Can't get into admin for ns-fasttrack

[David Vaughan]

Hi
I'm running ns-fasttrack (installed via swinstall) on HPUX10.20.
I can connect to the webserver OK on port 80, but I am having problems when trying to connect to the administration pages.
Symptoms as follows:-
As root ran up /var/opt/ns-fasttrack/start-admin
Connected browser to http://hostname:adminport
Result.... DNS error/Server not found

Connected browser to
http://hostname:adminport/bin
Result..... Dialogue displayed requesting administrator user name and password.
I then enter "root" and the root password

Result..... Server comes back with 500 internal error.

I have also tried user admin with no password and user root with no password

Result in all cases is the same.
Password entry in admpw is blank for root and admin.

I have also noticed that the administration pages seem to be stored under
/var/opt/ns-fasttrack/bin/admsrv rather than
/var/opt/ns-fasttrack/bin/admin-serv as the documentation and a string search of the server would seem to suggest. (changing the path seems to have no effect!)

Hoping someone can help.
many thanks
Dave Vaughan

[Brian M. Fisher]

I have seen this problem if the password for root was greater than 8 characters. The way to work around this is:
1) check file /opt/ns-fasttrack/admserv/ns-admin.conf and look for "User" line to asure root is set as the admin(this can be any user)
2) The file /opt/ns-fasttrack/admserv/admpw contains the encrypted password of the admin user. You may need to copy the password value from /etc/password to asure they are the same.

Once these items are done and the Administration server is started you should be able to connect.

Brian
<*(((>< er

[Brian M. Fisher]

The format of admpw is:
username:encrypted_password

I have seen this error occur if you install Fast Track server on a trusted system.

If this is the case use the password in the file /tcb/files/auth/r/root

Make sure the password is not set to more that 8 characters.

Brian
<*(((>< er

[David Vaughan]

Hi Brian
Thanks for the help, unfortunatly it has not made much difference.

I get the feeling that the base problem may have somthing to do with DNS (this is not being run on the system)and some strange naming of the administrator path.

Reasons:- 1. When I try to connect to the administrator root (http://host: I get a pause followed by a server not found/DNS error. The administrator log then shows that the connection was closed by peer.

2. When I try to connect to http://host:/bin I get the login dialogue. On completing the login dialogue I see an error 500, Navigator says invalid URL.
If I take a look at index.html under
/opt/ns-fasttrack/bin/admserv/html, I see all the links set to
/opt/ns-fasttrack/bin/admin-serv/html
Are my paths correct?

3.BTW, I have edited the configuration file so that my IP address is allowed as an admin user.

Best Rgds
Dave Vaughan

[Brian M. Fisher]

I'm not sure what machine you are trying to pull up the browser on. I would suggest using the netscape browser on the web server and exporting your display if required to another graphics device. Hopefully this will temorarily eliminate the name lookup issue.

Brian
<*(((>< er

[Jim Welch]

David,
First, is the Netscape FastTrack Admin server running? (it is not by default)
If you are on version 3.01:
cd /opt/ns-ftrack
./start-admin
You should see something like:
Netscape-Administrator/3.5 B98.106.2322
startup: listening to http://ziggy.atl.hp.com, port 17492 as root
warning: daemon is running as super-user

If the admin server is already running, you will see something like:
# ./start-admin
Netscape-Administrator/3.5 B98.106.2322
startup failure: could not bind to port 17492 (Address already in use)
#

Once you have the server running, use the url:
http://:17492

where is the fully qualified hostname of the system with fasttrack installed. You said you can reach the normal fasttrack server on port 80 so proxies and dns should not be a problem. To bypass the browser and see if the browser system can reach the fasttrack admin server, you can get to a command line and try:
telnet ziggy.atl.hp.com 17492

(substitute your hostname for ziggy.atl.hp.com)

you should see something like:

# telnet ziggy.atl.hp.com 17492
Trying...
Connected to ziggy.atl.hp.com.
Escape character is '^]'.


if you see something like:
# telnet dixie.atl.hp.com 17444
Trying...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
#

Then either the hostname or port number is incorrect, or the admin server is not running.

[David Vaughan]

Hi Folks
Sorry that it has taken a while for me to respond to your answers. I tried a couple of times and had some trouble with the site being down and not responding to my input.

I had already tried telnet into the admin port, so I knew that the server was running.

I have now tracked the problem down. Here is the answer in case anyone else has similar trouble.

We are using the fasttrack server for a fairly specific function and the domain name was just the host name "ziggy"

Unfortunatly fasttrack installation did not put "ziggy" in the ns-admin.conf file, it put "ziggy." i.e. preparing for a full domain name.

Removing the dot from the config file did the trick!!!!

BTW. I am running an early release of fasttrack (2.01) I don't think that the problem exists on later releases and I am taking steps to obtain an updated release
many thanks for your help
DAVE VAUGHAN