Question

I am trying to get SmartSessionPlugin to work and am having no luck. I've double checked that:

• CGI::Session and all of its dependencies are installed (like Digest::MD5 and Storable)
• That all of the permissions are set correctly on the TWiki files
• SessionPlugin.pm is readable by the webserver
• SessionPlugin.txt is readable (and writable) by the webserver
• bin/logon is executable by the webserver

I've turned on debug for the plugin and the only message that shows up in the debug file is installWeb: TWiki.

I'm at a loss as to what I can try next. Any suggestions?

Environment

-- LynnwoodBrown - 19 Dec 2003

Answer

In it's default state this plugin tries to write cgisession.* files into /tmp. It might be worth checking that the webserver can get there.

Also it might be worth temporarily taking all the other plugins out of the plugins directory:

• cd $TWIKIROOT/lib/TWiki/Plugins
• mkdir .tmp
• mv * .tmp
• mv .tmp/*Session* .
• Then send a ---MARK--- to the error log:
  • echo "---MARK---" >> /var/log/httpd/error_log (or wherever your apache log is on your system)
• Then retry your request
• Then send a ---MARK--- to the error log:
  • echo "---MARK---" >> /var/log/httpd/error_log (or wherever your apache log is on your system)
• Then move all the plugins back:
  • mv .tmp/* .

ie:

• Give yourself a baseline, mark this point in the logs
• Retry the request
• Restore everything after marking the end of the test

Then retrying to login and see what happens. (The other plugins shouldn't be affecting it, but I know in it's bare state this plugin works)

If things still break, look at the error log between the MARKs. Likewise if that fails, you can repeat the procedure for the warnings logs and so on.

If this is on a publically accessible wiki that info might be handy. (If you don't want to post here, catch someone on IRC)

Last time I spoke to Ted he mentioned he was busy and didn't have time to maintain this plugin. I'm personally not prepared to put in the time to maintain this on Thoeny's Wiki, but I'm prepared to help you if you've got problems

-- MS - 11 Feb 2004

Thanks for the help Michael! I've got the older version of SessionPlugin working OK although I'd like to get some of the features in SmartSessionPlugin. Since posting this help request, I've moved up to the lastest beta version of TWiki and I believe I saw a note somewhere from you noting SmartSessionPlugin doesn't work with the latest versions.

In any case, I really appreciate your comments here since they seem to be very good advice for trouble-shooting plugins in general!

-- LynnwoodBrown - 12 Feb 2004

This failed for me under Cairo until I traced down a fix. See SmartSessionPluginDev for details.

-- MartinCleaver - 12 Apr 2004