RE: [Koha-win32] Install on IIS / MS-SQL Server / W2K ?

[Jeff Cave]

Rob:

Thanks for the warning, but I'm a little more adventurous than that, and my 
boss is a lot more forgiving than you give him credit. ;-)

I have learned a lot about the benefits of using testing boxes. I already have 
a box all picked out for this little experiment. The reason I mentioned that I 
get the free space at work was because I want to put this on my website, but do 
not have Apache available. As you said:

> Thoese installs would constitute MAJOR changes for a box that is running IIS 
> and SQLServer.

Eventually I would like to move it to the production box and the production box 
does not have apache. I do intend to get it up and running on a test machine 
first.

> The windows install requires functional installs of apache 
> web server, MySQL database and Perl.

Reading the docs they mentioned that all of those were mearly the "official" 
guidelines (unless I misread):
- the perl was never written for a specific web server
- theoretically, any SQL DB should do the trick 
- ok so you need Perl available
http://www.koha.org/installation/index.html

> And I'm sure you should not get into trying to reconfigure 
> Koha to run on IIS and SQLserver. 

Actually, that *is* what I was thinking... :) 

I have been working with another Perl app lately and it does a really good job 
of being very configurable. It allows you to use many different data sources 
for reading and writing (text files, any SQL DB, other instances of itself) as 
well as running on any platform that has perl installed on it somewhere. So at 
least I know it can be done. Whether it *should* be done...we'll see.

> No way, no way, no way would I attempt an install on the server at work!!! 

Eventually, not right away.

> Your MIS person would never forgive you!

You would be surprised what he has forgiven me for. Besides I haven't broken 
anything in almost a year. People are starting to wonder.

> If you have a linux box at home, I would go that route. You 
> will find far more support on the koha lists for running 
> koha on linux. 

I will likely be doing that in the next couple of days, but it is not as 
useful. I can't serve much of a website off of my home computer. I will likely 
use the linux box at home for learning the configuration a little better. The 
goal is to get it running on the IIS box at work.

> There are only a couple of us users who don't know linux and 
> are foolish enough to be trying to use windows.

I think I fall into the foolish category.

This whole thing just comes down to the fact that this is the closest open 
source project to the system I want (that I saw at least). I'm not keen on 
being tied to any one OS/Company/Server. I figure if I can get it up and 
running on IIS I can start hacking it for another (similar) project that I have 
had in mind for a couple of years. I just trashed that project because I 
realized that I didn't know enough about the library industry to make it worth 
building from scratch. Need to learn the business rules for libraries first.

I am only asking for the advice so that I am not looking into things that have 
already been looked into. I have mySQL databases on both my home and work 
networks, so that is one headache I can avoid for now. Perl is installed on the 
test machine (though under "c:\progfile\perl", that might pose a bit of a 
problem), I can probably reinstall it in the recommended folder. That just 
leaves the "I don't have access to Apache" issue. If no one has done it yet... 
I'll let you know if I pull it off.

If anyone has attempted any of these (I am currently reading the windows 
install documentation) let me know of any problems/solutions you had.

-Jeff-