Hi Chris,

Alright.  We figured out how to work with both C# and VB, by creating a separate VB web project in VStudio, and then passing the aspprotectnet.dll to the C# project.

Ok.  I have another question:

How can our code determine the identity and user_id of the currently logged in user:

Is it Session["User_ID"].ToString() and Session["Username"].ToString()?

thank you

MySQL Database Setup

Use of MySQL is 100% unsupported as you can see from the site.
http://www.aspbanner.com/mysql.htm

Even still I recently had an encouter with an extremely Jerky person (read the thread above for more on that) and because of him I am adding this tutorial showing one way to set things up on a windows server using the official MySQL tools available.

Let me just say as well that there are 100's of 3rd party tools to work with MySQL databases and many ways to create the database and apply the database creation script. In the past it had to be done via the command line, but now there are a lot of visual tools you can do it with. Furthermore all hosting companies set MySQL up differently and give you access to varius interfaces to manage it which are all different, and that is primarily why I do not support it. How the hell could I support all those different interfaces many of which are totally custom?

The fact is 99% of the people that purchased ASPBanner to use with MySQL have done so without issue and love how it runs. Regardless here is how I set up a working MySQL database on a windows server proving it does indeed run with a MySQL database.

1st of all if you are setting up the server you need to download some things from http://www.mysql.com/ 
(btw: you local developers can install this on XP Pro as well if you like.)

For this article we are going to download the current non beta windows version of MySQL which is 5.0. ALso known as the Windows Essentials (x86) download. It's about 17 meg.

Because ASPBanner uses the MyODBC drivers (now called Connector/ODBC) to connect to the MySQL database you need to download those as well. (Our site flat out says this is required for MySQL use)

So I download those from here. http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/3.51.html
Version 3.51 has been the current version for a couple years now.
You want the windows driver install which is about 2 meg.

The two downloads should look like this.



Now, on the webserver you run the version 5 setup (mysql-essential-5.0.19-win32.msi) I will guide you through it step by setp.



Hit Next



I am going to choose typical for the sake of this article.

Hit Next



Hit Next



Wait for a bit



I skipped this part.



Choose to configure the MySQL Now

Hit Finish

Hit Next

I am going to choose Detailed Configuration



Since I am on a development machine for this install I am going to choose Developer Machine. For a Real Server choose one of the server options.



For this article I am going to choose Multifunctional Database: You may want to pick one of the other options. That is up to you. ASPBanner will work under any of the scenarios.



I am going to leave the location at its default

Hit Next



Since this is a development machine these options are fine.

Hit Next



These options are fine as well.

Hit Next



Standard is fine for my development machine.

Hit Next



I am going to choose both of these options. The 1st one is Important and should be enabled on a real server so MySQL always runs. The 2nd is not so important.

Hit Next



Set the "root" password and do not forget it. You will need it to manage your MySQL server. I do not advise creating an anonymous account unless it is a development server and you just do not care. Whether you enable root access from remote machines or not is up to you so do some research on that. For this articles needs I am not choosing it.

Hit Next



Hit Execute and wait



If all goes well you will see this. (I actually got an error message about not being able to connect... I went to to Administrative tools/services and restarted the MySQL service and hit retry which cured that... it probably only did this to me since I have installed this before.. new installs probably will not have any trouble)

Hit Finish

Your done.. You just installed the MySQL Server (TIP: its usally a good idea to reboot and make sure the MySQL servce is running by default)

Now, moving on..

Lets install the MyODBC drivers.. (now called Connector/ODBC)

This one is a bit of a no-brainer so I am not going to go into detail.
Just run (mysql-connector-odbc-3.51.12-win32.msi) and run through all the defaults until it is done.. Choose typical when that comes up.

Your done setting up MyODBC on the server. If its not your server I guess you don't need to worry about installing all of this as its your hosts job to do that.

Yes, thats cool.. post it here for sure.

Also, the way you allowed for your search engine is clever and probably was the easiest way to go.

You could do the same thing with the IP. Much easieri than the way I was thinking of doing it.

I am confused.

Humm, how did ASPBanner 8 come with your purchase of ASPProtect ? That is not something I am aware of or something I do. Please provide more information on how you obtained ASPBanner 8. If I gave yu a copy for some reason please refresh my memory so I can go look up th emails about it. I need to know you have a valid license.

Now, as for the two not working together and the login screens messing with each other. I am even more confused. Tell me more as I just do not understand what you did ? ASPBanner has it's own user database and login system so there is no reason you should be mixing the two together as far as logins go. The two applications can certainly be in the same web together and not bother each other. ASPBanner can certainly serve banners to any pages you protect with ASPProtect or don't protect, but you certainly should not be protecting any ASPBanner code with ASPProtect code.  ASPBanner already has code in it to do that. If that is the case don't do that. ASPProtect is not meant to protect code that already has a login system. That should just be obvious as far as I am concerned and hopefully you dintn't try to do that.

(you said you just put the directory in there but there must be more too this than that)

But again, tell me more. I can't really know everything  ??

I just dont see how your ASPProtect pages could be effected by ASPBanner unless you really did something wacky like included the ASPBanner "check_user_inc.asp" instead of the one that comes with ASPProtect or overwrote it... etc ect

If in the same web aspprotect can be wherever and aspbanner needs to be in a folder called "aspbanner". There should be no conflicts under normal use and the two will essentially run seperate of one another.

Thanks, I really appreciate you working on this. The software works GREAT and the support you give can't be beat. I will definately tell other that are looking for software for their sites to check your first.

one more question.

To use the bulk upload feature of aspuload, do I just need to add another upload section to the same upload page, that will allow more than one file to be selected then tell it to put the files in as Photo 1, 2, 3 etc.? I am a rookie at ASP but I think this is possible and with a little research I should be able to get it going.

Just want to make sure I am on the right track.

Thanks

See, and that's what I thought.  What's interesting is that if I call either an aspx page or an asp page in the iframe tag, it asks me if I want to open the page, it doesn't display it.  I'm using IE6 so there's not problem with the support for the tag.

I'll keep looking to find out what's going on. I think the iframe method might work best.

JDooley

If I also password protect the pricelist pages then someone will have to login twice.

nobody should have to log in twice... ?

session variables keep track of access... once your in - your in and you can browse to and from any password protected pages you like

If it is making you log in each time then cookies are most likely disabled.. session variables requires cookies being on to work.. cookies being on  is a requirement of aspprotect and is how Formed Based Authentication works..

let me know if that is the issue there...

you shouldnt have to be logging in more than once per session

Thats the whole point of the application...

Chris -

Sorry, I am looking at your code on view_item.asp and I have noticed that you are calling 3 variable; start_date, end_date, and image_url that do not exist in the databases that you provided.  Do I have the updated package for ASPVendor?

I have been able to successfully edit some text colors, but there seems to be one page that wont change the text color. Inside the users/ folder, the login.asp page, i cant seem to change the text color from ffffff to 000000 so it can be read on my background color. Every page in the script is correct but this one.

Thanks.

Sorry you feel that way, not my intention. I'm not threatening anything. I was very happy you responded when did so there no reason for any bad feelings. I like your product as I said before and have no problems with it. Sorry again, that was not my intention. Merry Christmas…

For some odd reason, the the export path has two backslashes (\\) at the end, thus generating an error each time I try to export. For example

C:\path\website\protect\data\export\\

This appears toward the bottom of the import_export_manager.asp page and is called by =ExportDirectory.

I checked under settings tab, no path ends with a "\". Any idea where else I need to look?

Nick

Anyway,

How busy your site is actually won't be the only factor. Really the application should not restart unless something happens. If the IIS application is reseting alot it could very well be the ISP restarting the server or doing IISRESETS as well or other sites on the server causing the application pools to restart.. etc etc etc  Quality ASP hosting is important. Regardless your hosting company most likely will not admit to anything be out of the ordinary.

As far as that directory deleting itself on you.. I doubt they will have an answer for that one. All I can tell for sure is I didn't put any code to delete it in there.

so use the connection string the readme.txt in the sql installation folder file tells you to... it has the correct username.. I just posted that info above

or change the username in the connection string so its rigfht

or go into sql and give any user you want access to the database and use them

Any connection strings that come in the datacon_inc.asp file the way it ships are examples. We fully expect people to edit them.

Also.. the SQL scripts primarly goal is give you a properly set up database with correct files and table settings. Users and permissions often need a little extra attention from the installer as that part doesn't always get set right by the scripts It really all depends on what sql user you are when you execute the scripts. Many times the user someone logs in with doesn't have permission to make users and set permissions.

The company is called Eschelon - there customer service leaves a lot to be desired. I have contacted them again and they said that they require the account holder to manage permissions, they won't make changes. I wish they would have told me that a week ago when I asked them about changing the permissions. They haven't responded to me yet how I am to do that though.

Frontpage ext. are not installed.

Once I hear back from them about how I connect to manage rights I should be all set.

Thanks again for all your help!

Chris, I'm having problems getting this to work. When I plug in the redirect URL and then try to load the web page, the Flash ad never loads successfully - just its black background in the 468 x 60 space. Here's an example of what I'm seeing:

http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/ArticleHeadlines.asp

Just keep refreshing the page until the black rectangle appears. And here is the code I've loaded for this flash ad:

<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
 codebase=" http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version =4,0,0,0" ID=banner WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="60">
 <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE=" http://www.innovationtools.com/aspbanner/aspbanner/banner_re direct.asp?Banner_ID=25">
 <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high>
 <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#000000>
 <embed src=" http://www.innovationtools.com/aspbanner/aspbanner/images/ba nners/mindmatters_innovation3.swf "
quality="high" bgcolor="#3CBDCD" WIDTH="468" HEIGHT="60" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE=" http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Pr od_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
</OBJECT>

What am I doing wrong? By the way, I'm using the standard version of ASPBanner. Not sure of the version, but it dates from about 2002.

Looks great. I can't wait until this will be released. Will there also be an easy way to migrate my current version ?

Hans

I did a google search and it turns out that error very well might have to do with ASP trying to send an email and that process failing.

That tells me your emailing from the application is not working so it is probably not something you edited incorrectly.

see this article...

80040211
http://www.aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2026

Emailing was working as when I did your installation (I think I did it months ago, didn't I) so it must be some incorrect changes to your email settings in the admin settings screen. Try sending an individual email to a user from the admin users screen and see if it works. My guess is you will get the same error and means your email sending options are no longer correct or valid.

If that is the case I would ask you if you changed them or possibly something changed as far as your email setup goes. Passwords ? EMail Server .. etc etc etc

Cool.

Well I'm in the middle of uploading the txt file and it's about half way done and sitting there...so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In a way your questions are confusing to me, but here is some information regardless.



Using Active Sever pages you can not protect entire folders. It is simply not possible. ASPProtect is Active Server Pages scripts so it can only protect individual ".asp" files.


If you are concerned about customers downloading the access database..

best practive is to store it in different folder name than it came in
best practive is to give the database .mdb file itself a different name
best practive is to change the password on the access database
best practice is to store it in a directory that is not part of your web if possible.. many of the better hosting companies have it set up so you actually can do that

the more of these things you can do the better..

And if you are really worried about security you should use a SQL Server database which nobody can download from your website under any conditions because your data lives in the sql server and unless they get the username/password to it they can not access it.

No rush, I have it out on the internet, but have not gone live with the site yet.

Thanks for responding,

Enjoy your well deserved break

ok.. There are various spots that call the end_date variable.  That is why I am asking.  Then incorporating it into the forms that have been developed, made me wonder.

I do not think it it anything to do with the Application.

You most likely have some sort of ad blocking software that is doing it.

It is seeing the word "banner" or "ad" and blocking the images in your browser.

I doubt it is anything built into xp doing it. XP with SP2 has built in pop-up blockers but no ad blockers like that really. It is norton ad blocker or something of that nature.

Whenever you are running software that can block scripts from certain things you are going to have issues like this.

I imagine many complex asp scripts you will download will do things like this as well.

A highly doubt it is anything to worry about regarding people that use your site.

ASP code delivers standard html to the browser... nothing weird goes on as far as that goes.

This system has been sold for 6 years and this is just not something to worry about. Trust me.. though you may want to tone down black ice so it doesn't give you issues as it tries to block various things.

If I were you I would do some google searches on black ice and issues with it blocking asp scripts.. etc etc

Now, if you are running black ice right on the server that a whole other story and something you as a server admin need to decide what to do about. I doubt that is the case as black ice is not probably suitable for a commercial webserver but I just thought I would throw that out there.

That carrot doesn't really exist in the file, so I'm not sure.

I did download and place the ASPTEST file in www.drsweisberg.com/asptest and when I try to load the 2 pages it fails to load.  I have another site on the same server and I uploaded the same exact set of files and the asp pages load.  www.klarman.com/asptest

http://www.drsweisberg.com/asptest/server_info.asp

http://www.klarman.com/asptest/server_info.asp

This is how I set the connection:

ConnectionString = "DBQ=D:\clients\rklarman\klarman\asptest\_database\asptest.m db;Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};UID=Admin;Password=temp"

ConnectionString = "DBQ=D:\clients\rklarman\drsweisberg\asptest\_database\aspte st.mdb;Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};UID=Admin;Password=temp"

The ASPProtect v7.x Documentation is now available as a download in windows ".chm" format. (needs to be viewed on a windows based machine that can read it) If you are using XP with Service Pack 2 follow the instructions below or you will not be able to view the help file.

Download Documentation

You should save this file and then open it.
Just opening it from download may not work and you will not be able to read it correctly.

Please continue to check the support forum threads for the most up to date documentation.


IMPORTANT
If your are using xp with service pack 2 there are some new security features that can block the access of help files you download. So as far as the ".chm" file goes.. you have to download it... right click on it...go to properties... then  choose unblock down in the lower right corner ...then you can open and view the file correctly

Is there a way to protect other virtual sites on the server that are not under the default web site considering people may have different websites running off one server?  I get the following error:

Parser Error Message: Cannot use a leading .. to exit above the top directory.

Source Error:

Line 1: <%@ Register TagPrefix="aspprotect" TagName="checkaccess" Src="../../protectpage.ascx" %> Line 2: <aspprotect:checkaccess level="4" groups="null" runat="server"></aspprotect:checkaccess> Line 3:

Thanks!

((TITLE EDITED BY ADMIN))


it would be nice if there was an option for login abuse, where a login account would be flagged if it logged in from x number of different IPs over a period of time. I know many have dynamic IPs, but there's got to be a balance between legitimate logins and logins that are 'shared' for the sake of saving money (I sell subscriptions), in the end costing me.

Maybe searching the first two number groups in the IP (example, 209.168.*.*), and if finding more than an admin specified number of logins per week from IPs with different first two groups, the record would be flagged or locked...

This is great documentaion for windows script 5.6
in windows chm file format for jscript and vbscript.

We use server side vbscript in all our our ASP 3.0 applications so this info can be a lot of help.

2005-02-18_150921_vbscript_docs.zip

When did you download the ASPProtect Version 7 zip file ?

what did you enter as a wrong password to make that happen ?

does it it do it when other wrong passwords are entered ?

For pay signups you set the groups during signup it like this thread tells you to

http://support.cjwsoft.com/code/moreinfo186-1.htm

only difference is you need to specify the groups info like so
(basically getting rid of the commas and just leaving behind the group numbers with a * around everything)

Also be sure to have no double asterisks

so, *1*,*2* would just be *1*2*

so, *1*,*2*,*5* would just be *1*2*5*