Background:

Downloaded the "pristine tarball" located here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ifolder/files/iFolder%20Server/3.8.0.3/11.1/ifolder3-enterprise.tar.gz/download

extracted it to /usr/local/src and ran autobuild.sh

Due to missing dependency errors in the configuration process, I installed these rpms (and any of their dependencies ...thanks yum!)

mono-devel (2.4.3.1)

log4net (1.2.10)

log4net-devel (1.2.10)

libflaim (4.9.1052)

libflaim-devel (4.9.1052)

xsp (2.4.2)

mod_mono (2.4.2)

 

re-ran autobuild.sh successfully and ran make.

I had an error with FlaimWrapper wanting to use a static version of libflaim.a in a hard-coded location (/usr/lib if I remember correctly).  Since Fedora didn't have that file, even after loading the devel rpm, I edited the Makefile located here:

/usr/local/src/ifolder3-enterprise/src/core/FlaimProvider/FlaimWrapper

and changed like 372 to this instead:

"LIBFLAIM_LIBS_HACK = "-lpthread -lrt -lstdc++ -ldl -lncurses -lflaim"

re-ran make, everything compiled fine, then ran make install.

 

Following the administrators documentation located here:

http://ifolder.com/docs/ifolder38_admin.pdf

 

I ran the various utilities:

simias-server-setup (Page 40)

ifolder-web-setup (Page 44)

ifolder-admin-setup (Page 45)

 

I answered no to the LDAP and KEY questions.

There was a problem setting up the apache web stuff due to the program wanting to find configuration files in /etc/apache2 instead of where Fedora likes them "/etc/httpd" but a quick ln -s took care of that.

I also edited the three files that were created in conf.d so that they correctly found the mod_mono.conf file and restarted the Apache service.

 

Problem:

I attempted to log into the admin page, but was given an authentication error.

I looked at a number of different logs to see what was going on since I know I entered in the information correctly.

 

I found some important information in the /var/simias/data/simias/log/Simias.log file:

 

2010-08-14 17:22:33,060 [Simias Manager Start] INFO  Simias.Storage.Provider.Provider - Created new store /var/simias/data/simias.
2010-08-14 17:22:34,633 [Simias Manager Start] ERROR Simias.Service.Manager - Object reference not set to an instance of an object
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]
2010-08-14 17:22:35,914 [Simias Manager Start] INFO  Simias.Storage.Provider.Provider - Created new store /var/simias/data/simias.
2010-08-14 17:22:37,506 [Simias Manager Start] ERROR Simias.Service.Manager - Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000]
at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000]
at System.Reflection.ConstructorInfo.Invoke (System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000]
at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, Boolean nonPublic) [0x00000]
at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type) [0x00000]
at System.Reflection.Assembly.CreateInstance (System.String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase) [0x00000]
at System.Reflection.Assembly.CreateInstance (System.String typeName) [0x00000]
at Simias.Service.ThreadServiceCtl.Start () [0x00000]
at Simias.Service.Manager.messageDispatcher (Simias.Service.Message msg) [0x00000]
2010-08-14 17:22:37,508 [Simias Manager Start] INFO  Simias.Service.Manager - "Simias Journal" service started.
2010-08-14 17:22:38,775 [Simias Manager Start] INFO  Simias.Storage.Provider.Provider - Created new store /var/simias/data/simias.
2010-08-14 17:22:40,280 [Simias Manager Start] ERROR Simias.Service.Manager - Object reference not set to an instance of an object
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]

This repeated itself a number of times. I had assumed there might have been a permission issue creating the database, but I also see a number of files that didn't exist before attempting to log in:

 

drwxr-xr-x   8 apache apache    4096 2010-08-14 17:32 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 root   root      4096 2010-08-14 17:16 ..
drwx------   2 apache apache   16384 2010-08-14 17:32 changelog
drwx------ 222 apache apache   12288 2010-08-14 17:32 CollectionFiles
-rw-------   1 apache apache 8388608 2010-08-14 17:32 FlaimSimias.01
-rw-------   1 apache apache 8388608 2010-08-14 17:32 FlaimSimias.db
-rw-------   1 apache apache       0 2010-08-14 17:32 FlaimSimias.lck
drwx------   2 apache apache    4096 2010-08-14 17:32 FlaimSimias.rfl
drwxr-xr-x   2 apache apache    4096 2010-08-14 18:51 log
drwxr-xr-x   2 apache apache    4096 2010-08-14 17:16 modules
drwx------   2 apache apache    4096 2010-08-14 17:22 report
-rwxr-xr-x   1 apache apache    1686 2010-08-14 17:16 Simias.config
-rwxr-xr-x   1 apache apache    1399 2010-08-14 17:16 Simias.log4net

In particular, the FlaimSimias.* files, so I think permissions aren't an issue here (The apache service runs under the "apache" user in Fedora).

 

The apache error log also had some repeating errors:

 

Error: Exception Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Could not initialize collection store.
Stack Trace =   at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]
Deleting collection store.
Error: Exception Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Could not initialize collection store.
Stack Trace =   at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]
Deleting collection store.

These errors repeated themselves until I restarted the apache service.

 

Finally there was more information in the /var/log/ifolder3/adminweb.log:

2010-08-14 17:07:57,783 [96324464] INFO  Login - [192.168.1.100] Login Failed
System.InvalidOperationException: Not supported Content-Type in the response: 'text/html; charset=utf-8
'
Response error message:
--
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-
transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head><title>Error
500</title><style type="text/css">body {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:nor
mal;font-size: .7em;color:black;background-color: white}
p {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;color:black;margin-top: -5px}
b {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:bold;color:black;margin-top: -5px}
h1 { font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;font-size:18pt;color:red }
h2 { font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;font-size:14pt;color:maroon }
pre,code {font-family:"Lucida Console","DejaVu Sans Mono",monospace;font-size: 0.9em,white-space: pre-l
ine}
div.bodyText {font-family: "Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif}
table.sampleCode {width: 100%; background-color: #ffffcc; }
.errorText {color: red; font-weight: bold}
.marker {font-weight: bold; color: black;text-decoration: none;}
.version {color: gray;}
.error {margin-bottom: 10px;}
.expandable { text-decoration:underline; font-weight:bold; color:navy; cursor:pointer; }</style></head>
<body><h1>Server Error in '/simias10' Application</h1><hr style="color: silver"/><h2><em>Object referen
ce not set to an instance of an object</em></h2>
<p><strong>Description: </strong>HTTP 500. Error processing request.</p>
<p><strong>Stack Trace: </strong></p><table summary="Stack Trace" class="sampleCode">
<tr><td><pre>System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000] </pre></td></tr>
</table>
<hr style="color: silver"/><strong>Version information: </strong> Runtime: <tt>Mono 2.4.3.1</tt>; ASP.N
ET Version: <tt>2.0.50727.1433</tt></body></html>

<!--
[System.NullReferenceException]: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000]
-->
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.WebServiceHelper.InvalidOperation (System.String message, System.Net
.WebResponse response, System.Text.Encoding enc) [0x00000]
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReceiveResponse (System.Net.WebResponse respo
nse, System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapClientMessage message, System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapExtensi
on[] extensions) [0x00000]
at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke (System.String method_name, System.Obj
ect[] parameters) [0x00000]
at iFolderAdmin.GetAuthenticatedUser () [0x00000]
at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) iFolderAdmin:GetAuthenticatedUser ()
at Novell.iFolderWeb.Admin.Login.DoLogin (System.String username, System.String password, Boolean che
ck) [0x00000]
2010-08-14 17:07:57,800 [96324464] ERROR Global - [192.168.1.100] Application Error
System.InvalidOperationException: Not supported Content-Type in the response: 'text/html; charset=utf-8
'
Response error message:
--
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-
transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head><title>Error
500</title><style type="text/css">body {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:nor
mal;font-size: .7em;color:black;background-color: white}
p {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;color:black;margin-top: -5px}
b {font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:bold;color:black;margin-top: -5px}
h1 { font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;font-size:18pt;color:red }
h2 { font-family:"Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif;font-weight:normal;font-size:14pt;color:maroon }
pre,code {font-family:"Lucida Console","DejaVu Sans Mono",monospace;font-size: 0.9em,white-space: pre-l
ine}
div.bodyText {font-family: "Verdana","DejaVu Sans",sans-serif}
table.sampleCode {width: 100%; background-color: #ffffcc; }
.errorText {color: red; font-weight: bold}
.marker {font-weight: bold; color: black;text-decoration: none;}
.version {color: gray;}
.error {margin-bottom: 10px;}
.expandable { text-decoration:underline; font-weight:bold; color:navy; cursor:pointer; }</style></head>
<body><h1>Server Error in '/simias10' Application</h1><hr style="color: silver"/><h2><em>Object referen
ce not set to an instance of an object</em></h2>
<p><strong>Description: </strong>HTTP 500. Error processing request.</p>
<p><strong>Stack Trace: </strong></p><table summary="Stack Trace" class="sampleCode">
<tr><td><pre>System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_Credential () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Identity.get_PublicKey () [0x00000]
at Simias.Storage.Store..ctor () [0x00000] </pre></td></tr>
</table>
<hr style="color: silver"/><strong>Version information: </strong> Runtime: <tt>Mono 2.4.3.1</tt>; ASP.N
ET Version: <tt>2.0.50727.1433</tt></body></html>

 

This also repeated itself.

 

Doing some web searching for this problem, I see that I'm not the first to run into it:

http://forums.novell.com/novell-product-support-forums/ifolder/373102-ifolder-3-7-2-server-open-source-installtion-issue.html

http://www.mail-archive.com/ifolder-dev@forge.novell.com/msg01516.html

http://www.mail-archive.com/ifolder-dev@forge.novell.com/msg00694.html

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.file-systems.ifolder.devel/1537

 

but none of the threads had a solution.

Has anyone here ran into this particular problem, or does anyone have any suggestions on where else I can start to poke sticks to see if anything else reveals itself?  This is just for personal use... no need for ldap, so hopefully the problem isn't related to answering no to this question.