From: Alphaman [alphaman-nix-spam@alphant.com]
Sent: Monday, July 05, 2004 10:31 PM
To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject: Blogging on VMS

Hi all,

For those interested, I've managed to successfully install and run a 
decent blogging package on OpenVMS.  I've got the following:

  - AlphaServer 400 4/233, 192 MB RAM, 3 GB disk, OVMS v7.3-1
  - SWS v2.0
  - PHP v1.2
  - Pivot v1.14 (http://www.pivotlog.net/)

and that's it.  Heck, the kit even comes in a ZIP file!  No TARs, no 
db's, no makefiles, no porting -- it just runs.  Well, okay, minor 
caveat -- I installed it on an ODS2 disk, so I had to go back and rename 
a handful of PHP include file references that were of the format 
"file.inc.php" to "file_inc.php".  They were extremely easy to find with 
a Search [...]*.php ".inc.php" and very few locations needed to be 
modified.  My suspicion is that this step won't be necessary with an 
ODS5 disk.

A couple other things, make sure that the <Directory> directive in your 
httpd.conf points to a location that does NOT have a $ in the disk or 
path (e.g., Disk$User0:[pivot] will generate a bunch of errors). 
Instead, I created a Pivot_Root logical (/translation=concealed, of 
course); remember to put it in your SyLogicals.com so that it gets 
defined before SWS & PHP get started.  I'm still tweaking it, and have a 
couple items that aren't working (e.g., site stats errors off when 
referencing a phpsniff() call), but I think it's a matter of finding the 
right modules to be turned on in the php.ini file.  Also, I did have to 
enable the php_pcre.exe in that file, after I got a lot of preg_match() 
errors.

Performance isn't anything to write home about, but then I am running on 
a dated system and haven't done a stitch of tuning yet.

Hope someone else can benefit from this.

(Before you ask, no, I'm not going to publish my blog as proof -- you'll 
just have to believe me that it works!  I'm using my blog as a personal 
diary and a family service, not a public blog.)

Regards & enjoy,
Aaron