To install ShopSite on your Windows NT server, you need admin access to the server and an FTP program.
Table of Contents
- I. Pre-Installation Considerations
- II. Planning ShopSite Directories
- III. Run the Install Program
- IV. Configure the Web Server
- V. Upgrading
- VI. Troubleshooting
- VII. Build Your Store!
- VIII. Adding Stores
- Pre-Installation Considerations
- Before installing ShopSite, make sure that your system meets the minimum hardware and software requirements.
- Be sure your Web server software is working correctly, including user authentication. If your Web server is not working, you cannot install ShopSite.
- Planning ShopSite Directories
The ShopSite SC install program will prompt you for the locations of four directories:
- Executable files are put in two separate directories, a ShopSite Directory and a Shopping Cart Directory. These directories need to be aliased in your server and accessible through URLs.
® You should put these directories in or under your server's scripts directory. As a security measure, you should configure your server to only serve CGI programs from the scripts directories, not text files or HTML files.
- Your store needs a Data Directory to hold its databases of products and pages.
® Set the permissions on the Data Directory so that your Web server can access it, but make sure that it cannot be accessed from a browser. In other words, do not put the Data Directory under the Web server's document root directory or any directory that is aliased by the Web server.
- Your store also needs an HTML Output Directory to store its HTML files, which are the generated pages for the store. The storefront URL must be aliased to the store's HTML Output Directory.
® Put the HTML Output Directory wherever your existing HTML goes.Note that the images for your store are kept in a media subdirectory of the store's HTML Output Directory, and you may want to configure FTP access to the media directory.
Plan the directory locations before starting the installation. An example directory structure might look like this:
C:
![]()
InetPub
![]()
scripts
![]()
![]()
ss = ShopSite Directory,
![]()
aliased to URL of ShopSite CGIs, such as
![]()
http://www.xyz.com/ss
![]()
![]()
sc = Shopping Cart Directory,
aliased to URL of Shopping Cart CGIs, such as
http://www.xyz.com/sc
![]()
wwwroot
![]()
![]()
StoreName = HTML Output Directory, aliased to
![]()
Store Front URL defined in store.auth file
![]()
![]()
Store pages
![]()
![]()
media - you may need FTP access
![]()
![]()
Store images
![]()
data
![]()
StoreName = Data Directory
- Run the Install Program
- If you have not already done so, download the shopsite-sc-nt.exe file and your store.auth file to the directory from which you will run the install. If you use FTP to retrieve the files, be sure to use a binary mode transfer.
- Run shopsite-sc-nt.exe.
- When you run the install program, the first screen you see is the license agreement. Click Accept to proceed.
- On the next screen, click New Install if this is the first installation of ShopSite on this server. Click Update if you have an existing installation of a previous version of ShopSite.
- On the next screen, enter values in the various fields and click OK. You must fill in all of the fields or the installation program will not work. If you do not know the correct e-mail address, enter your own; it is easy to change later.
- The next screen shows you the results of the install. If there were any errors, change the appropriate fields and click the OK button again.
- Configure the Web Server
After installing the software, you need to create a user account and set up the appropriate permissions on the server. If you use Microsoft's IIS Web server, click on the link that corresponds to the version you use for detailed instructions.
IIS version 3
IIS version 4- Upgrading from a Previous Release
To upgrade existing stores to version 4.1.1, you must shut down the web server before running the installation program. (IIS will complain if someone is even accessing your graphics during the upgrade). Select the Upgrade option during the install. The Upgrade option upgrades all stores that share the back office directory that you specify when you run shopsite-sc-nt.exe. (The "back office directory" is now called the "shopsite directory.")
- Troubleshooting
If your installation did not work, pay attention to the error messages you receive; they should point you in the right direction. If that fails, try checking the following:
- Are file permissions set correctly for all the directories that you specified? Not having file permissions set correctly is the number one installation problem that users run into. Specifically, the user account under which the install program is executed needs to be able to write in the ShopSite directories.
- Do you have administrator permissions, which are required to run the install program.
- Is your Web server configured correctly?
- Did you enter the same store ID and URL that you told the salesperson when the store.auth file was originally created? If you've changed your mind, you'll need a new store.auth file.
- Was the store.auth file in the same directory as the installation program? If so, it should have created a new file called yourstoreid.auth in your store's data directory.
- Try downloading a fresh copy of shopsite-sc-nt.exe from shopsite.com; sometimes the file can get corrupted in FTP transit. Be sure to use a binary-mode transfer.
If you still can't solve the problem, search our Technical Support Knowledgebase to see if the problem you're having has been previously reported and if a solution has been posted or suggested.
- Build Your Store!
Once you've installed the software, you're ready to build your store! Point your browser to start.cgi in the directory where you installed the CGIs. After entering your username and password, you'll see the first page of the ShopSite Store Setup Wizard, which will guide you through the process of building a store.
You can click the "?" in the upper right-hand corner of any screen to get help on that screen, and to access the searchable ShopSite help system and knowledgebase.
- Adding Stores
To add a new store that shares the same CGIs as existing stores:
- Create an NT user account with the same name as the StoreID specified in the store.auth file of the new store, as described in the server configuration instructions.
- Create data and html directories for the new store, as described in the server configuration instructions.
- Give your new user account the correct permissions for the four directories (ss, sc, html, data), as described in the installation instructions.
- Make sure the default web user has the correct permissions for the new data and html directories, as described in the server configuration instructions.
- Run shopsite-sc-nt.exe, being careful to choose the new data and html directories for the new store. Stores cannot share data and html directories.