PAR-WebStart helper applications
Beneath the par/ subdirectory are files enabling one to
provide support of installation of CPAN distributions and
Win32 ppm packages via a PAR::WebStart application.
PAR-WebStart is a helper application associated
with a browser. When a user clicks on a link that points to a
PNLP [PAR Network Launch Protocol] launch file (a special XML file),
it causes the browser to launch PAR-WebStart, which then
automatically downloads, caches, and runs the specified
PAR-based application.
To enable this feature, first install the PAR-WebStart distribution
from CPAN. The PAR applications may then be built with the
make_par.pl script of PAR-WebStart:
$ cd par
$ cd cpan
$ make_par.pl --name cpan --dst_dir /path/to/Apache/htdocs/par_directory
$ cd ../ppm
$ make_par.pl --name ppm --dst_dir /path/to/Apache/htdocs/par_directory
This will produce PAR applications signed with Module::Signature;
if you want to disable such signing, pass the "--no-sign" option
to the make_par.pl script.
Links to launch these applications are enabled through the "mirror"
menu item of CPAN-Search-Lite web pages by checking the indicated
checkbox. The links point to the "cpaninstall" and "ppminstall"
locations specified within tt2/config, and are intended to be
handled by the Apache2::WebStart handler of PAR-WebStart (this creates
the PNLP xml file used by the client to launch the application).
Example Apache directives are
PerlModule Apache2::WebStart
<Location /cpan_install>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler Apache2::WebStart
PerlSetVar WS_codebase "par_directory"
PerlSetVar WS_title "CPAN install"
PerlSetVar WS_vendor "Your institution name"
PerlSetVar WS_homepage "docs/webstart.html"
PerlSetVar WS_description "Install CPAN modules via PAR::WebStart"
PerlAddVar WS_par "cpan.par"
PerlSetVar WS_long_opts 1
</Location>
<Location /ppm_install>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler Apache2::WebStart
PerlSetVar WS_codebase "par_directory"
PerlSetVar WS_title "PPM install"
PerlSetVar WS_vendor "Your institution name"
PerlSetVar WS_homepage "docs/webstart.html"
PerlSetVar WS_description "Install Win32 ppm packages via PAR::WebStart"
PerlSetVar WS_os "MSWin32"
PerlAddVar WS_par "ppm.par"
PerlSetVar WS_long_opts 1
</Location>
If you disabled signing of the PAR applications by Module::Signature
when making the applications by make_par.pl, add the directive
PerlSetVar WS_no_sign 1
within these locations. The above directives will specify the
par files to be accessible under
http://your.server.edu/par_directory/
with a help page (available under the htdocs/ subdirectory) found as
http://your.server.edu/docs/webstart.html