Testing Early Alpha & Pre-Releases

Developers and early adopters may wish to experiment with the latest code. Occasionally, the developers may compile a pre-bundled snapshot of working distribution complete with the runtime components. Visit the Telegard.org homepage downloads section to obtain a snapshot build. This article covers testing from a source code checkout.

Getting Prepared

See the article on Setting up your development environment It is recommended to create a symbolic link to the source code checkout that points from the suggested install location to the source code root:

 sudo ln -s /home/myuser/repos/telegard /opt/telegard

Where /home/myuser/repos/telegard is the checkout root of the source code tree.

Configuration File

Before starting, you should review and change any configuration parameters in bbs/conf/opentg.conf.yaml:

--- 
database: 
  type: embedded
  driver: jdbc:postgresql
  host: localhost:5432
  name: database
  user: username
  pass: pass
bbs: 
  name: Telegard/2 BBS
  tagline: Another Installation of OpenTelegard/2
  theme: opentg
login: 
  attempts: 5
  lockout: 8
  usehint: true
  allownew: true
signup:
  default_group: users
  ask_address: false
  ask_postal: false
  ask_country: false
  ask_phone: false
  ask_gender: true
  ask_bday: true
  ask_custom1: true
  custom1: How did you hear about us? (75 chars max)
  ask_custom2: false
  custom2: Where do you work? (75 chars max)
  ask_custom3: false
  custom3: How long have you been using BBS'es?

Database Selection

Telegard ships with the H2 database for rapid deployment. This is the recommended database engine. The configuration file is parsed during startup to check the type of database configured. If embedded' is selected, the remaining variables for this section are ignored. To use Postgresql, additional steps are required to install the JDBC driver and configure the database server and is beyond the scope of this document. Other database engines may work, but are currently untested and unsupported.

Starting H2

H2 has been decoupled from the code, meaning it no longer runs inside of nor started by the Telegard process. This ensures multi-user capability by preventing database locking and allows for more advanced configuration of the engine for future features. A simple init script has been written to start and stop the database, start a web console, and perform backups. This init script is not currently designed for running out of a linux distro's /etc/rc.d directory at this time, but instead a standalone tool. To start the service:

 /opt/telegard/h2.init.sh start

Working with the H2 Database

Stopping H2

You should stop the running instance of H2 when completed testing as this will ensure a clean shutdown and disconnect any active connections. To stop the service:

 /opt/telegard/h2.init.sh stop

Accessing Web Frontend

H2 Ships with a browser based administration tool for performing SQL functions (insert, update, delete, etc). The web server is included with the tool and runs on port 8082. The provided init script will start the web server and you should be able to point a web browser to the instance on http://localhost:8082. To start the web frontend service:

 /opt/telegard/h2.init.sh web

The init script runs in the foreground. To stop the webservice, press 'CTRL-C' to exit. If you choose to background the instance, be sure to shut it down cleanly.

Taking backups

The included initscript for h2 has two functions backup and sqldump with two distinct differences. To make a zip copy of the database file itself, run the following command with the server stopped:

 /opt/telegard/h2.init.sh backup

To create a .sql dump file of the schema and data, you can run the following command either while running:

 /opt/telegard/h2.init.sh sqldump

Using the Telegard executable

Currently, Telegard is launched by performing the following commands:

 cd /opt/telegard/bbs
 ./tg.rb

OpenTelegard/2 :: Copyright (c) 2008-2010, Chris Tusa.
Distributed by LeafScale Systems, All rights reserved.
Usage: 

    -g, --genconfig                  Build sample configuration.
    -d, --daemon                     Run Server Daemon.
    -l, --login                      Perform Local Login to system.
    -s, --showuser                   Show user list
    -u, --update                     Check for & Perform Update.
    -t, --test                       Test.
    -v, --version                    Print version and exit.
    -w, --who                        WFC Style Screen (who is online monitoring)
    -h, --help                       Show this help message.

Logins

All logins are uppercase. Typing lowercase characters will convert them during input to uppercase. This is to prevent case-sensitive naming.

Default SYSOP password

changeme is the default password for the sysop user.

Bugs

Reporting Bugs

Bugs are tracked and reported via the Launchpad Project page. Refer to this page for the most up-to-date list of bugs and fixes.

Known Bugs

• An issue is currently present when running the program for this first time against an empty H2 database and additionally occurs during a first time login. This is caused when the database model for the Users and Callhistory tables are created and the Sequel ORM requests a refresh. The error is gone after a 2nd attempt.