Offer still stands after 4 years of service to the community

Regular Joined: Dec 18, 2003 Posts: 53 Location: Worldwide

I'm sorry, I have been dealing with sentinel since it started, I have never been able to get it to work the first 100x through. I even paid bob to set it up for me one time. It is my experienced opinion that for all of these problems, it is the documentation and explanation of setting it up that suck, not the program, or the people trying to get it to work.

If the docs were better, then the program would not be such a hassle for everyone and there would not be all these problems. As a web writer for just about everything, I offer to rewrite these docs so the average 8th grader can understand them, If I can have one of the authors valuable time to take me through step by step.

Especially the switches for Admin http/cgi and the htaccess / staccess files.

For example one site I have does not show there files except through control panel, thank fully I found them there and deleted them.

Now if you want a professional writer to do these, just volunteer to walk me through it and I can write something people can understand, and have it out in just a couple of days. This may not be an entire rewrite for most of it is good. but the trouble spots I see in the forums definitely need a rewrite.

Tag

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

Hi Tag,

Thanks for your offer to assist! Improving documentation is something that would benefit every software. NukeSentinel's popularity and complex functionality might add to the confusion / problems understanding how to install and use it. Security isn't easy to grasp for many people, but it's something everyone needs, so having clear documentation is definitely key.

Quote:

I have never been able to get it to work the first 100x through.

This isn't clear to me. Did you do 100 tests and one or more failed, or have you attempted to set it up 100 times? It sounds like the latter, but I'm not sure.

Quote:

If the docs were better, then the program would not be such a hassle for everyone and there would not be all these problems.

I think quite a few people have been able to install it and set it up without hassle, but if there are specific improvements that would address the recurring issues you've identified, it probably makes sense to focus on those areas.

Do you have some specific suggestions for how to improve the docs? Are you referring to the readme / installation, online / popup help, forum posts, and / or the outdated Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login!? If you can highlight what you see as trouble spots in the forums, that might help a larger team work with you on those specific items. The problem with getting an author to walk you through it is that Bob and Raven may not have the time to do that, but a knowledgeable person might be able to do that for a specific issue.

Also, we've discussed creating a wiki for RavenNuke documentation just for this purpose - so professional writers such as yourself, or anyone, can improve the documentation for RavenNuke, NukeSentinel, etc. Have you worked in that medium, and if so, is that an approach you have found to be successful?

Thanks again for your offer. I hope we can leverage your experience to improve the documentation for everyone.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:40 am

The biggest problem i had before installing was that i didnt exactly knew where to start and what to do, the readme and help files are/were to techy for a first timer like me on some points.

You can read more about that here;
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And a quote from Raven in the same topic;

Raven wrote:

I'll just mention here that we are in DIRE need of an update to the NukeSentinel(tm) Manual! We just have not had the time nor the resources to do this. So much has been added, improved, etc. since the original was published and, I know this is a poor excuse killing me

, but we've really been tied up with RavenNuke(tm) Wink

The upgraded manual does not have to stay in the current form. But, we do need a dedicated volunteer!

What would help (imo) is a doc or pdf with a simple installation sheet, perhaps even supported by screenshots and step-by-step guidance.

NukeSentinel for dummies if you like Wink

A Wiki would be nice for further and more detailed info, tips, tricks, best practices and such.
Most important point of a Wiki is a logical structure (with categories and sub-categories), otherwise it won't add any value to the existing documentation, forums and topics.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 8:22 am

I can tell you after 3 years of support the most people just don´t read enough and they don´t follow the steps exactly. The rest is too lazy to use the search function of the support forums. Sorry, maybe that sounds hard but its the reality.
Beneed the earlier versions of Sentinel and the NukeSentinel version today are great differences but the installation is more or less the same.
The different patch versions of Nuke and different Nuke versions caused also a lot of problems.
A wiki wouldn´t be a bad idea but the authors function should be limited to a few people only in my opinion.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:26 pm

Well I read it, I followed the directions for CGIAuth since I do not have HttpAuth, so yes there are problems, and yes someone knowledgeable could help me write the docs by walking me through it.

Should you find yourself in the smaller group of users that require CGI Auth (as we call it), following these instructions to use and activate CGI Auth (HTTP Authentication using .htaccess and .staccess):

* Change your permissions on both .htaccess and .staccess to 777.
* Place the paths to .htaccess and .staccess in the NukeSentinel™ Admin Control Panel.
* Select CGI Auth Access from the drop down box.
* From the NukeSentinel Admin Control Panel, select Scan For New Admins.
* Now select Admin Auth List and make sure that all admins have been assigned passwords.
* Now, you should see a link that says Build CGIAuth file. Click it. That will build your .staccess id:pass file.
* Now back in the main NS ACP, in the .staccess box, you will see a link that says CGI Auth Setup. Click it. It should produce a new window with the following information:

Here is the problem, before you get to build the CGIAuth file you have to set the staccess and htaccess to 777... BUT when you do that you cant get back to admin to get the build CGIAuth.

In another thread it said I dont have the password file correct... um excuse me I thought that was what the CGIAuth was for? Regardless no directions were given in that thread to do that. Now lets go back up a little farther, if you do put in the id and pass, the instructions are not real clear on that... so why use build CGIAuth if you put them in manually.

Very confusing.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:57 pm

Can I assume you ran the 'Scan for new admins' and entered the correct paths to htacccess and stacsees in the Nuke Sentinel administration are first?

I have never used this feature myself so I'm refreshing myself as well.

Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 4:43 pm

A. I put the correct paths from what the host said to do.
B. I place either a full, blocked out or empty .htaccess at 777 in the directory
C. I place the .staccess in the directory at 777
D. I open the admin panel to run scan for admins and build cgiauth
E. It wants a user name password which it does not accept so it stops, I cannot get into the admin panel to do a build cgiauth

There has to be a way to put this information into the htaccess and staccess by hand, that would help. there does not seem to be any other way around it.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:34 am

Step E seems to fail because of step B
The readme says

Quote:

ONLY ADD the CGIAuth sample
.htaccess code after setting up the rest of NukeSentinel(tm), otherwise you will be
locked out of your sites admin section.

So lets take this step by step so I can familiarise myself with it as I have never used this. I am testing this on my site as I write it to ensure my accuracy.

Looking through the readme I'm interpreting the steps in order are;

1 - rename sample.staccess to .staccess and CHMOD to 666 (in reality some server configurations may need anything up to CHMOD of 777 to ensure the file is writable).

2 - in NS configuration, enter the correct paths to .staccess and .htaccess if Nuke Sentinel(tm) has not determined the correct path. Whilst NS usually does a good job of determining the correct path in 99% of cases there may be some server configuration where it might not be correct so the onus is on the user to make sure these are correct.....

3 - Go the HTTP Auth menu, scan for new admins, make sure they have passwords set etc.

4 - Above the list of Admins there is a link to build the .staccess file. Click this and it should write the username/password list to the .staccess file.
If it doesn't then either the path is set incorrectly in Step 1 or the file is not writable - you can dwnload the .staccess file and verify it has been written to successfully which is what I did for this post.

5 - Go back to the main NS configuration screen (as in Step 2) and click the link near the staccess file path setting marked as CGI Auth Setup.
When the page refreshes note that the code given *should* show the correct path to your staccess file - if it doesn't you will be locked out of admin so it is important to verify that path.

6 - Copy and paste the code into your .htaccess file and upload.

7 - you can now enforce the secondary admin auth routine by turning it on in the main NS config area.

Edited by me to correct a couple of typo's.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:15 am

The most are locked out because they don´t followed the steps in the NS readme or in the HowToInstall of RavenNuke believe me.
Tag you can do the steps again and again then you ´ll find out whats really necassary and what should be added to the documention in your opinion.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:20 pm

Actually it dosent, I have another thread going where the CGIAuth does work but turning off CGIAuth then doing the above steps, then turn it on afterwards. The part about turning Admin CGIAuth - off is not in the docs.

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The other part of this that was missing is not all servers allow you to see .htaccess even if it is checked in WS_FTP Pro... the program itself sees it and the CPanel sees it. I am guessing in this case even tho the software saw it (It had to to block it) It didnt see it to write to it if that makes sense)

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:31 pm

Actually, whether or not an FTP client can see .htaccess can also be determined by the server. If the file is there, but you can't see it, and you try to copy it, it should prompt you to override (assuming you can, but that's likely the case).

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:25 pm

tag wrote:

The part about turning Admin CGIAuth - off is not in the docs.

I haven't checked the docs as I know they need updating. My post was based on the readme that came with the package - that is assuming you were addressing me in your post.
kguske has made a very valid point which I missed from my own post.
Some servers do not allow the use of htaccess files at all (Windows) and some servers do not allow their use due to the way the hosting provider has configured the server.
Some FTP clients do not see htaccess files by default (files starting with a . (stop) are considered 'system' files under *nix so you may have to enable that in the settings or tools menu of your FTP client.