Xapian discuss - Aug 2005 - Getting Omega to execute and generate XML

Hello,

I've been posting recently and James helped me quite a bit but I'm
afraid I
need a little bit more help. I can't get Omega to execute any scripts.
I've
been reading the documentation and relevant mail list postings over and over 
but I can't seem to figure it out on my own. I think I'm missing out on 
something that I'm not aware of at all. Can someone help me out here?

Here's my situation:

I've builded Xapian and Omega using Cygwin on my Windows XP configuration. 
I've build my dynamic website using PHP and Mysql and now I'm trying to
add
search functionality with Omega/Xapian as backend. I've been able to 
implement php code that generates a text file (scriptindex input file) and 
run omegascript to put the new document in the Xapian database. This works 
fine.

Now I want to request XML from PHP using a predefined omega template but I 
can't get this to work. Can someone be more specific about how to do this 
because I really don't get it. I thought it would be a nice start to try and
open a template page (the shipped xml template) just to test if everything 
works ok. After that I would change the php script so that it would request 
the output of this page.

I've tried the following:

I've put the xml template in my websites cgi-bin directory. I thought I 
would be able to generate xml by directing my browser to the following url:
http://localhost/test/cgi-bin/xml?DB=default&P=searchterm1+searchterm2      
(in this 'test' is the name of my website)

When I do this I just get the script from the xml template viewed in my 
browser. The script isn't carried out but being displayed in my browser?! Is
this because I didn't configure Omega the right way or do I need to call 
Omega in a different way than the way I do currently?

What files do I need to copy to my cgi-bin directory? I tested with copying 
omega.exe to my cgi-bin dir but I also tried copying the whole Omega 
installation to my cgi-bin dir. It just doesn't work.

As I said I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on something very essential
here
(or maybe even more than one thing) but I can't figure it out. I've been
trying a lot of different things and did hours of reading and websearching 
but I'm running out of options. Is there someone that can point me in the 
right direction?

Any help would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance!!

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 14:20:59 +0200, Floris Bos wrote:

Hi Florian,
> Here's my situation:
> 
> I've builded Xapian and Omega using Cygwin on my Windows XP
configuration.
> I've build my dynamic website using PHP and Mysql and now I'm
trying to add
> search functionality with Omega/Xapian as backend. I've been able to 
> implement php code that generates a text file (scriptindex input file) and 
> run omegascript to put the new document in the Xapian database. This works 
> fine.
So far, so good.
> Now I want to request XML from PHP using a predefined omega template but I 
> can't get this to work. Can someone be more specific about how to do
this
> because I really don't get it. I thought it would be a nice start to
try and
> open a template page (the shipped xml template) just to test if everything 
> works ok. After that I would change the php script so that it would request
> the output of this page.
> 
> I've tried the following:
> 
> I've put the xml template in my websites cgi-bin directory. I thought I
> would be able to generate xml by directing my browser to the following url:
> http://localhost/test/cgi-bin/xml?DB=default&P=searchterm1+searchterm2
> (in this 'test' is the name of my website)
There seems to be a missunderstading here. You don't put your templates
into the CGI directory, you put then where ever you configured omega to
look for them -- this is done in the omega.conf file (which a default
omega expects to be in $PREFIX/ect/omega.conf. I have no idea how cygwin
treats/honors $PREFIX). Anyway, there should be a configuration option
'template_dir'. My configuration file looks like this:

 database_dir /var/lib/omega/data
 template_dir /var/lib/omega/templates 
 log_dir /var/log/omega

Once this is set up, put your template into the template directory. Now,
put the omega binary int oyour CGI directory and make it executable by the 
webserver. To select a specific template just pass the  template name
(sans path!) as the FMT parameter to the CGI script. 
> When I do this I just get the script from the xml template viewed in my
> browser. 
<rant>
 Horrors! Your webserver should _never_ send any file as is from the CGI
 directory! This is a major security flaw. It should try to execute the
 xml and if that fails (and it should :) the server should just send a 500
 response.
</rant>
> The script isn't carried out but being displayed in my browser?! Is
this
> because I didn't configure Omega the right way or do I need to call
> Omega in a different way than the way I do currently?
See above.
> What files do I need to copy to my cgi-bin directory? I tested with
> copying omega.exe to my cgi-bin dir but I also tried copying the whole
> Omega installation to my cgi-bin dir. It just doesn't work.
Only omega.exe. That's enough. But configure it with 'omega.conf'.
> As I said I'm pretty sure I'm missing out on something very
essential
> here (or maybe even more than one thing) but I can't figure it out.
I've
> been trying a lot of different things and did hours of reading and
> websearching but I'm running out of options. Is there someone that can
> point me in the right direction?
> 
> Any help would be very much appreciated, thanks in advance!!
 HTH Ralf Mattes

Hi Ralf,

Thanks for your quick reply, I'm starting to get close now but I think I 
need your help one more time. There is one thing I still don't understand. 
You said:

"Now, put the omega binary int oyour CGI directory and make it executable
by
the
webserver"

I don't really see how to do this. Is this about enabling my webserver to 
permit cgi execution? I've done this by following the steps in this manual:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/cgi.html#configuringapachetopermitcgi
but this manual describes something different I believe. It's about 
permitting to execute scripts from a certain directory but the omega 
executable is not a script but the program that runs the scripts so I'm 
getting awfully confused now.

I did configure Omega the right way using the omega.conf file so it should 
be able to find my templates. I copied Omega to the directory cgi-bin\search 
so it's full path is:
C:\Apache\htdocs\test\cgi-bin\search\omega.exe

Maybe I can understand this better by asking exactly how to call Omega.exe 
to run the script template. I thought I would do this like:

http://localhost/test/cgi-bin/search?DB=default&P=test&FMT=xml

When I do this I get the error I usually get when I mistype an ul: can't 
find the server
(translated from dutch so english message might differ)

Is the way I call Omega in the above example the right way to do it or am I 
going wrong at this point. I'm trying to find out if I'm still calling
Omega
the wrong way or if it is my webserver configuration that needs to be 
changed (and if the latter is the case, what do I exactly need to tell my 
webserver to permit).

Thanks in advance!

- Floris

Hi Ralf,

Thanks again for the info. I indeed mixed up a few things (putting the 
templates in the cgi dir wasn't very smart). I've used your comments and
have been able to call omega the right way. However now I get the following 
error in my browser window when calling Omega: this program cannot run in 
DOS mode (and after that a whole lot of strange signs - the source code of 
the omega executable I guess).

I'm running on a Windows XP pc with Cygwin installed on it. However I have 
my webserver (Apache) and PHP installed on Windows (not build under Cygwin). 
I thought I would be able to build Omega under Cygwin and than use it in 
combination with my Apache webserver that runs in my Windows XP environment. 
Now I'm starting to get the feeling that in order to work with Omega I need 
to build Apache under Cygwin and serve my webpage from there (this would 
mean I also have to build PHP and Mysql within Cygwin). Is this the case?
I thougt that I would be able to call Omega straight from Apache running in 
Windows XP environment because I can also use scriptindex.exe like this.

By the way, my omega config file is in this dir: C:\cygwin\home\Omega\etc

It looks like this:

database_dir /home/omega/data
template_dir /home/omega/templates
log_dir /var/log/omega

I hope you can help me understand this better because I'm getting confused 
by building under Cygwin wether programs build under Cygwin can only be used 
from within the Cygwin environment or not.

Thanks,

Floris