About www.cgiar.org

The CGIAR web sites are now being hosted on a new server, www.cgiar.org. This includes a number of related sites (cipder, co-management, fishbase, reefbase, riceworld, riceweb, cipotato, and condesan). The items in this FAQ describe some of the features of the new server and how to make use of them.

1. What's new about the new server?
2. How do I upload changes and new content to the server?
3. What about Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard?
4. How can I use Microsoft FrontPage to develop my site?
5. How can I make databases available on my site?
6. Can I put Perl programs on my site?
7. How can I make my site searchable? (revised)
8. How can I promote my site to other search engines?
9. How can I obtain usage statistics on my site?
10. Can I have different site names for my web area? (revised)

Q: What's new about the new server?

A: The new server is much bigger and faster (350Mhz P2) and it uses Microsoft IIS 4.0 instead of O'Reilly's WebSite (web server software). This means:

• Web pages are delivered to users much faster.
• You can make use of FrontPage extensions and FrontPage publishing (search pages, guestbook applications, web discussion boards, etc.)
• MS Index Server 2.0 is installed to facilitate searching your site.
• Other software options include ASP and ColdFusion.
• There is more flexibility in web site naming.

Q: How do I upload changes and new content to the server?

A: You can ftp the changed content to www.cgiar.org. On the new server, the usernames have changed. Instead of being the name of the center, inter-center initiative or web area, they are now that name plus "www". So, if you are the cip webmaster, for example, you would use "cipwww" as the username for connecting to the ftp server. All of the passwords were transferred from the old server, so you should still be able to use your old password unless you have requested CGNET to change it.
You can also use Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard, FrontPage, or other web development environments which may have their own publishing features.

Q: What about Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard?

A: Web Publishing Wizard is an add-on product for Microsoft Office which can publish a directory of files (including subdirectories) to a web site automatically. You can obtain it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/webpost/default.htm. Installing it adds an option to Windows Explorer's "Send To" menu, as well as to Internet Explorer. It also works with FrontPage.
Here is one configuration which we have found to work (there may be others):

1. Launch Web Publishing Wizard
2. Select the local directory tree where your web files reside, and click the "next" button.
3. Choose a descriptive name for your web area (e.g. ICRAF web site).
4. Click the "advanced" button to choose a transport protocol. Select FTP and then click the "next" button.
5. Enter the URL or Internet address to publish to as ftp://www.cgiar.org, and click the "finish" button.
6. An authentication dialog will appear -- enter your username (<center>www) and password.
7. The publishing process will begin if you've followed all of these steps correctly.

Remember that the ftp server at www.cgiar.org knows which directory you should log into by your username, so if you enter ftp://www.cgiar.org/centername/ in step #5 above it will not work, because your directory name does not correspond exactly to your username.

Q: How can I use Microsoft FrontPage to develop my site?

A: The first step is to ask CGNET to define your web area as a FrontPage subweb. After we have notified you that this step is finished, you can access the subweb with the same username and password as for ftp access, and recalculate hyperlinks to create a local copy of the site. With FrontPage you can create feedback and guestbook pages, page counters and other site add-ons. You can also create search pages, but currently a search page on a sub-web cannot make use of Index Server.

Q: How can I make databases available on my site?

A: There are several databases currently hosted on www.cgiar.org. These include Access and TextBase databases, made accessible through webdbc or Cold Fusion. ASP is another web/database interface which will work on the server.
You should develop and test the database and web interface pages locally and upload the files to the server. Then let CGNET know to create an ODBC data source name for the database. We will work on any server configuration or permission changes necessary to make the database accessible.

Q: Can I put Perl scripts on my site?

A: Yes. ActiveState Perl build 316 (based on Perl code version 5.003_07) was recently installed on the server. To make use of it, make sure your Perl scripts have a .pl extension. Then notify CGNET and we will create a scripts directory for you and let you know how to upload the scripts.

Q: How can I make my site searchable?

A: By creating some search pages which run Index Server queries. Index Server is a search engine technology which is part of IIS. With it many different web objects, such as HTML pages, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Adobe pdf files and even SQL databases can be searched.
Creating a search screen for your site involves the following steps:

1. Download and customize the following files. These files are formatted and annotated so that you can see the code changes required. Most of the changes involve simply replacing a center's name with your own in URL paths or directories; other changes are simply cosmetic, to make the search page look like the rest of your web site.
   Do not view the source code of these files or save them as HTML. Rather, select and copy the code as it is rendered in your browser window, and paste it into a text or HTML editor. You can rename these files if you wish, but you will need to code the filenames in various places.
   • Query.htm -- the search page (revised)
   • Query.idq -- the query specification page
   • Query.htx -- the results template page
   • qsumrhit.htw and qfullhit.htw -- pages which provide hit highlighting in summary or full view
   You may also wish to download and modify the help files: ixtiphlp.htm and ixqlang.htm. If so, you can save the HTML source of these pages using your browser's "save as HTML" command.
2. Create a "search" subdirectory of your site (you can call it anything you want, but it's better to isolate it from the rest of your documents), and upload the customized files into it.
3. Notify us so that we can script-enable the new directory, and prevent it itself from being searchable (unless you want someone to be able to search for your search page!) We can also make other directories unsearchable (e.g. private areas) upon request.

Note that you can also use Microsoft FrontPage to create a search screen, but this sort of search screen doesn't take advantage of Index Server.

More information about Index Server is available at the Microsoft web site.

Q: How can I promote my site to other search engines?

A: We will do this for you! Please see our web pages describing this service.

Q: How can I obtain usage statistics on my site?

A: We use the WebTrends log analysis tool. Web usage reports are compiled nightly for all CG centers' sites and for the CGIAR web site as a whole, and weekly for intercenter initiatives and project web pages. These are viewable in the /use subdirectory of your site.
We may also be able to give you access via ftp to the raw usage data for your site.

Q: Can I have different site names for my web area?

A: We can configure the server to make your site accessible as www.centername.org, for example, www.icraf.org. This requires configuring your subdirectories as a virtual site. One drawback is that accesses to the virtual site are logged in a different file than those to www.cgiar.org/centername, so a unified Webtrends report on all accesses to the site is not possible.

Also, please note that this feature is incompatible with FrontPage. FrontPage does not support two different sets of extension configurations on a single physical content directory, which is what would be required here.

For more information about CGNET, please contact info@cgnet.com.