I have used the hiawatha webserver for over 10 years in CGI mode.

https://www.hiawatha-webserver.org

This is the first time I have tried to use a fastCGI application. I write programs in C and Go with good success. I choose not to use PHP so am very interested in asmbb as an alternative to the many PHP based forum applications. I have 40 years experience as a programmer. (Yes, my beard is grey).

I have partial success in running the asmbb forum software under hiawatha, using the installation instructions here:

https://board.asm32.info/asmbb-how-to-download-compile-and-install_49/

The hiawatha configuration file, like .htaccess for apache, is stored at /usr/local/etc/hiawatha/hiawatha.conf or /etc/hiawatha/hiawatha.conf depending on the installation method.

Modifications to hiawatha.conf sections for asmbb are:

FastCGIserver { FastCGIid = asmbb # Extension = # empty implies send all requests to this server ConnectTo = /home/chris/www/asmbb/engine.sock }

and:

UrlToolkit { ToolkitID = asmbb # RequestURI isfile Return Match ^.*$ UseFastCGI asmbb }

and

VirtualHost { Hostname = asmbb.local WebsiteRoot = /home/chris/www/asmbb AccessLogfile = /usr/local/var/log/hiawatha/access.log ErrorLogfile = /usr/local/var/log/hiawatha/error.log # UseFastCGI = asmbb UseToolkit = asmbb }

The file /etc/systemd/system/asmbb.service is used by systemd to control the asmbb daemon. It contains:

[Unit] Description=AsmBB forum engine FastCGI script. After=hiawatha.service [Service] Type=simple User=www-data WorkingDirectory=/home/chris/www/asmbb ExecStart=/home/chris/www/asmbb/engine Restart=on-failure [Install] WantedBy=hiawatha.service

The /etc/hosts file has asmbb.local as a domain on 127.0.0.1

All files in /home/chris/asmbb are owned by www-data which has group level access to the parent directory.

There is no mail server running on my local machine so the outbound verification email does not work.

Asmbb started and displayed the admin setup dialog if the http://asmbb.local/!login/ url was used. Other activity has been variable, either working or crashing the asmbb daemon. The fault.txt file left in the working directory looks like:

0805995E 08051E4E 080502F2 080515C6 B771A9AE

with slight variation depending on the link used.

After some playing with restarting the asmbb daemon, deleting the fault.txt file(s), and clicking other links first, I was able to get the submit button to work and it accepted the admin login parameters.

Yesterday, I was able to login but many actions cause the asmbb daemon to crash.

Today, using http://asmbb.local causes the daemon to crash but http://asmbb.local/!login/ works. Clicking the submit button causes the daemon to crash. After clean-up and restart, using the /!login/ url redisplays the login dialog however, the login link in the top right corner has changed to logout (admin) .

Clicking the user profile link below logout displays the profile as expected.

Clicking on the show all threads icon causes a daemon crash. There are zero threads at the moment.

So the application is not usable in its present state.

Two possible solutions come to mind:

1. a CGI only version of asmbb could be made and tested,

2. other users could provide better specification on this combination of application, webserver and operating system. This would require installing them and testing.

Any help you could provide is gratefully accepted.

Regards,

Chris