Technical FAQ

In fact, VHFFS use a PostgreSQL server to store all its data. This server must be different of the PostgreSQL server for websites and can be secure (all passwords are in the database and websites must not have access to it).

You have to be root to install successfully vhffs on your system. The install script write his files in /usr/share/vhffs and /usr/lib/vhffs directories and create the /etc/vhffs/vhffs.conf file if it doesn't exist.

In fact, all versions can be used, from 7.4 to lastest. However, it is better to use the lastest version of PostgreSQL, the 7.4 has some problems when VHFFS has many users (more than 2000).

Your system should have the libnss-pgsql library installed. With it, the system can found users on your system through the VHFFS database.

This is a mistake in the pg_hba.conf file. The pg_hba.conf is used to specify which user can connect on the database. For more informations, please read the PostgreSQL documentation on http://www.postgresql.org.

Very simple :

1. Stop your webserver (apache2ctl stop)
2. Edit the config file of vhffs (/etc/vhffs/vhffs.conf), then, be sure that you have open = no in the <panel/> section.
3. Restart your webserver (apache2ctl start)

To open the panel, simply edit vhffs.conf and put open=yes.

You probably use a lockfile. Simply delete this lockfile, the robots will run again.

You probably forgot to install a perl-dependency. So, you should see the perl error message on you error log on Apache. This error message tells which perl module is missing. Simply install this module by the way you want (cpan or package from your distribution).

Another way to check if your installation contains all necessary perl-modules is to run the vhffs-checkinstall program (/usr/bin/vhffs-checkinstall).

The panel uses the /tmp/ directory to put sessions informations. Be sure that Apache can write files in the directory.

There is two methods :

1. If you use Debian (or debian-like distribution like Ubuntu), the system can install perl-dependencies with packages. This script just download and install debian packages to get a fully functionnal VHFFS. However, be carefull, it install it on a machine, but if you use vhffs on another machine, you need those dependencies.
2. If you use another unix system (like Mac OS X), the install-script uses the cpan program to install perl modules. It is a generic program to install perl-modules.

In fact, VHFFS was designed for massive hosting. So, it's very stupid to use the VirtualHost directive, because it force to reload apache and it's imply a little downtime. So, this solution is not the best. We use an apache-module designed for VHFFS called mod-vhost-hash-alias. This module (available on Debian) has to be installed on your webserver(s) and loaded by Apache2. This module work as it :

1. A user ask for a webpage (i.e http://example.com). His browser send the request to the apache webservers.
2. Webservers receive the adress (http://example.com), compute a hash for this adress (i.e 5ababd603b22780302dd8d83498e5172). The hash is splitted on 2 caracters (5a ba bd ….).
3. The first, second and third split compose a directory (5a/ba/bd). From the directory which contains all websites (i.e /vhffs/websites/), we obtain the DocumentRoot ( /vhffs/websites/5a/ba/bd/ )
4. If this directory exists, the website exits and the document is take. Otherwise, the website doesn't exists.

Website integration on Apache is totally dynamic and doesn't need a reload or restart.

You can found perl documentation for VHFFS api on your system, by using the perldoc command. For example, the command perldoc Vhffs::Main prints the documentation of the Vhffs::Main module.

You probably have too many connections on your database. You have several solutions :

1. If you use an old version of PosgreSQL, update to the lastest version
2. When you use the panel, no connection is available on the VHFFS database. You should increase the connections number in the PostgreSQL configuration.

Another source of error can be a missing perl-module. If you have errors on the same page, you should run the vhffs-checkinstall program (/usr/bin/vhffs-checkinstall).

When you have an hosting service, you can provide a free mail-adress for your users. For example, if you have the hosting service MyHosting with the domain name myhosting.com, you could choose to offer an email adress on this domain for each user. The mailuser module allow this service. So, each user on the platform can create user@myhosting.com mail-adress and declare it as a popable account or a simple forward. The mailuser module use the mail module, so you have to enable it if you use mailuser.

In fact, you have to create the /data/avatar directory. But this directory must have the rights of the Apache user. On Debian, Apache user is www-data (and this user is in the www-data group). So, you have to run the chown -R /data/avatar to have a /data/avatar writeable for the panel.