OPML Community Server Howto

How to install your own server

All these instructions should be performed on the machine that's going to be the server. The software runs on either Windows or Macintosh operating systems; Windows 2000 or greater; Mac OS X.

1. Download and run the OPML Editor from support.opml.org. Click on Cancel to the two dialogs that appear. Choose Get Latest Code from the Community menu.

2. In the OPML Editor application folder, create a text file called opmlStartupCommands.txt. Copy the four lines of text from this file into your file. (This is the actual file used on the third OPML Community server, so you know it works, at least on my server.) Now an explanation of each of the lines.

user.opmlserver.enabled = true;
This tells the editor that it's a server. No modification necessary.

user.opmlServer.rpcName = "rpc.teamrss.com";
The domain name of the server machine. Change it to the domain name of your server.

user.opmlServer.hostname = "hosting.teamrss.com";
The domain name to use for user files that are hosted on this machine.

user.opmlServer.blogsname = "blogs.teamrss.com";
The domain name for blogs that are hosted on this machine.

Important: hostname and blogsname must be different.

3. After editing opmlStartupCommands.txt, quit the OPML Editor and re-launch. You can test your server following the instructions posted previously. The name of your community server is the string entered in user.opmlServer.rpcName. That's basically all your users need to know.

Troubleshooting

If you had no trouble setting up the server, consider yourself lucky. It's almost never as simple as you think it should be. These are some things that have caused problems for other people, and may help you if there's trouble setting up your server.

1. If you have other server software running on your machine, turn it off. I had IIS running on my machine so requests were sent there instead of the OPML Editor. If it never sees the requests, none of this can work.

Notes

1. This is the simplified howto, and assumes the static server and the RPC server are both being run by the OPML Editor app. Subject to review by MacTough and Kosso.

2. This replaces the two previous howtos.

3. I am testing this on a brand-new server to be sure it works.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 2/1/06; 1:34:20 PM - --