Perl Mongers

260 international Perl User Groups.

Please send any suggestions or corrections to support(at)pm(dot)org.

Big Questions

* What Services are Offered?

  • Basic Web Hosting (via WebDAV)
  • Group Mailing Lists (Mailman)
  • .pm.org DNS

What Services are not offered?

  • Dynamic Web Hosting (CGI scripts, Template Toolkit, Mason, wikis)
  • Shell access (ssh)
  • FTP

Why don't you offer service X?

Probably for security reasons.

Do I have to host my PM group website on your server?

No. We're happy to point yourgroup.pm.org DNS anywhere you want.

Who do I contact for help?

Send an email to support(at)pm(dot)org

* Maintaining my groups website on the pm.org server

How do I upload files?

Access is only supported through WebDAV.

Recent versions of Windows and Mac OS X have DAV clients built in. Many Linux desktop tools do as well.

For a simple UNIX command line client, try cadaver.

Where do I get a username/password?

Go to http://svn.perl.org/ and sign up for a username. You must notify support(at)pm(dot)org so they can associate that username with your pm group.

What if I forget my password?

http://svn.perl.org/ tells you how to reset your password.

Where do I upload files?

https://groups.pm.org/groups/yourgroup/

You must use the 'real' name of your group, not one of its aliases. (i.e. philadelphia, not philly or phl)

What is my group website?

http://yourgroup.pm.org

WebDAV on Mac OS X

Download and trust the Develooper Root certificate.

Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server. Server address: 

  https://groups.pm.org/groups/yourgroup

That's it. You now have access to our server via WebDAV just like any other network drive.

WebDAV on Windows

Download and trust the Develooper Root certificate.

Start -> My Network Places -> Add a Network, plug in your group web access URL: 

  https://groups.pm.org/groups/yourgroup
and it creates a directory where you can just copy/paste files.

How do I use cadaver?

Cadaver works just like most command line FTP clients. 

    $ cadaver https://groups.pm.org/groups/yourgroup
    Authentication required for perl.org on server `groups.pm.org':
    Username: yourusername
    Password: yourpassword

Important commands: get put ls

Why can't I use an FTP client?

Because DAV integrates better with our Authentication and Access Control system. Also, DAV runs over SSL (https) so passwords (and data) are encrypted in transit.

Is there a quota?

There is no hard limit, but we are monitoring disk usage carefully. If a group uses an inappropriate amount of disk space, they will be removed from the server.

What can I upload?

Things related to your Perl Monger group.

* Why don't you have a real SSL certificate?

Because we're cheapskates.

Download and trust the Develooper Root certificate.

* DNS

Why would I want to change the DNS for my group?

Because you want to host your group's web server on a server you control. We're happy to point yourgroup.pm.org DNS to your server(s).

Will you delegate NS for my group?

No, sorry. Recent security exploits have convinced us not to delegate DNS offsite.

Will you point MX records to my SMTP server?

We will only do this for established groups. After you've had a few meetings, send us your hostname(s) to which you would like yourgroup.pm.org MX to be directed. (MX records work on hostnames, not IP addresses.)

* Email Forwarding

Can you forward email sent to groupname@pm.org (e.g.: omaha@pm.org)?

Yes, if you explicitly ask for that. Send a request to support(at)pm(dot)org, specifing the address you would like us to forward to. You must be the group admin for that group.

Can you forward email sent to username@pm.org (e.g.: jay_hannah@pm.org)?

No, we don't do this. It's proven to be too much maintenance. Sorry.

* Group Mailing Lists

If you like, we'll host a Mailman mailing list for your group. You'll administer your list via the web interface (http://www.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/groupname) and/or by emailing commands to the Mailman server.

Also, as a group leader, you'll be added to a mailing list of your fellow administrators from around the world. It's a low-volume announcement-centric list.

You use Mailman on a Perl web site? Are you a secret Python programmer?

Mailman is better than Majordomo. Deal with it.

* How do I request a new group or to reactivate a group that has been inactive?

99% of the time your group name will be the name of the city in which your meetings will typically be held. So, since I live in Omaha my group name is Omaha.pm.

We will not create new groups with short names, please do not ask. Some groups (i.e. New York as ny.pm) are grandfathered in. Names should be descriptive and mean something to non-residents. For example: MinneapolisStPaul.pm is best. TwinCities.pm would be ok too (as that's a common and well known nickname for the area.) If the nickname is not well known, expect pushback. MSP.pm would be rejected.

Instructions

Send an email to support(at)pm(dot)org. The subject should be ``Omaha.pm - new group request'' or similar. Your email needs to include all of the following: 

    Group leader name
    Group leader email address
    Group leader svn.perl.org username (only if using pm.org hosting)
    City
    State/Province
    Region (if applicable)
    Continent
    Country
    Latitude   (in decimal format like "41.224853")
    Longitude  (in decimal format like "-96.122798")
    ... and the answers to the 2 questions below:

(1) Do you want us to host a website for you or are you going to host your own website?

If you want us to host it make sure you've read the parts of this FAQ that explain WebDAV. That's the only way you're going to be able to manage your site content. There are no advanced features like CGI, etc. Just plain old static file hosting.

If you want to host your own we'll need the IP address we should point YourGroup.pm.org to, so please provide that.

(2) Do you want us to host a Mailman mailing list for you?

Indicate yes or no.

Once you've sent that email you should get a reply back from RequestTracker, the ticketing system we use. A volunteer administrator should be in touch in a week or so.

* Who pays for Perl Mongers services?

Our sponsors do!

Can I help?

Sure!

Send money to the Perl Foundation or send us hard drives and stuff on our wishlist.

Buy things from our sponsors!

And put the following ad rotation HTML on your group website: 

    <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.perl.org/misc/site-sponsor-js.html"></script>

The output width is fixed at 180, but the height is variable. If you want to personalize the text message, you can add '?notext=1' to the src string. You can see the ad rotation in action at the bottom right corner of this page.

Questions/comments to the Perl Mongers admins: support(at)pm(dot)org