I just ran into the following bug:

I have a logbook where entries have several attributes, among which several dates. All of these are set to "Type <attr> = date". If I use the "Select" action, tag several entries and subsequently chose "Edit", the values of all date attributes are wiped. All other attributes are kept at their original values, unless changed explicitly. For the date entries, the date choosers are shown (as when editing a single entry), but all set to blank.

Editing single entries works fine.

Hello,

I just upgraded to elog 2.7.5 from 2.6.4 on my Debian system. Here is some feedback:

1) "make" fails if libssl-dev package is not installed. Documentation does not mention SSL library requirements.

2) /etc/init.d/elogd: line 10: /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions: No such file or directory (I fixed this by commenting
out that line).

3) Starting elogd: /etc/init.d/elogd: line 34: echo_success: command not found (Fixed by search/replace "echo_"
to "echo ").


Hope this helps.

George.

 No quick fix, sorry. It is also limited by a fixed number of characters per line in the configuration file and many more. I will try to increase it, but it will take time. Can you maybe set-up a mailing list at your email server? This way you send only email to one destination and it gets distributed to many people.

> 1) "make" fails if libssl-dev package is not installed. Documentation does not mention SSL library requirements.

I added a note to the documentation, thank you.

> 2) /etc/init.d/elogd: line 10: /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions: No such file or directory (I fixed this by commenting
> out that line).
> 
> 3) Starting elogd: /etc/init.d/elogd: line 34: echo_success: command not found (Fixed by search/replace "echo_"
> to "echo ").

The elogd (or elogd.init in the distribution) is written for RedHat based systems where echo_success gives the 
typical output with a green [OK] at the end of the line. For Debian, there is (was) in principle a Debian package 
which has it's own startup script. Since the package maintainer is not active any more (I guess), the Debian 
updates are heavily old. Once elog gets managed inside Debian again, that should get better again, but until then 
one has to follow 2) and 3) from above. If I would remove it, the Scientific Linux users would complain. 

 Just run it inside gdb. When it crashes, you will see a segment violation and you will end up at the debugger prompt. Then do a "bt" to see the stack dump. From that I can guess where the problem happens.

> elogd is crashing with a segv when I try to create a new logbook by clicking the "Create new logbook" button
> with an existing logbook selected in the dropdown list as a template. I've attached my config file for
> reference. As a specific example, I'm logged in as the admin user, viewing logbook "1248", which has no entries,
> and I click "Config" -> "Change config file" -> "Create new logbook", Select "1248" from dropdown list, enter
> "1250" for the new logbook name, and click "Create new logbook".
> 
> The server crashes, and my web browser has the following as the (incorrect) URL it's trying to load:
> (Incorrect because the "/ATLAS" shouldn't be there.)
> 
> https://localhost:8080/ATLAS/1250/?cmd=Config
> 
> Nevertheless, the config file and logbook directory are properly modified for the new logbook, and on restarting
> the server, everything is fine.
> 
> Oh, just noticed that if I manually enter the URL:
> 
> https://localhost:8080/ATLAS/1250/
> 
> or actually, any text in place of the "1250", it also crashes the elogd process. So, perhaps there are two bugs?
> 
> (1) Incorrect URL being given to the web client after logbook creation
> (2) Requesting any incorrect URL of this form crashes elogd

This problems have been fixed in SVN revision 2135.

 Probably something is wrong with the account under which you run elog. Normally (at least if you install elog from the RPM) you have an account "elog" and group "elog" under which you run elogd. You compile and install elogd under root (so that it can bind to port 80 for example), and then you put 

usr = elog

grp = elog

into the configuration file. So when you start elogd, it binds to the server port, then falls down to user "elog" and gives up root privileges. If the elog account for example does not exist, you get the above error message. The only problem I see there is if elog stays as root, it can do more harmful things in case it misbehaves.

> The elogd (or elogd.init in the distribution) is written for RedHat based systems where echo_success gives the 
> typical output with a green [OK] at the end of the line. For Debian, there is (was) in principle a Debian package 
> which has it's own startup script. Since the package maintainer is not active any more (I guess), the Debian 
> updates are heavily old. Once elog gets managed inside Debian again, that should get better again, but until then 
> one has to follow 2) and 3) from above. If I would remove it, the Scientific Linux users would complain. 

That makes sense. Might be worth adding a short Debian section to the installation instructions page?

FYI, Elog is no longer in Debian as of 2008-05-12.


Thanks,

George.