Setting up a WeBWorK course
You can set up a "working" or a "demo" version of a course. A "demo" version
should only be used as a sample course, never for an actual course. In a "demo"
version all the system type files specific to the course (e.g. webworkCourse.ph)
are world readable and many files are world writable.
Other than that, "working" or "demo" versions
function the same.
The "you" in these instructions refers to the person setting up the course, usually a member of
the wwadmin group that was established when the WeBWorK system was setup.
First, decide what will be your base course directory (mth140a in our example),
i.e. where you want course specific files. The recommended place to put base course
directories is under the courses subdirectory of the main webwork directory.
In our setup this means
/ww/webwork/courses/mth140a and I will use
this as an example. In a chroot environment I would use
/ww/webwork-root/webwork/courses/mth140a as my base course directory.
Decide what you will use as your course URL. Since we have a separate
WeBWorK www server, I use http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/mth140a/
and will use this as an example. If we didn't have a separate server, I would use
http://www.math.rochester.edu/mth140a/ Remember this course URL
(at least the /mth140a/ part) as it will be needed by the installation
process below.
Have your system administrator (root) set up your base course directory, e.g.
mth140a.
This directory is set up by entering
mkdir mth140a
in the /ww/webwork/courses/ directory.
You need to be the owner of this directory so make sure your system
administrator (root) gives you ownership.
Have your system administrator (root) set up a link to your base course directory
from the courses subdirectory of system. This link is setup by runnng
(in the /ww/webwork/system/courses/ directory)
ln -s ../../courses/mth140a mth140a
This link name (mth140a) is
used a lot and we refer to it as the classID. Remember this classID
as it will be needed by the installation process below.
Note that the
courses subdirectory of system is distinct from the
courses subdirectory of webwork.
The courses subdirectory of system just contains links.
We do this so that it is easy to upgrade the system without changing actual courses.
Or, if we have an addition system (e.g."experimental WeBWorK system") we can run a course under either system.
You can skip step 5
for a "demo" version.
Have your system administrator (root) set up a special group (e.g.
mth140agroup) containing the user name under which the
web server runs, your user name, and the user names of anyone else (e.g.
other professors and TA's) who will be creating and editing WeBWorK
problems for your course. If you don't know
name under which the web server runs, you might grep the output of the
ps command for HTTP. Depending on the flavor of unix you are using, try running
one of the following commands:
ps -aux | grep httpd OR
ps -ef | grep httpd
The web server will need to be restarted for the changes to take effect.
You may also need to log out and log back in again for the same reason.
Finally, if your server runs in a chroot environment, be sure to add this
group to the chrooted /etc/group file as well. Remember this group
as it will be needed by the installation process below.
Note: to see what groups
you are in, run the command id and to see what groups the web server
is in run the command id wwserver where you should replace
wwserver by the appropriate user name of the web server.
In your base course directory (e.g. .../mth140a), set up
needed directories and files. The easiest way is to copy
everything from demoCourse: cd /ww/webwork/courses/mth140a
cp -r /ww/webwork/courses/demoCourse/* .
or even better, cd /ww/webwork/courses/demoCourse
tar cf - . | (cd /ww/webwork/courses/mth140a ; tar xvf -)
The use of tar is preferred, because cp does not
always preserve all file attributes, e.g., it may not understand symbolic
links.
Don't worry if you are denied permission to copy the keys file. You don't need it.
You will have extra *.def (and associated subdirectories) and *.lst files in
the templates directory.
Keep these arround for a while to use as samples.
Your system administrator (root) will have to set an additional link
(or links) depending on what you choose as the URL of the course and
how your webserver is set up. The only things that are the same for
all setups are (1) you have to start from under the webserver's document
root (often a directory called htdocs or html)
and (2) you have to end up in the html subdirectory of the base course
directory. For example, my setup is as follows. Our webserver
(http://webwork.math.rochester.edu) has
/ww/htdocs/ as its document root. In that
directory there is a link mth140a ->
../webwork/courses/mth140a/html. This link is
setup by running (in the htdocs/ directory)
ln -s ../webwork/courses/mth140a/html
mth140a
Thus the URL for my course is
http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/mth140a/.
Note that the URL ends up pointing to the html
subdirectory of the base course directory.
This can be very confusing and is also highly dependent on how your
web server is set up. You will probably need the assistance of your system
administrator to set things up correctly even if you have permission to make such changes.
Now you need to run the script course_webwork_setup.pl
If you have set /ww/webwork/system/scripts in your path, then all you need to do is run the command
./course_webwork_setup.pl
Otherwise, if /ww/webwork/system/scripts is not in your path, then you need to type the whole command
/ww/webwork/system/scripts/course_webwork_setup.pl
For this script you will need to enter the course URL, the cgi WeBWorK URL, the classID,
and, for a "working" version, the group.
- The course URL (
http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/mth140a/) is the
one decided upon above. It is sufficient to enter just /mth140a/
but if you do this, don't forget to enter the initial "/".
- The cgi WeBWorK URL points to the url of the main WeBWorK cgi subdirectory.
It is listed in the
Global.pm file as $cgiWebworkURL .
The Global.pm file is contained in the system subdirectory of the
main WeBWorK directory /ww/webwork/.
If there is an initial "/" such as in /cgi-bin/webwork/system, don't forget
to enter it.
- The classID is the name of the link
(e.g.
mth140a) which your
system administrator set up (see step 4 above) in the
/ww/webwork/system/courses/ directory.
- The group is the special group (e.g.
mth140agroup) containing the
webserver, your loginID, and the loginID's of anyone else who will creating
and editing WeBWorK problems for your course which your
system administrator set up (see step 5 above). You don't need a special group
for a "demo" version.
-
Finally, answer Y to all questions to allow
course_webwork_setup.pl to
create needed directories and files and to set default permissions.
If you make a mistake, you can always run course_webwork_setup.pl again.
At this point you should have a working setup (but see the NOTE below) if you answered Y to every question asked
by course_webwork_setup.pl. To test it, connect to your url
(e.g. http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/mth140a/) and login as practice1 with
password any non blank characters (e.g. practice1 ). Try some problems to make sure everything
is working. Login as apizer with
password 111-11-1111 and you will have professor privileges.
NOTE: If you have just setup the WeBWorK
system and are now setting up the demoCourse, the copied databases may not
work on your possibly different architechure (or the databases may be missing) and you may not have a
working setup at this point.
In that case follow the instructions in the next paragraph.
If you want to start with a totally new course
cd to DATA and remove all files there (rm *) .
Then cd to .auth and remove all files there (rm *) .
If you don't remove the files in DATA and DATA/.auth , you will have four
practice users and a number of other users (look at mth140a.lst in templates).
Also for a totally new course remove all the temporary files and directories.
To do this, remove everything from mth140a/html/tmp/
cd /ww/webwork/courses/mth140a/html/tmp
rm -rf *
Finally for a totally new course remove all the scoring files (if any)
from mth140a/scoring/
cd /ww/webwork/courses/mth140a/scoring
rm *
In the mth140a/templates/ directory there are a number of header files, set
definition files, problem templates, emails, etc that
you may or may not want to keep as samples. We do recommend that you keep these files around
for awhile. In particular the *.tex files are used to tex problems
and probably should not be changed. The paperSetHeader.pg and
screenSetHeader.pg are default header files which will be used unless the
set definition file (e.g. set2.def) specifically calls for different header files.
Now go back to mth140a and cd to html.
Edit the index.html file (you don't have to edit this but you probably will want to).
This is the first page your students will see. You should
enter your course name and other information here. E.g. you may want to add name(s) of professors,
a link to the course syllabus, etc. You can connect to courses at
http://webwork.math.rochester.edu to see the type of things some people put in their
index.html file. The generic index.html file created by
course_webwork_setup.pl is very simple, but is usable.
You can skip
step 12 for a "demo" version.
Now we need to change permissions on templates/ so that all new files created in
templates will have
mth140agroup as their default group. We do this as follows. First go back to mth140a and then:
chmod g+xs templates
If you do not use chmod g+xs as above to set the group
setID, then when you create new directories and files the group ownership
will not be automatically set for you, and you will have to
be very careful to set the group and/or permissions properly so that
they are accessible from the webserver.
If you have not changed file permissions using course_webwork_setup.pl,
look at help with permissions for some help
on setting permissions. We strongly recommend that you let
course_webwork_setup.pl set the permissions for you as setting permissions
correctly is very trickly. Actuallly the "help with permissions" document may be
out of date. A better source of information is to look at the code in
course_webwork_setup.pl.
If a professor (e.g. jsmith) is in the mth140agroup, he or she should have sufficient
privileges to do everything necessary to administer the course. However, if you want,
you can have your system administrator (root) change the ownership of all
files and directories to this professor. Before you do this,
remove the keys file. The keys file has to be owned by the web
server (e.g. wwserver) and it will always be recreated by the webserver if it
doesn't exist. To change ownership, have your system administrator (root) run: cd /ww/webwork/courses
rm mth140a/DATA/.auth/keys
chown -R jsmith mth140a
Now you will definitely want to continue reading
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WEBWORK PROFESSOR for further information.
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