Question

I am trying to install TWiki on a windows 2003 server and I seem to have fallen into the proverbial rabbit hole.

After the install TWiki could not send email because the perl smtp package was missing.

Install of smtp failed because the DES package was missing.

In order to install the DES package I needed to compile the source code using VC++.

We don't have the budget to buy a C++ compiler just for this step to I'm at a dead end.

I can't believe every windows installation requires this so I'm guessing I did something wrong along the way but the set-up is pretty simple so I'm at a loss to guess at what was missed.

Did I miss an installation step? Should I use an different version of ActivePerl (I downloaded 5.8.8 for windows)? Should I delete everything and try again?

Thanks for any help or guidance, -=Bill Stafford

Environment

-- BillStafford - 29 Jul 2008

Answer

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> I can't believe every windows installation requires this

Well... the same question was just dealt with at WindowsSubstituteForSendMail. See that message for the CPAN procedures that don't require a compiler.

You didn't miss a step. When I installed on Windows "by hand", I found I needed the following modules:

• CGI::Session (was missing in TWiki install doc, but I got an error without it)
• Digest::SHA1 (this one probably contains the DES code you need)
• MIME::Base64
• Net::SMTP
• ... and more when I started adding plugins

However when I used the Windows installer (see info on Blog or Codev), it had all the required modules. I still needed to add more for plugins though.

-- SeanCMorgan - 29 Jul 2008

Did you use ActivePerl's ppm installer to install the modules? If so, they should resolve all dependencies without needing a C++ compiler. I have been running ActivePerl for years without a compiler...

But there might be a problem: Plain Net::SMTP doesn't require DES. Maybe you're running SMTP over encrypted connections?

If so, then you are running into the crappy problem that Activestate lives in Canada and does not have permission to export crypto modules. You then need to get things like Crypt::SSLeay, IO::Socket::SSL or Net::SSLeay from another repository, like in the following command:

ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/Crypt-SSLeay.ppd

Unfortunately I have no idea which of them you need, and whether any of them actually helps. I just quote some knowledge from http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActivePerl/PPM/Repository, but I guess it is worth a try.

Good luck!

-- HaraldJoerg - 29 Jul 2008

BTW, TWiki:TWiki.TWikiInstallationGuide and TWiki:TWiki.TWikiSystemRequirements both list the required and optional CPAN modules. Net::SMTP is listed as optional, "used for sending mail".

But I don't know where the DES requirement is coming from either. MIME:Base64 is probably for attachments. SMTP can use a digest for the message ID, so I'd still install that one.

-- SeanCMorgan - 29 Jul 2008

Seems to be answered. Closing this question after more than 30 days of inactivity. Feel free to re-open if needed.

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Sep 2008