Running Abyss from a USB Flash Drive - Cross Platform???

DHewes · - Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

Hello All,

I have found people asking about Abyss from a CDROM, but my project is a bit different. I have a database (MySQL) and am using PHP to deliver the contents via a web page internally. Our techs often need this info while outside of our network, and often while having no Internet connectivity. Our solution is to put this database on USB thumb drives / flash drives. This introduces additional problems. (1) We can not leave ANY traces on the host PC - therefore any installation is OUT, (2) We must have cross-platform support, ie, Windows, Linux and MAC, (3) We need a common look and feel across all platforms, (4) This MUST be plug and play, the tech's (they are not computer techs) must be able to plug this thing in and it use autorun - not a "Select your OS" menu...

The obvious solution here is a web server that will run from the device and present the normal web page the tech's are used to. Can (and how) Abyss run in this fashion?

I greatly appreciate any feedback... Thanks!

mcwilliams132 · - Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Posts: 167 Location: Oshkosh, WI

There are embeded webservers or standalone webservers that will work locally

You may want to look here:

http://www.serverwatch.com/stypes/compare/index.php/compare_d2Vi_______
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iNaNimAtE · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 5:52 am Post subject:

Sounds like you're asking a lot.
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Omar G · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 6:11 am Post subject:

Try it with Abyss, but test with static HTML pages first. I'm pretty sure the MySQL thing wouldn't work too well because it usually needs installing and using shared libraries, but hell try that too if you can. It might be better to use PHP code like ADOdb which is database agnostic. Then use comma-delimited files as a data source or even better is SQLite () which makes a binary file of the data. PHP already has libraries which can read the data, eliminating the need for the MySQL database server. Tell us how it works.

- Omar G

iNaNimAtE · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 8:05 am Post subject:

mySQL kindly stores all data in the /data directory. So at least it isn't hard to get to.
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aprelium · - Joined: 22 Mar 2002 Posts: 6800

This can be done with Abyss but this requires some work on your side. You should install Abyss for each platform on the USB drive (create for example 3 dirs: win, linux, mac and install the 3 versions in the 3 dirs). Next, create a shared htdocs directory and configure each version to use it as its documents path.

MySQL thing is similar: the database files can be shared between the 3 platforms but the binary of MySQL must be installed for each of them.

Last thing, you must create an bootstrap script for every platform that will run Abyss and MySQL. On some systems (such as Linux), the user may need to manually run it (since there is no universal autrun feature).
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