user. To access hidden
logbooks, one has to enter the logbook URL directly, or from a bookmark
list. Default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Hide Comments = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, the logbook "Comment" is not displayed in the
logbook selection page. Default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Use Lock = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is <b>1</b>, a logbook entry is <i>locked</i> when someone
edits it (clicking the <i>Edit</i> command). A locked message gets
displayed with a little red sign indicating that the message is
currently edited by someone and should not be touched. This can be
helpful in installations where several people can edit messages.
Without locking, the second submission of an edited message overwrites
the first submission without notice. Although the sign gets displayed,
the message can still be edited (the lock can be "stolen"), but it's
the user's response to avoid any conflict.<br>
<br>
Since elog cannot determine if someone keeps a message very long for
editing or if only the browser got closed, the locking can show up even
if the message is not kept for editing any more. In that case, the
message has to be edited again and submitted, to remove the origial
lock.<br>
<br>
Note that logbooks accessible from the internet usually get scanned by
search engines. This can lead to situations where the <i>Edit</i> link
of each message is "followed" by a bot, resulting in all messages being
locked. In those cases locking has to be turned off.<br>
<br>
Since release 2.5.4, some Javascript code has been added to avoid
unwanted locks. If someone edits an entry, but then goes away from that
page or closes the browser without submitting the changes, a pop-up
window appears asking the user to submit the changed entry. Although
this works for most browsers in most cases, it could be that Javascript
has been turned off in a browser, in which case the stale locks still
might appear.<br>
<br>
Default for "Use Lock" is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Show top groups = 0|1</code></b><br>
When using top groups, the root of the elogd server is not accessible
any more, to avoid cases where one group can "see" the logbooks of the
other groups. If this feature is unwanted, the flag <code><b>Show top
groups</b></code> can be set to <code><b>1</b></code>, in which case a
list of available top groups is shown.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Fix text = 0|1</code></b><br>
With this options the main text body can be fixed, so that it cannot be
changed via the <b><code>Edit</code></b> button later. This feature can
be useful for set-ups where some attributed must be changed later, but
the text body should be preserved. The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Case sensitive search = 0|1</code></b><br>
This switch has two meanings. First, it defines the default state of
the <code><b>Case sensitive</b></code> check box in the "Find" page.
Second, it determines if the quick filters are case sensitive or not.
The default is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mode commands = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this flag is missing or set to <b>1</b>, the links "Full", "Summary"
and "Threaded" are shown on the top of the listing page. If this flag
is set to <b>0</b>, these commands are hidden. This might be useful in
logbooks where only one mode makes sense for example.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Suppress execute default = 0|1</code></b><br>
External scripts can be called with the <code><b>Execute
new/edit/delete</b></code> options. If these options are enabled, a
checkbox appears which lets the user suppress execution of the external
script. The setting of this flag determines the default state of this
checkbox. In logbooks where a script should only be ocasionally
executed, it could make sense to set this flag to <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Preserve IDs = 0|1</code></b><br>
When a logbook entry is copied or moved to another logbook, it obtains
a new entry ID in the destination logbook. This can cause problems
if the logbook entries reference each other with their IDs. To keep the
same ID in the destination logbook, this setting can be set to <b>1</b>.
If an entry with the same ID in the destination logbook exists already,
it gets overwritten. Default for this setting is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Collapse to last = 0|1</code></b><br>
In threaded view, the list of replies can be collapsed into a single
entry. If this flag is 1, then the last entry of each thread is shown,
otherwise the first thread is displayed. Default for this setting is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Sort Attribute Options &lt;attribute&gt; = 0|1</code></b><br>
If this option is 1, the options for this attribute are sorted alphanumerically.
This can be handy when locating options from long lists in drop-down boxes in
quick filters for example. Default for this setting is <b>0</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Allow branching = 0|1</code></b><br>
With this option one can probihit "branching", which is that an entry gets
more than one reply. When branching is prohibited, only linear threads are
possible, which is one head entry, one reply to it, then one reply to the reply
and so on. Default for this setting is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Enable Smileys = 0|1</code></b><br>
When encoding an entry with ELCode, certain sequenes such as <b>:-)</b> get
automatically converted into small "smiley" images. If this behavior is not
wanted, it can be turned off with this option. The default for this setting is <b>1</b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Refresh = &lt;seconds&gt;</code></b><br>
The elog listing page can be refreshed periodically with this option. If it is
given, the page automatically reloads after &lt;seconds&gt;. This can be useful
for logbooks where other people often post entries or where some entries
are posted automatically (via the elog utility) and one wants to keep an eye on
what's new. The default for this setting is <b>0</b> meaning no refresh.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Show last default = &lt;days&gt;</code></b><br>
In large logbooks, search operations can take quite long, blocking other users
from accessing ELOG. On the <i>Find</i> page, one can restrict the search operation
to a certain time period, like last day, last week, etc, which makes searching
much faster, but restricts it to a certain time in the past. If one forgets
however to enter anyting in the <i>Show last</i> drop-down box, then the
search again can take quite long. This option pre-selects an option in the
<i>Show last</i> drop-down box, so that the user does not have to think about
selecting a certain time period. Following options are possible: <b>0, 1, 3,
7, 31, 92, 182, 364</b>. "0" means an unrestricted search default.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Save drafts = 0|1</code></b><br>
Starting with version 3.1, ELOG supports auto saving. When text for a new
entry is entered in the browser, it might get lost if the browser windows is
closed before the entry has been submitted. In order to avoid this, entries
can be saved as drafts, to be finished and submitted later. This can be
achieved by clicking on the <b><code>Save</code></b> button or by the
<i>autosave</i> feature (see next option). The <b><code>Save drafts</code></b>
option turns this feature on or off. Default is <b><code>1</code></b>.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Autosave = &lt;seconds&gt;</code></b><br>
Drafts can be sent to the server regularly after some editing (see previous
option). This option determines the interval this is done. The default is
<b><code>10</code></b> seconds after the last edit. Setting Autosave to
zero disables the autosave functionality.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>List drafts = 0|1</code></b><br>
By default, draft entries are shown in the list display in another browser
when the entries are currently edited. This can be confusing to other users
since the draft entries are frequently updated. To avoid this, this flag can
be se to <b><code>0</code></b>, which hides all draft entries in the list view.
If they are hidden, the only way to come back to them is to hit the
<b><code>New</code></b> menu item, in which case the system presents to the user
a list of open draft messages to be continued.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Hard wrap = 0|1</code></b><br>
If entries are entered in plain text mode, the browser adds automatically a
CRLF at the end of each line where the text wraps. This ensures that the submitted
entry has the same line breaks as in the edit box. If this behaviour is not
wanted, the adding of hard wraps can be turned off by setting this value to <b>0</b>.
If the user then enters a very long line without hitting the newline key,
the long line is preserved which can make it hard to read.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
<a name="themes" id="themes"></a>
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Themes
</div>
<p>
Themes are layout and color schemes which determine the look and feel of
a logbook (sometimes called <i>"skins"</i>). A theme consists of a set of
images, which are used for the title banner and browse buttons, and a
Cascading Style Scheet (CSS), which defines the colors, fonts and spacing
of the ELOG pages.
</p>
<p>
Each theme resides in a separate subdirectory and is specified with the
<b><code>theme = &lt;dir&gt;</code></b> option in the configuration file.
Each theme can contain several CSSs, which can be selected with the
<b><code>CSS = &lt;filename&gt;</code></b> option.
</p>
<p>
A default theme is contained in the distribution. If new themes are
developed by users, they can be sent back to the author, to be included
in future releases.
</p>
<p>
To change colors and fonts, the source of a ELOG page can be examined.
All elements use CSS classes which are specified in the
<b><code>class="&lt;name&gt;"</code></b> statements. These classes can be
found in the <b><code>.../themes/default/default.css</code></b> file and
changed accordingly. For a description of all options, please consult for
example the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1">W3C</a> consortium.
</p>
<p>
If the CSS file is edited, most browsers require a "reload" to refresh
the modified file. The <b>elogd</b> daemon does not have to be restarted
after a change in the CSS file.
</p>
<p>
These two images display the same logbook entry using different themes:
</p>
<p>
<img src="theme1.jpg"><img src="theme2.jpg">
</p>
<p>
<a name="mirroring" id="mirroring"></a>
</p>
<hr>
<div class="section">
Mirroring
</div>
<p>
Sometimes it can be useful to have the same ELOG logbook on two different
computers. This might be the case if you travel with your laptop, but
want to keep the logbooks from your desktop computer on the laptop. The
problem is that if you add an entry on your laptop, the logbooks on the
laptop and the desktop get out of sync. Merging only the ELOG database
files does not help, since two entries could be made at the same day on
the laptop and the desktop, which would lead to a conflict in that day's
database file.
</p>
<p>
To solve this problem, <i>mirroring</i> was introduced from Version 2.5.0
on. This technology allows to synchronize one ELOG server with a number
of other servers on a per-entry basis. No additional software is needed,
only two elogd daemons talking to each other. The synchronization can be
executed manually or periodically. If entries are changed/added/deleted
on both sides, they get merged properly during synchronization. In order
to minimize network traffic, each ELOG server calculates a MD5 checksum
for each message, which gets exchanged during synchronization. Only when
the MD5 checksum differs, entries are transferred.
</p>
<p>
To set-up mirroring, install two elogd servers on two machines (for
testing purpose that also works on one machine with two elogd servers
running on different ports). This can be done in two ways:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<b>Automatic configuration</b>
<p>
A complete elog server can be transferred to a secondary server using
the <code><b>clone</b></code> command. Assume the existing server
resides at <code><b>http://master.your.domain/</b></code>, and you
want to mirror this server to a new location at
<code><b>http://slave.your.domain/</b></code>. You do that by
installing the elog package at the slave machine, and then executing
on the slave:
</p>
<pre>
elogd -C http://master.your.domain
</pre>
or
<pre>
elogd -C https://master.your.domain
</pre>
for a remote server running under the SSL protocol. Note that you
have to put "Allow clone = 1" temporarily into the elogd.cfg file of
your existing server to allow cloning. This opens a password-free
access to your existing server, so remove it immediately after you
finished cloning.
<p>
This command tells elogd to retrieve the configuration file, and
optionally all logbook entries and password files from the master
machine. Note that both servers must be version 2.5.4 or later. In
case of trouble, you can turn on verbose messaging:
</p>
<pre>
elogd -v -C http://master.your.domain
</pre>
<p>
which could give some hints. If a logbook on the master server uses
restricted access, you have to specify the admin user name and
password. After everything has been transferred, you can start elogd
in the normal way.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<b>Manual configuration</b>
<p>
First, copy the elogd.cfg file from the master to the slave server.
Make sure that the files are identical (except the port setting if
you run two servers on the same machine). Then, add the following
configuration options. They should be put into the [global] section
of the cofiguration file:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror server = &lt;URL-list&gt;</code></b><br>
<br>
This statement specifies one or more mirror servers. Each URL must
contain the host, port and possible subdirectory of the remote
server, as if you would access it through your browser. A typical
statement looks like:<br>
<br>
<code>Mirror server = myhost.mydomain.org:8080,
http://another.server.org/elog/, https://yet.another.org</code><br>
<br>
The URL should not contain any logbook name, this gets added
automatically. The second example contains a subdirectory, which is
typically used if the elogd daemon runs under an Apache proxy.
The third example shows a server running under the SSL protocol.
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror config = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
<br>
Normally, only the logbook entries are mirrored. One can also
mirror the contents of the elogd.cfg configuration file for
individual logbooks. This can be turned on by setting this option
to <b><code>1</code></b>. Default is <b><code>0</code></b>. Only
the individual logbook section is mirrored, not the [global]
section. Settings which are specific to one server, for example the
<b><code>URL =</code></b> statement, should then be kept in the
[global] section, so that they are not mirrored between different
servers.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror cron = Minute Hour Day Month Weekday</code></b><br>
<br>
This statement turns on periodic mirroring. The format is similar
to the UNIX <code><b>cron</b></code> command. Each of the five
values can either be an asterisk, which means all possible values,
a comma-separated list or a range. It can be explained most easily
with examples:<br>
<br>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>
Mirror cron=
</th>
<th>
meaning
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
0 3 * * *
</td>
<td>
Every night at 3:00
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
30 7 1,15 * *
</td>
<td>
At 7:30 every 1st and 15th of a month
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
0 12 10 10 *
</td>
<td>
Once a year at 12:00 on my birthday
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
0 7-18 * * 1-5
</td>
<td>
Once every hour from 7:00 to 18:00 from Monday to Friday
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
Valid ranges for each value are:<br>
<br>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
Minute
</td>
<td>
0-59
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Hour
</td>
<td>
0-23
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Day
</td>
<td>
1-31
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Month
</td>
<td>
1-12
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Weekday
</td>
<td>
0-6 with 0=Sunday, 1=Monday, etc.
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<br>
If mirroring is turned on, it is advisable to use the
<b><code>Logfile =</code></b> option to turn on logging, so that
one can inspect the logfile to see if the mirroring works
correctly.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror user = &lt;name&gt;</code></b><br>
<br>
If periodic mirroring is used via the <code><b>Mirror cron
=</b></code> statement and the remote logbook uses user-level
access, this statement specifies the user name which is used to log
in to the remote logbook. The password is taken from the local
password file and has to match the password in the remote password
file, otherwise the access is not allowed. The user name is typical
the login name of the administrator.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror simulate = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
<br>
If one wants to try out mirroring without causing any harm, one can
turn on this flag. During synchronization, entries are compared and
necessary transfers are displayed, but not executed. Default is
<b><code>0</code></b>.<br>
<br>
</li>
<li>
<b><code>Mirror exclude = 0 | 1</code></b><br>
<br>
By default, all logbooks are mirrored. Individual logbooks might be
excluded from mirroring by putting <b><code>Mirror exclude =
1</code></b> in their individual logbook section of the
configuration file (<b>Not</b> the [global] section). Default is
<b><code>0</code></b>.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
If the statement <code><b>Mirror server</b></code> is present in the
configuration file, a new menu option <b><code>"Synchronize"</code></b>
appears on the elog page. Clicking on this menu options starts the
synchronization:<br>
<br>
<img src="sync.gif"><br>
<br>
On the left side one sees the entry ID's. Entries which are equal locally
and remotely are not displayed. Here are the rules for
synchronization:<br>
<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>If an entry has been modified locally but not remotely, it is
submitted to the remote server.
</li>
<li>If an entry has been modified remotely but not locally, it is
retrieved from the remote server and saved locally.
</li>
<li>If an entry has been modified remotely and locally since the last
synchronization, an error is shown that the entries are conflicting. In
that case one has to merge the entries manually and delete it on one
side.
</li>
<li>If an entry has been deleted locally, it is deleted remotely.
</li>
<li>If an entry has been deleted remotely, it is deleted locally.
</li>
<li>If a new entry exists locally, it is submitted.
</li>
<li>If a new entry exists remotely, it is retrieved from the remote
server and saved locally.
</li>
<li>If new entries exist locally and remotely having the same entry ID,
the local entries are changed to have higher entry IDs, then the remote
ones are retrieved. Care should be taken if external links (such as
<b><code>elog:123</code></b>) to the local entries are used, since they
will point afterwards to the wrong entry.
</li>
</ul>
<p>
By starting the synchronization on one elogd server, this server becomes
the client and the other one becomes the server. This means that the
local server actively compares the local and the remote messages, and
updates one or the other if necessary. The other (remote) server does not
need to have any mirror option in its configuration file, since the local
server simulates a web browser to send and retrieve messages to the
remote server. It is however allowed that the remote server also contains
some mirror settings in the configuration file, this way the
synchronization can be started from both servers.
</p>
<hr>
<div class="footer">
Content by <a class="nav" href="mailto:Stefan.Ritt@psi.ch">Stefan
Ritt</a>, Web pages by <a class="nav" href="mailto:fredp@mygale.org">Fred
Pacquier</a>
</div>
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