A new Ringlink instance?

[brisray]

After the loss of Neorings earlier this month I have started a new project. I want to recreate the old Ringlink webring system.

The last version of Ringlink was version 3.4, written in 2017. I will be running it on the latest version of Strawberry Perl with the latest versions of the added Perl libraries and modules, especially the security ones, Ringlink will run with.

I installed the basic files this morning, until I get everything configured properly the links on the page go to the long gone Ringlink page or give a server error.

It might take a couple of days to configure with a bit longer to test. It might even have to be abandoned depending on how it goes. Whatever happens, it will keep me amused for a while.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Already had the idea to create a open webring system using php, but didn't manage it till now (and I'm not sure if there aren't any complications I don't see yet). If you succeed to setup the system, I'll gladly use yours ;).

[brisray]

I chose one of the older Perl systems because that's what I've already got installed. I did that to make AWStats work and I think I can get the old program to work. Most of the sites using Anvilfire's rings are long gone, but the code still works.

Some of the older PHP ring code is still around as well.

[oerrorpage]

i tried to install ringlink but it kept saying an error about a language file.

[brisray]

I had all sorts of problems getting this up and at least running. I had to walk away from the computer a couple of times in disgust and frustration both with myself and the idiot program.

I used the shiny new ZLIB library from CPAN. Do not do that, it just produces a ton of errors. Use the original ZLIB.

Running some of the cgi Perl files I was getting the error message

    Missing file: 'statsupdate.txt'
    Create it by running the "Reset stats" routine from admin.pl

Then everything started complaining about a missing mo folder in the lang folder. Which I think is the message @oerrorpage is getting. I had a look the Perl programs in Visual Studio Code to see if I could spot something obvious. I found a mistake I made in the main configuration file, rlconfig.pm, and corrected that and found if any of the programs could not find that mo folder, all of them just stop and exit.

I ended up running all the Perl programs and seeing what happened. There's a file called langinstall.pl (I think it was that one) that populates the mo folder. After that the admin interface and everything else opens properly.

I'm going to start testing the install tomorrow. I'll make up some rings and users and see what happens and make sure everything is secure as I can. I'll write my own "how to" just for a reminder to myself what I did and how how I fixed things that went wrong.

The image is of the main admin panel for the install, and everything seems to work. We'll see what other work I have to do.

[brisray]

A little bit of an update.

I had to stop work on it for a while (family issues) but it sort of works but still not ready. The most annoying part is that Linux, which Ringlink was really designed to run on, has something called Sendmail installed which contains its own SMTP (email) server. Of course I run Windows which does not. The Windows versions of Sendmail contains the transport layer but not the server part.

Neither Yahoo or Gmail have a reliable email relay service I can use, so now I am looking at either installing my own Windows email server such as hMailServer, which are notoriously insecure and fiddly or using an email relay service.

I'm working my way through the options, but whatever I do, it seems that I now have to reconfigure Ringlink or even rewrite part of some of the Perl files. Frustrating but it's getting there, all the forms work and the databases are being written to but the automatic email notifications are not.

You can see where I am with it, I also made a copy of the Ringlink Perl files and removed the protection on them for anyone to look at.

[Melooon]

using an email relay service.

This forum uses SendGrid - Iv found it to be very easy to work with and reliable (just remember to turn off email tracking because by default they convert every link into a track-able link) - the only issue for us is that the forum really pushes the limits of the free plan and even their cheapest paid plan is way more than we need But for a webring instance this would not be an issue!

I'm also on the lookout for one to use with my newsletter (about 600 emails a month needed)

[brisray]

SendGrid is in the list I am looking at. The closest language support it has on their site is for Python but I just looked around on CPAN and there are Perl modules for it.

The Ringlink documentation skims over this part, but it depends on several Perl modules, which themselves have their own dependencies so I am getting used to installing and using them.