FYI, I had problems a few weeks ago trying to get the command line elog working, blamed everybody and everything but myself.

In my case it was command line syntax errors and eventually got it going as part of a nightly script

While testing I ran the Elog Server from the command line in verbose mode to see if that helped determine the problem.

On the server end the logbook uploading to is set for Plaintext

# Set entries to TEXT Only format
Default encoding = 1
Allowed encoding = 1

Elog server authenication is standard built in to elogd, no PAM, no LDAP, no Kerberos 

Below is what works for me, I’ve replaced my Elog Server Hostname, Elog Username & Password used to connect to the server with generic.

Elog Server version = elog-3.1.4-2

# Log details in Elog Server

/usr/local/bin/elog -h HOSTNAME -p 80 -l Backups -u USERNAME PASSWORD -a Backup=NightlyBackupScript -a Hostname=$HOST -n 1 -x -m /tmp/elog.nightly.script.$TIMESTAMP

I've been caught out in the past having a very old version of the elog command line talking to a recent Elog Server build or Encoding not matching

Hi David, thanks for your input!

This logbook has been around for almost 10 years, and has evolved from file-based authentication, to LDAP, and finally to PAM (that can use any of local password files, LDAP, and Active Directory), and I'm thinking that might be the root of this problem. There are old account entries from the file-based days, with passwords, that match the AD usernames. I'm wondering if elogd is trying to use the password in the password file, rather than via PAM. I don't remember the old passwords, so I can't check, and I've run into problems trying to change the passwords. I'm wondering if there's a way to generate a new password from the command line, that would allow me to test the theory.

Instead of using three different options you could use the same:

Options Eyepiece = Pentax{a}, TeleVue{b}, Meade{c}

{a} Options Form = 5mm, 20mm, 30mm
{b} Options Form = 7mm Nagler, 10mm Radian, 24mm Panoptic
{c} Options Form = 8.8mm UWA, 14mm UWA, 26mm QX

It makes more sense.
But it is as well possible to supress attributed in the edit from. See

• Show Attributes = <list>
  Attributes present in this list are shown in the single entry page. Omitting attributes can make sense for attributes which are automatically derived from other attributes via the Change <attribute> command.
• Show Attributes Edit = <list>
  The same as Show Attributes, but for the entry form.

You just have a different <list> for each conditional case {a} {b} {c}.

Hello,

I'm new to elog software and I could not find a solution to my configuration issue. I would like to setup a configuration file similar to MEG experiment's elog.

https://elog.psi.ch/elogs/meg/

I'm interested in creating similar to the structure: "General", "Collaboratoin", "Sub-groups (with sub-sub groups "Software", "Hardware" etc). I cannot tell if this was created by using Top Group feature.

Can someone explain how this design structure can be achieved?

Thanks,

Daniel

It was done using the "groups" feature:

https://elog.psi.ch/elog/config.html#groups

Stefan

I'm converting our on-call logbook, with 25 years of history, to elog. Is there a way to override the current date/time for the Date field with the creation date/time of the original logbook entry?

You have to manually manipulate the logbook files YYMMDDa.log where you find the date at the top like:

MID@$: 1
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:38:09 +0300 <==== change here !!!!
Author: Stefan
Type: General
Category: 
Subject: CURL test
Attachment: 
Encoding: plain
========================================
Text body
 

Hi Stefan, thanks! Does the Date field need to be the first field in each entry? I can see adding a "termpory" field called "Orig Date", upload the old entries, then edit the file(s), delete the Date field, and rename Orig Date to Date. Will that work?