Accounts Online
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FAQ
Running on NT
Applications
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Starting with release 2.44 Accounts Online can be used on Microsoft Windows2000/NT servers. Both
Internet Information Server and Apache for Win32 supported. There are certain limitations discussed below.
1. Perl for Windows
Accounts Online were tested using ActiveState ActivePerl 5.6.0.623. Since Windows OS does not provide fork() system
call, Perl was built to emulate fork() at the interpreter level. As a result, parent process will only exit
after its child process has exited. Accounts Online use fork() for Mass Mail feature - running on Unix after
parsing Mass Mail, Accounts Manager script (accmgr.pl) passes all required information to child process and exits
immediately, without waiting for all the mail to be sent. Under Windows Accounts Manager script will be forced to wait
for all mail to be sent. Depending on mailing list size the whole process could take considerable time, if during that
time user will hit his/her browser Stop button, both parent and child process will be terminated before all mail
processed. Be patient.
2. Protected directories
Protected directories are implemented using Apache-style .htaccess/.htpasswd mechanism, which is not supported by IIS.
Since Accounts Online continue handle password files in the same manner as if they run under Apache, you can access
contents of .htpasswd files from your custom scripts in order to implement application specific authentication scheme.
Please note, that since Windows does not support crypt() system call, customer passwords are being stored
without encryption for compatibility with Apache for Win32.
3. Configuring email interface
If your server does not have any sendmail equivalent you can define SMTP server in order to allow Accounts Online send
mail. Please note, that it is recommended to use sendmail (or equivalent command line mailer program) instead of SMTP,
because normally sendmail handles outgoing mail much faster. Taking into account limitations of fork()
(see "Perl for Windows" above) this would greatly improve performance.
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