Sunday 11 March 2007 3:52:25 pm

Hi Stefan,

I've had no experience of some of your errors, but I might be able to answer most of your questions.

The system check page ensures your server environment will allow EZ Publish to function properly. It may be possible to ignore some of these checks, but it is not always useful.

<b>Directory Permissions</b>
To streamline its operation, EZ Publish creates a lot of cache files which are placed within the "var" directory and its sub-directories. Files uploaded by your or by users are also stored in these folders. Although someone else might correct me, I think it's possible to say that all of the other EZ Publish folders deal with configuration, design and various code, while the "var" directories deal with what EZ Publish is <i>actually doing</i> to produce a site. It's the working area of EZ Publish. The other folders mentioned in this directory permissions section are essential to setting up EZ Publish.

Setting these directory permissions is pretty vital. You can usually do this by:
1. Entering the commands shown via a telnet shell program (eg absolute telnet)
2. Changing the permissions of the folders by using an FTP program (eg smartFTP), or
3. If you have a cpanel or other web front-end to a web hosting account, use it's file manager.

Looking at your hosting provider, they mention having a "Web Based Administration Panel" ... this is what I mention in (3) above. If you haven't had any experience of (1) or (2), try this (3).

To use this,
1) log into your hosting account.
2) click on "file manager" (or something similar) - this will bring up a file/folder structure of your hosting account
3) navigate to the folders indicated by EZ Publish
4) You then need to "change permissions" for these folders. In Cpanel, a menu for this comes up when you click on the name of a folder. The permissions commands need to be set for user/group or all ... and the rwx refers to read/write/execute permissions.Tick the relevant boxes and click the button to store the permisisons changes.

I haven't struck the other configuration problems you mentioned, though going on the fact that the EZ install suggestions for the directory permissions works fine, I expect their other suggestions would be fine too. If you have telnet / shell access (as per 1, above), then it looks like entering the indicated commands would deal with those tests.

<b>Packages Installation</b>
Looking at the system check messages you're getting (and ignoring), it seems pretty clear that EZ Publish is going to have problems uploading and installing the files it needs ... it looks like the packages problem you're getting to is just the first evidence of this. Packages are written to a directory below the "var" directory. But if EZ Publish can't create files there, then nothing is going to happen.

I hope this helps.

- Paul