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December 21, 2003

MT Local

I've always wanted to have a local version of MT on my computer. But, installing it locally is much different that installing it on your web space.

You know you have the tools. There's Personal Web Server and IIS (on Win2K). You have the ability to run your own web server and everything from Perl to the Berkley database has been ported to Windows. But, when you install it, there are problems.

I've tried it a few times and didn't have the patience to get it to work. I've set up MT on web sites and even set it up on the Windows Servers at work. So why couldn't I get it to work on my desktop at home? Well...I guess it just took a little more effort. It's working now.

One of the problems I had was trying to get the Perl script to run. Note that when you run MT on Windows, you have to change all the scripts from *.cgi to *.pl in order for it to run. Why? I dunno. But, I know that makes it work. Having done that...and creating a New Virtual Directory - pointing it at the folder where I unpacked MT... it still didn't work. When I went to http://127.0.0.1/MTLocal/mt-check.pl, instead of running the check, it asked me if I wanted to open or save the file.

I found a really great site on Perl which has instructions for Calling Perl via PWS. It led me to the Microsoft KB article 150629 - which explains Perl script mapping. I added the Registry value, data and string... And now it works!

I'll be finishing up the install and making some local blogs this evening. I like the idea of having a "development" area where I can test out CSS, templates, etc ... I've also thought of a million ways to use MT to organize documents and such on my computer.

The cherry on top is finding the Gossland site. Running perl on my system at home allows me to experiment with perl scripting for various admin tasks. I feel like a door just opened...

Posted by BlueWolf on December 21, 2003 03:06 PM