Troubleshooting Xitami

DBFree versions with Windows Installer

Just after you finished the installation process the installer invokes the default browser to open the address http://localhost

At this point you should see the DBFree companion site Home Page

Things going wrong

A -  if you get an Error 404 - page not found you must investigate on what happened.
This is a brief list of most common causes for this message:

• Your firewall is blocking port 80
• You have another webserver running in the background and using port 80
• You didn't have the proper admin rights to install DBFree on your machine
• During setup you provided an invalid location for installing DBFree

What to do then

The starting point of troubleshooting is always investigating the Xitami log files :

1. Explore your disk and locate the Xitami folder (i.e. c:\dbfree\webserver\xitami25 )
2. Find the logs subfolder (i.e. c:\dbfree\webserver\xitami25\logs )
3. Open the file console.log by using a text editor (i.e. notepad.exe)

   A typical content you may find could be similar to this:

   2012/01/08 07:54:16: xilrwp: ready for LRWP connections on port 81
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: web server binding to address 192.168.1.2
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: web server binding to address 127.0.0.1
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: opening HTTP service on port 80...
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: could not open port 80
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: Port is already used by another server
   2012/01/08 07:54:16: smthttp: WSAEACCES
   Here the causes of the problem are obvious: there is another server running unnoticed in the background and this is preventig the new one (Xitami) to run.

   In this case either stop the other webserver or change the port where Xitami is actually try to run. The latter is explained to follow in the document.

Change Xitami listening port

1. Explore your disk and locate the Xitami folder (i.e. c:\dbfree\webserver\xitami25 )
2. Find the file defaults.cfg by using a text editor (i.e. notepad.exe)
3. Notice there is a section that appears something like this
   #GENERAL SETTINGS
   #
   [server]
   
   
4. Under the section marked as [server] locate the line:
   portbase = "0"
   
   
5. Change the value to this:
   portbase = "8"
   This actually instructs Xitami to run on port 88 (80+ portbase)
    
6. Save changes and restart Xitami.
   This can be done as follow:
   • Go back to folder c:\dbfree\webserver
   • double click on file xi-start.cmd
7. Now try to access localhost again (using port 88)

What if it is working

If http://localhost:88 works you have to decide what to do:

• Run Xitami on port 88 (or whatever is the one you choosed)
• Have the other webserver run on another port than 80

If you decide for the first option you will need to amend the DBFree configuration all over: this is not a problem, but can be tedious because you must locate all links that refer to local sites and correct them by adding the port you decided to run Xitami on.

It must be outlined that DBFree with Xitami Multihosting is not intended for running as a secondary server: in that case it is viable to download the single server version or simply install the IIS/Apache version outright.

B - On Windows versions that support the .cpl modules (i.e. XP/Win2003) the Xitami applet shows a red icon

This simply means that Xitami cannot start: apply same approach illustrated in point A.

Notice that if you're running some flavour of Windows 7 and any 64-bit Windows versions the Xitami applet won't work anyway, indipendently by the presence of another webserver conflicting.

For these systems is better to use the batch (.CMD) files provided with dbfREE.

C - Xitami could not open port xxxx

If you're absolutely shure not to have another webserver already installed and conflicting on the port indicated by the message, well, it is time to investigate on what is going on on your PC.

Just search and install Sysinternals TCP-View

Then check WHO or WHAT is occupying the port you've been denyed access for Xitami.