EC Installation
CAUTIONS
1. As of Version 1.16, ec stores its library modules in the site_perl
library directory. If you try to run an earlier version, you'll
likely receive, "module not found," errors, at least, due to version
incompatibilities. The safest course, after installing the new version,
is to remove the library modules of the old version with the commands:
$ rm -rf ~/.ec/EC
$ rm -rf ~/.ec/Tk
2. Remember to make backups of the .ecconfig and .servers files before
upgrading.
CONTENTS
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING
X Fonts
PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION
TROUBLESHOOTING
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
1. Perl, at least version 5.004. If the version of Perl that is
installed on the system is earlier than 5.004, you probably
can't run much of anything else, either.
2. Perl/Tk version 800.022 or later. You can download Perl/Tk
from http://www.cpan.org/. There are also Perl/Tk binary
packages for many different systems.
3. MIME::Base64, if you want to send and receive MIME mail
attachments. If you have Perl 5.8, it should already be
installed. Otherwise, you can download MIME::Base64 from
http://www.cpan.org/.
3. An Internet connection to a POP3 and SMTP server, or
a local Mail Transfer Agent - either sendmail, exim, or
qmail.
INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING
1. Unpack the tar archive, preferably in your home directory
(which you've already done it you're reading this).
tar zxvf ec-<version>.tar.gz
2. Install the program, library, and documentation files. You can
build the files while logged in as a normal user. The actual
installation requires system administrator privileges.
$ cd ec-<version>
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
Then log in as the system administrator and install:
# make install
3. Install the configuration files for each user. They reside in
a subdirectory of each user's $HOME directory. The default
configuration files are located in the configs/ subdirectory:
configs/dot-ecconfig and configs/dot-servers.
While logged in as a normal user, install the configuration
files with the following commands:
# mkdir ~/.ec
# cp configs/dot-ecconfig ~/.ec/.ecconfig
# cp configs/dot-servers ~/.ec/.servers
# chmod 0600 ~/.ec/.servers
If you are upgrading you may not need to re-install the
configuration files, although you should check carefully
that the upgrade is compatible with the old configuration
files.
By default, the program looks for the configuration files
as $HOME/.ec/.ecconfig and $HOME/.ec/.servers. The
subdirectory and files are hidden. Use the -a command
line option to ls to view them:
# ls -la ~/.ec
For security, the .servers file has limited permissions, so
that only the files owner can view them. The program prints
an error message if the permissions are not correct.
4. Edit the .ec/.ecconfig file with the program options of
your choice. You can read and edit the file with a text editor
or from the Help -> Sample .ecconfig File... menu option.
The comments in the .ecconfig file explain the function of each
option and the possible values for them. The help file, the
Help -> Help menu option, provides additional information.
5. On Solaris systems, make sure that the value of, "mailspooldir,"
in the ~/.ec/.ecconfig file is set to the system's mail spool
directory, normally /var/mail.
You may also need to change the value of $SOCK_STREAM line 102 of
the ec program to '2' to communicate directly with SMTP and
POP3 servers.
6. EC requires, at the very least, a top-level mail subdirectory,
and two sub-sub-directories, one for incoming mail and another
for deleted messages. Create the directories defined in the
configuration file with the following commands:
$ mkdir ~/Mail
$ mkdir ~/Mail/incoming
$ mkdir ~/Mail/trash
These are the path names used in the standard configuration.
If you change them. make sure also to edit the options in ec and
$HOME/.ec/.ecconfig.
X Fonts
Ec can use fonts specified in ~/.Xresources, ~/.Xdefaults, ~/Ec,
or ~/.ec/.ecconfig. Ec uses resources of the, "Ec," class. Here
are some sample font resource entries.
!! Default font
Ec*font: *-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*
!! Fonts for widget classes
Ec*Dialog*font: *-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*
Ec*TextUndo*font: *-courier-medium-r-*-*-12-*
Ec*Listbox*font: *-courier-medium-r-*-*-12-*
Ec*Menu*font: *-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*
Ec*Button*font: *-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*
Fonts specified in .ecconfig override the X resource settings.
Refer to the comments in the .ecconfig file.
PRINTING THE DOCUMENTATION
Perl's POD formatting utilities can generate documentation in various
formats.
pod2html <ec >doc.html
pod2latex <ec >doc.tex
pod2man <ec >doc.man
pod2text <ec >doc.txt
pod2usage <ec >doc.msg
Refer to your system's manual pages for these utilities.
TROUBLESHOOTING
1. The installation should copy the executable programs to the same
directory as the perl interpreter. If the ec program is in your
$HOME directory, typing simply, "ec," should produce a response
like this:
bash: ec: command not found
Standard practice on Unix systems is *not* to include the
current directory in the search path for programs, as a
security measure. So, you need to specify the directory
explicitly. Here are two ways to do it:
# The dot is a synonym for the current directory.
$ ./ec
# A tilde is a synonym for your home directory.
$ ~/ec
Refer to the documentation for the shell (man bash, man csh, man ksh,
etc.), or almost any book about Unix.
2. Finding the Perl Interpreter
Solaris 8
The standard configuration of Solaris 8 uses Version 5.005 of Perl
and installs the interpreter in /usr/perl5/bin. The installation
also makes a symlink, /usr/bin/perl. However, ec still gets installed
in /usr/perl5/bin, which is not listed in the default $PATH. If you
get an error message like this:
bash: ec: command not found
You must:
1. Make a symlink to ec in /usr/bin (you must have administrator
privileges to do this):
# ln -s /usr/perl5/bin/ec /usr/bin/ec
2. Or, add /usr/perl5/bin to your $PATH variable. How to do
that depends on the shell and the desktop environment. The
command for the Bourne shell sh is:
$ PATH="/usr/perl5/bin:"$PATH ; export $PATH
3. If neither of the above are possible, type the full
pathname of ec:
$ /usr/perl5/bin/ec
Other Operating Systems
On other systems, if you try to run ec and get an error message like
this:
bash: ec: No such file or directory
Then you need to edit the first line of the ec program file to
the path to the system's perl interpreter. Usually this is
/usr/bin/perl (the default in the distributed program), or
/usr/local/bin/perl. If neither of these work, try using the
output of the command: "which perl."
3. Diagnosing Server Problems
The -v command line option prints a transcript of the dialog with
the mail servers:
$ ec -v &
If the output scrolls off the screen, you can also redirect
the transcript to a file:
$ ec -v >ec.transcript &
The transcript should provide enough information to help
pinpoint configuration or authentication errors.
If the program doesn't work for some reason that isn't covered in the
TROUBLESHOOTING section, please let the author know. Send bug
reports, suggestions, and other feedback to rkies@cpan.org.
Copyright © 2001-2004 Robert Kiesling, rkies@cpan.org.
Ec is licensed under the same terms as Perl. Please refer to the file,
"Artistic."
$Id: README,v 1.4 2004/03/03 00:48:19 kiesling Exp $