Question

When I register, TWiki does not update the .htpasswd file It gives a "Thankyou for Registering" page, no errors, but the .htpasswd file does not get updated. The user appears in TWikiUsers though, you just cant log in as them. If I use the apache htpasswd binary to manually make an entry into the .htpasswd file I can log in as that user. We have no visible SMTP mail server, so I have tried commenting out the email code in the register script

Environment

-- CliveGalway - 14 Apr 2005

Answer

Is the file writable? 664 or 666?

-- BruceRProchnau - 15 Apr 2005

yep I chmodded it to 777 just to be sure

-- CliveGalway - 15 Apr 2005

bump Spent 72 hrs+ trying to install this damned software. Why is the documentation so horribly complicated ? Can we not get some Linux + Apache only instructions ?

-- CliveGalway - 19 Apr 2005

AAAAGH ! I HATE Twiki ! Why has my boss decided to use it ? The Instructions are AWFUL !! Example: Set the permission of all files below twiki/data so that they are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to -rw-rw-r-- (664) and to chown them to nobody. Set the permission of the twiki/data directory and its subdirectories so that files in there are writable by user nobody. A simple way is to chmod them to drwxrwxr-x (775) and to chown them to nobody. So how the hell do you do that ? There is no way in chown or chgrp to tell it to only target either files or directories - it will do both. Use grep, sed, regular expressions etc ? Ohhh.... REALLY USER FRIENDLY GUYS !!

AGAIN: Rename all twiki/bin scripts to have a .cgi or .pl extension if necessary. This should match the $scriptSuffix variable of TWiki.cfg, set in the previous step. Asking the user to do something again but not saying an easy way to do it. mv * *.pl does NOT work.

To be able to edit the Perl scripts and .tmpl files it is necessary to chown and chgrp -R twiki so all the files have the owner you want. TOTALLY AMBIGUOUS !! WHY would you do this ? "chown and chgrp -R twiki": Do you mean chown and chgrp -R, OR chown -R and chgrp -R ? Also, chgrp -R twiki is wrong syntax, it is chgrp -R twiki So that sentence is ambiguous AND incorrect.

Guys, I recommend you make twiki instructions NOT EDITABLE by regular users and only let people you know are capable edit it, because this is definately a "Too Many Cooks Spoiling The Broth" situation. 90+ hours of wasted work time and counting... My days at work are almost unbearable. Day in, day out of trying and failing to install TWiki. OK I may not be a Linux Guru, but I do hold LPI Linux Certification, and can program in many languages. This is THE hardest install EVER. I code .htaccess mods for message boards all the time, but nooo, TWiki won't put a simple crypt() password in a .htpasswd file... Nor will it tell you it fails when it does. /rant

-- CliveGalway - 19 Apr 2005

I'm sorry you find the documentation difficult to cope with; we are constantly trying to improve it, but it takes time and effort and with no commercial sponsors, we rely totally on people's own time. That means that sometimes the docs may not be as clear as we'd like them. I am told that there have been several thousand successful TWiki installs, which suggests that they aren't quite as bad as you make out. However your comments are perfectly valid, and I'll try to make sure that at least the aspects of the documentation that you highlight are clarified. It is possible to install a basic TWiki from scratch, configured with user authentication, in under 5 minutes; that needs to be our goal.

You don't say if you resolved the issue of the htpasswd not being updated. I assume you checked that the directory path to the htpasswd is readable by the apache user? You also don't mention if there was anything relevant in your Apache server logs or warning.txt.

-- CrawfordCurrie - 19 Apr 2005

First up, I apologise for ranting so much but I was very, very wound up at coming in to work for days on end to face the same annoying problem. I finally got it working last night just before I finished work. The problem was that I didn't see the Authentication of users section in the install docs after the end of Step 7. So while I was expecting the Registration page to make an entry in .htpasswd, it seems like it was doing nothing with the username and password I was signing up with. When I renamed TWikiRegistrationPub.txt to TWikiRegistration.txt it all started working. So I would recommend removing the username and password from the non-authenticationg version of TWikiRegistration.txt because it makes people think it should be doing something that it isnt

-- CliveGalway - 20 Apr 2005

Thanks Clive, I will make that section more prominent in the install guide. Perhaps you could visit http://develop.twiki.org/~develop/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TWikiInstallationGuide, and let me know if you have any feedback (that is the doc for the next version of TWiki, so don;t expect it to apply to the current install)

-- CrawfordCurrie - 20 Apr 2005

I had a similar problem. I tried to have both the intranet name (for future use) and basic authentication. I found that the register script explicitly checks for the intranet name ($remoteUser) and if it finds it, the script will not write to .htpasswd. You must either modify the register script to not skip the write to .htpasswd based on $remoteUser or not ask for the intranet name in the TWikiRegistration topic.

-- PhilipIsaacson - 25 May 2005

I'm having the same problem: .htpasswd won't update, and attempts to register new users either make no change, or fail with a complaint that the ,htpasswd file failed to open in HtPasswdUser.pm, line 156. This is for 4.2.4. I've searched this web pretty thoroughly, and none of the solutions I've seen seem to be applicable anymore. There's no longer a TWikiRegistrationPub file, the choice of not writing the file if there's a login name seems to be gone from where it was. I'm set up to use template login, no email verification required. My .htpasswd is owned by apache:apache, has permissions 600. This is on Fedora 9, with Apache 2.x. Got through configure fine, but can't add users. Their pages get created, but process craps out with this open failure. If I move .htpasswd to .htpasswd.bak, leaving an empty one, and try to create a new user, a new .htpasswd file is created, but left empty. The registration seems to work then, but the file is not updated. Is there a newer solution for this for 4.2.4?

-- ChrisWestin - 18 Dec 2008

Thanks to a clue from a friend, I found the problem. My pristine Fedora 9 installation had SELinux running. The worst part about it was there was no sign or indication in any place I knew to look, and that this supercedes the visible protection bits on files. I've used Linux for a while, but I'd never even heard of this stuff. I guess that's why the NSA are called "the spooks." See http://www.crypt.gen.nz/selinux/disable_selinux.html#DIS2 , http://docs.fedoraproject.org/selinux-apache-fc3/sn-simple-setup.html , and http://docs.fedoraproject.org/selinux-faq-fc3/ .

-- ChrisWestin - 19 Dec 2008

Error registering user SteveChalupsky There has been a problem adding your user id to the Password system.

Please contact webmaster@domainPLEASENOSPAM.com.

You have not been registered.

-- Sandy Rodrigues - 2015-02-05

Getting the above error when trying to register a user...an help will be appreciated

-- Sandy Rodrigues - 2015-02-05

Sandy: Best to open a new support question, stating the details on environment.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2015-02-05