WebTTS 2.5
(C) 1998,1999 Robert Gash

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

This program is distributed under the GNU GPL.  You may freely distribute
modified copies of this program under the terms contained in the GNU
General Public License.

DONATIONS
---------
I felt I should put this at the top of the README so everyone can see it.
Even though this is very very tacky, if I put it at the bottom you wouldn't see
it because most everyone (myself included) stops reading after they get to 
"Installation" ;]

I have spent many many hours working on WebTTS for all of the world to enjoy.
I feel software should be distributed in source under the GPL (or another
license that is similar to the GPL), which is why I publish WebTTS under the
GPL.  I also believe that software should be free.  Period.  However, I do
have to make a living, and writing WebTTS takes away from the time that I
spend at my job or elsewhere.  Therefore, with the release of WebTTS 2.5 I am
going to mention a DONATION.  That's right, a money DONATION.  This is NOT
REQUIRED, if you don't think WebTTS is worthy of being paid for, fine, use it
until your heart's content (and even longer if you like).  However, if you
do feel that all of my hard work is worthy of a little donation, you can send
them to the address below (checks or money orders please, you shouldn't send
cash in the mail).  I am going to suggest US$10 for a donation, if you want to
give more or less, feel free, this is just what I am suggesting.
Again, I should stress that this is not required, your databases won't blowup
and your computer won't cease to function if you don't donate, but if you
really like the software and think I deserve something, this would be a great
way.  Currently I am needing funding for a new PC, my current one is becoming
very old and is beginning to act up (in a bad way), so I have decided that
until I get a new computer, all WebTTS donations will go twoard my new computer.

If you do send a donation, please include your eMail address.  I will put it in
a database and I will inform you of current status of the project, and you will
recieve an eMail when new versions are released.  If you want to register, but
don't want to get any eMail from me, simply note that you don't want eMail on
the note.

You may send checks or money orders (with a note including your eMail addr) to:

Robert Gash
2793 Admirals Walk Dr. N
Orange Park, FL 32073-6130 USA

Introduction
------------
This package is provides for businesses (or individuals) that require a
trouble tracking system.  I have written this implementation for use by an
ISP in an environment where they must track service problems (outages,
downtime, emergencies) coming from many sources covering a vast array of
topics.  Within this package you will find all of the programs necessary
to run a WWW-based Trouble Ticketing system, that can be accessed through
your favorite browser.  This program provides rudimentary authentication
and report tracking.

Requirements
------------
This package requires PERL5 (5.004 or later), and DB_File.
All of this comes with the default PERL5 installation, so you should
already have these if you did it right.  If not, you can get them from
your local CPAN mirror (www.cpan.org).

Installation
------------
Installation of this is very simple:

1) Copy the tts.pl, tts-*.pl and cgi-lib.pl scripts to a directory that is
   publicly accessible and has permission to run CGI programs.

2) Give all the files a+rx permissions (0555 for you numerical permission
   people) that you have just placed in the public CGI directory.

3) Go to the directory you just placed all of the scripts in and edit the
   tts-inc.pl file.  Change the $action = "http://someaction" to the URL
   where your script is accessible (only the http://path/to/tts.pl is
   needed).  Next change the $udb and $tdb paths to some path on your
   system that is writable by your webserver.  The filenames aren't
   important, but I should note $udb is the users db file, and $tdb is the
   tickets database file.  You should also look at all of the other optiosn
   in the tts-inc.pl file, you will probably want to modify some of them.  After
   you have done so, save your changes to the tts-inc.pl file.

4) Change the ownership of that users.db file to the user and group that
   the webserver runs as (the webserver needs to have write access to all
   of the db files, or the program won't work!).  Also make sure the
   directory you are keeping the tickets.db file in has write permissions
   for the user or group that the webserver runs as.  I have included a single
   user users.db file in the data directory.  You may use this file initially
   to login so you can add users to the system.

5) Access the tts.pl file you have installed through your favorite WWW
   browser.  You will be prompted with a login screen, enter "admin" for the
   login name and "admintts" for the password (this is if you have used my
   users.db file).  I suggest going DIRECTLY to the User Management area and
   adding a new user for yourself (make sure you have admin rights, or you
   can't access the user management stuff!), then deleting the admin user.

That's it!  Nothing more to do!  When you create your first ticket the
program will automatically initialize the tickets.db file.  The user
interface is very self explanatory, you shouldn't have any problems moving
about the program.

I do request that you send me an eMail with your name, company, and field
of business so I can enter it in my database I keep here of users.  This
is not required, but I do appreciate knowing someone out there likes my
work.  You can find my contact addresses at the bottom of this file.

Miscellany
----------
I have also included 1 other program to aid in the operation of this
program:

1)  pubview.pl -- This program allows people to view public alerts.  By
    default public alerts are "ALERT"s "System Maintenance" and "System
    Downtime" tickets.  If a ticket is closed, public users can't see it,
    so you don't have to show users the old tickets.  You call the script
    from an <A HREF> or direct access like this: pubview.pl?type .  "type"
    can be "alert" for Alerts, "downtime" for System Downtime, or
    "maintenance" for System Maintenance (without the quotes of course).  When
    you use pubview.pl, please be sure that the include
    '/path/to/tts-inc.pl'; points to the proper path for tts-inc.pl.

Contact
-------
You can contact me (Robert Gash) at the following addresses

Robert Gash
2793 Admirals Walk Dr. N
Orange Park, FL 32073-6130 USA

eMail: gashalot@gashalot.com
eMail: gashalot@cybermax.net
