Osiris - Serverless Portal System - Articles

Isis - SEO

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:16:14 GMT

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are not enabled by default in Isis, because require Apache & mod_rewrite already enabled.

Enabling SEO

Enable the option services.link.seo.enabled.
If you want to have a default portal, specify it in services.link.seo.home_portal.

Use portal aliases: give a name of interesting portals (alphanumeric or _), this short alias will be used by SEO.

Use the option services.link.list for custom links, typically shortcut to important ID. See the example below. Note the use of the [S] flag: identify links converted by SEO.

Special case: Isis in a subdirectory, SEO at root.

Our project server host an unique Isis, in a subdirectory of web-root.
It's here: http://www.osiris-sps.org/isis
It's a special SEO configuration, because the requests for http://www.osiris-sps.org are catched by Isis and considered requests for a default portal.

Options used:

services.link.seo.enabled :
Yes

services.link.seo.htaccess (tell to create the .htaccess file in previous directory of our Isis):
../

services.link.seo.path (virtual path of SEO):
/

services.link.seo.home_portal (our Osiris Official): 010000010D2C4E505C1D98B221E222CABE4E167BECB2D669

services.link.list (custom short link; only few as example):

start /isis/?%2Fportals%2Fview%3Fid%3D0300000265FEF2640A89C24EF2D945AA2E9A8C035810BB7D%26portal%3D010000010D2C4E505C1D98B221E222CABE4E167BECB2D669 [S]
contribute /isis/?%2Fportals%2Fview%3Fid%3D03000002C6B12993B627D6080141BA098C40EC09FCCF6EE7%26portal%3D010000010D2C4E505C1D98B221E222CABE4E167BECB2D669 [S]
support /isis/?%2Fportals%2Fview%3Fid%3D030000025A08ABABD14A590162B8839E94F3C105E65F79BA%26portal%3D010000010D2C4E505C1D98B221E222CABE4E167BECB2D669 [S]

Report a problem

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:09:19 GMT

If you discover a problem or crash, report it in our forums.

English:
Italian: http://www.osiris-sps.org/forums/index.php?showforum=16
English: http://www.osiris-sps.org/forums/index.php?showforum=63

Please specify:

Osiris Version
Your platform (Windows / Linux / OSX) and version (ex. Windows 7 64-bit)
What kind of distribution: with Installer, Portable, Firefox extension, etc.
If the problem are reproducible any time or not
Steps to reproduce the problem
Please report an Osiris Log.

How to have the log

To enable the log, look the image on the right: Enter in "Logs" tab, click the "tools" button, and ensure that "Enable", "Save on file" and "Debug" are checked. After that, reproduce the problem, and send to us the log.

To find it, use the menù "Tools", click "Data folder", enter in "log" directory and send to us the file "osiris-sps.log".

If you can't open the software, try to launch it from prompt/console with the "/verbose" option.


osiris.exe /verbose

It automatically enable log on files and set the debug level messages.

Recovery

If the problem are urgent, and you can't wait for a technical overview from our developers, you can launch Osiris in Recovery mode, by launch it from the icon in the Start menù (under Windows, and under the Installer edition), or launch it from prompt/console with the "/recovery" option.


osiris.exe /recovery

Please note that launching Osiris in recovery mode:

Reset all your options
Reinstall all extensions preinstalled with Osiris
Force the regeneration of internal data, for example search indexes.

Recovery don't destroy any of your portal data, only the system options you have changed from the default.

If in doubt, please ask for support in our forums.

Advanced report

If a crash occur, under Windows or Mac OSX, send to us the crash report.
Under Linux, read the article Trace crash informations under Linux

Customize default header links, adding a logo

Mon, 30 May 2011 23:11:26 GMT

By default, Osiris suggest a standard collections of links for the current portal.
It's possible to redefine this with an instance, typically for:

Insert other links, specific to the portal
Insert a logo image
Change the graphics layout.

Actually (0.X) it's possibile by creating an instance with the following properties:

The title must be Header
Instance Area must be Top
We reccomend to use block type None
When Show must be Show from the section that contains it
In this example, we use a simple Text module.
We reccomend to use as Internal Style, padding:0px; , to avoid the default margin.

An example OML code:


[nobr]
[div style="text-align:center;margin-right:320px;"]
	[img src="osiris://|skin|images/logo/logo1.png"/]
[/div]
[div class="os_portallinks"]
	[iurl="osiris://|url|portals/view"]Home[/iurl]
	[iurl="osiris://|url|portals/search"]Search[/iurl]
	[iurl="osiris://|url|portals/users"]Users[/iurl]
	[iurl="osiris://|url|portals/latest_discussions"]View new discussions[/iurl]
	[iurl="osiris://|url|portals/changes"]Recent changes[/iurl]
[/div]
[/nobr]

We use [nobr] tag to avoid unwanted carriage-return.
We define a logo box (div) that contain, centered, the logo image. The CSS style "margin-right" is for skip the space used by user-box.
We define the links. CSS class "os_portallinks" are the default CSS style, also for links/buttons.

Note: In 1.X version, this approach will be replaced with a POV option.

Client Directory Structure

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:19:16 GMT

Osiris have a binary directory, that contain executable and library.
When start, it read a file called system.xml that tell where the other "main" directory are collocated. Paths are different for each platform and distribution mode (install vs portable, for example).
The main directory are: share, data, temp and log.
share must be read-only, the others must be writable.
temp and log normally are under data. For example, are different (on the file-system hierarchy) under Debian.

Data

If missing, "Data" directory are created during the first execution of Osiris.

Path	Notes
config	Configurations. Plugins or extensions may write here system-configuration files.
options.xml	Osiris XML options file. Saved by "settings" page.
extensions	Extensions installed. Managed by "addons" page.
log	Optionally. Log files, if serialization is enabled.
store	Plugins and Extensions data.
532E9E0A68EB22E08240965CFA9366DFA6A26A62	SQLite data. By default, SQLite is the database storage plugin for portals, so the databases of each portals are stored here.
DCCDAE3A28324F6BB5F5578A18A63BD0DAE3587A	DHT data.
portals	Portals data. Contain XML data of each subscribed portals, and additional generated data (for example, Lucene search indexes)
temp	Optionally. Temporary files.
machine.bin	Digital key of the current machine.

Path	Notes
certificates	SSL certificates
db	Databases XML structure, use for building and migrating databases.
extensions	Extensions packages (file .osiris) automatically installed during first launch (when "Data" directory are created)
license	License text files, in different languages. Showed by "about" page.
plugins	Data directory of plugins.
schemas	XSD schemas for XML validation.
ui	UI resources
res	Images and sounds used by UI
templates	Extensions templated used by UI - Extensions Wizard Generator
cultures.xml	Data about cultures (names, date formats etc.)
changelog.txt	Changelog text file. Showed by "about" page.

Use Osiris with TOR

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:38:37 GMT

Go to TOR Project, https://www.torproject.org/
Download and install the Vidalia Bundle.

Under Windows, the Vidalia Bundle already contains Polipo.
Under Linux, you may need to install it. Look as example this Ubuntu guide.
Launch and wait until TOR network is connected
In Osiris main window, open the wizard configurator
In the proxy page, specify HTTP proxy, the address and the port where TOR is listening (127.0.0.1 : 8118 is the Polipo default port).
With the Osiris web interface, go to any portal, open the assistant, and open the lists of pages
Go to the Nodes pages
Check if the TOR status is green.

Note: It's normal if the Super test fail, when using TOR you can't be reachable directly.

Configure a dedicated VPS/Cloud

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:38:37 GMT

Overview

There are a lot of VPS (Virtual Private Service) or Cloud at cheapest price.
An example is https://directspace.net/ , that offer VPS at 4$/2.8€ at month.
This kind of service can be useful to activate an Osiris node on the internet.
Advantage:

Highest bandwidth
Directly connected (no NAT)
Always up 24h/24h
Remote management

This howto it's a generic guide about installing and configuring the VPS for Osiris. Is not specific to a VPS/Cloud vendor.

Installation and Configuration

Buy a VPS/Cloud service and install the operating-system. In this how-to we use Debian 6 64 bit, but other linux distribution can be used.
Connect to the console. We use Putty for console, and WinSCP as file-manager.
Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add Osiris repository:
deb http://www.osiris-sps.org/repository/debian stable non-free
Update the system:
apt-get update apt-get upgrade
Install Osiris
apt-get install osiris-sps
Launch the console version of Osiris for the first time
cd /usr/lib/osiris-sps ./console
Wait until are showed Osiris is ready., and quit with Ctrl+C.
The first default launch will create the default configuration.
Locate and edit the configuration file, that's under
{your_home_directory}/.osiris-sps/config/options.xml
If you install Osiris as root, it's under /root/.osiris-sps/config/options.xml
The default file contain:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?> <options> <option name="p2p.server.port" value="54647"/> <option name="web.server.port" value="58252"/> </options>
Annotate the P2P and the WEB port, and add the highlighted line:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?> <options> <option name="p2p.server.port" value="54647"/> <option name="web.server.port" value="58252"/> <option name="web.allow_remote_connections" value="true"/> </options>
You are ready, start Osiris with
/usr/lib/osiris-sps/console

Machine configuration

We report here a simple example startup script that configure machine, firewall and launch Osiris:

Create a machine startup script /root/startup.sh:
#!/bin/bash # Flush (clear all existing rules) iptables -F iptables -F INPUT iptables -F OUTPUT iptables -F FORWARD # Optional: Allow incoming pings (can be disabled) iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j ACCEPT # Allow loopback iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT # Allow established sessions to receive traffic: iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT # Allow 22/SSH port iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT # Allow Osiris P2P port iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 54647 -j ACCEPT # Optional: Allow Osiris Web port - Read the "Advanced Security" in the how-to iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 58252 -j ACCEPT # Blocking traffic iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -j DROP iptables -A FORWARD -j DROP # Optional: Launch Osiris. Here we propose a loop, to relaunch automatically if crash occur. cd /usr/lib/osiris-sps #./console for (( ; ; )) do date -u >start.log ./console echo 1m pause sleep 1m done exit 0
You need to replace P2P port and WEB port with your numbers read previously in the configuration file.
Ensure that script can be executed:
chmod 700 /root/startup.sh

Launch Osiris

Your have different possibility:

Launch manually:
/root/startup.sh
Remember: if you connect to SSH, and manually launch Osiris, Osiris will be terminated when you close the session.
Launch in background.

Another approach is using screen utility.
- Install it
  apt-get install screen
- After connect to the console, launch
  screen -S osiris
- Launch Osiris
  /root/startup.sh
Now you can close the terminal, Osiris will not be terminated.
To reconnect, open terminal, and launch
screen -r osiris
You will see the Osiris output log.
Configure to run at system startup.
Edit /etc/rc.local and insert the script path
su - root -c "screen -A -m -d -S osiris /root/startup.sh"
just before the "exit 0" line.

Advanced SSH Security

In the above configuration, anyone can connect to your web-interface.

In the startup.sh script, you can comment the line Allow Osiris WEB port and optionally the mcp.password.
If you do that, the web interface can't be directly reached from outside.

After that, you can configure your SSH client to do a Port Forwarding.

For example, with Putty:
Go to Putty Configuration > Connection > SSH > Tunnels
Specify the 58252 (your example web port) in Source port and localhost:58252 in Destination, and click Add. Remember to save the session.

Only when you are connected through SSH to your machine, you can access the Osiris web-interface with the url


http://localhost:58252

.

Your local request will be catched by Putty, crypted, sended through SSH tunnel, the server itself request the page to Osiris, and send the result to you.

It's more secure because:

You don't need an additional Osiris authentication, because you need SSH authentication.
Requests are crypted.

Remember

If you connect to SSH via Putty, and manually launch Osiris, Osiris will be terminated when you close the session.
Launch Osiris in background or via "Screen" utility.
Backup your system, at minimum the Osiris accounts created. Under Debian, data are stored here under /root/.osiris-sps
In this guide, the root user is used. For semplicity, and because we normally activate dedicated VPS with nothing else. Configure Osiris to run under a linux-user if you want to activate a node under an already exists server.

Todo

- MCP Restriction

Additional notes

On DirectSpace network, by default are installed a CentOS. First of all, connect to client area, and re-install the system if you want to use Debian (used in this how-to).