Welcome to Discus setup. This form is designed to assist you with installation into your home directory, so your Discus board will be accessible at a URL like the following: http://$ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}/~$uid/discus. Please follow all directions on this form carefully.

Discus technical support has prepared a graphic that may assist you in visualizing your directory structure. You may access this graphic from this link. We encourage you to visit this graphic, especially if you are having problems.

Administration Directory

The administration directory will contain password files, configuration files, and source files. This directory does not need to be accessed at a URL on your web site -- in fact, if possible, the administration directory should not be accessible at any URL on your web site.

Example If your home directory is $home, you could choose $home/discus_admin as your administration files directory.

Specify Administration Directory $prepend

HTML Directory and URL

The HTML directory will contain all program documentation, message files, uploaded images, clipart, and icons. The HTML directory must be accessible by your server (it must exist within the server's webspace). This should not be installed under your server's cgi-bin directory or within your own personal cgi-bin directory. The HTML URL should start with http:// and should contain the full name of your web server (reported as $ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}).

Example If your home directory is $home, and your web documents are stored in a subdirectory called $www_subdir, you could make your HTML directory be $home/$www_subdir/discus. A corresponding HTML URL might then be http://$ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}/~$uid/discus.

Specify HTML Directory $prepend Specify HTML URL

Script Directory and URL

The Script Directory will contain the CGI scripts that are used to power the Discus program. Note that this may need to be a special CGI directory on your server or a special directory within your webspace. The Script URL should start with http:// and should contain the full name of your web server (reported as $ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}).

Example If your home directory is $home, and your script files are stored in a subdirectory called $www_subdir/cgi-bin, you could make your Script Directory be $home/$www_subdir/cgi-bin/discus. A corresponding Script URL might then be http://$ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}/~$uid/cgi-bin/discus. Running through CGIWrap, your Script URL might be http://$ENV{'HTTP_HOST'}/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/$uid/discus.

Specify Script Directory $prepend Specify Script URL

Customize Your Board

This section allows you to customize your board by specifying the board title and contact person. The board title is used several places throughout the board, including on documentation pages and in the CGI scripts. The contact person will be displayed if there is an error. You can also choose to install the "frames" or the "no frames" interface.

Specify Board Title Specify Contact Person's Name Specify Contact Person's E-mail Address Use frames or no frames interface? Frames No Frames

Configure E-mail Notification

The Discus program has e-mail notification of new posts. It is best to route outgoing mail through "sendmail" if it is available, although it is also possible to do this through the unix "mail" command as well. Select the mailer to use, and then click on the "Test Setting" button.

The test of e-mail notification will bring up another browser window from which you can send a test e-mail message to the Discus server from the Discus notification system. It is highly recommended that you test your setting at this time.

Specify Mailer to Use /sendmail (Preferred if available) /mail Disable e-mail notification

Submit Form

After verifying the information in the form above, and testing e-mail notification, you can submit the form to complete this step of the installation process.