2.2. Error -- the Interchange server was not running...

This indicates that the link CGI is not communicating with the Interchange server. Important note: The server should always be started by the same user ID which owns the suid vlink program. (This does not apply to TLINK/INET mode.)

The server must be running, first of all. If you didn't start it, you can do so by going to the Interchange home directory and typing:

   bin/interchange -restart

You can check to see if your server is running by typing:

   Linux, BSD:           ps -ax | grep interchange
   Most other systems:   ps -elf | grep interchange


Note: Solaris and IRIX truncate the string, and don't allow setting of the $0 parameter. You may have to grep for 'perl' instead.

If the server is not running, it may have failed due to another process occupying the TCP socket 7786. If using VLINK, try starting Interchange with start -u, which will not monitor the internet-domain socket.

If VLINK is not communicating with the server, there are a number of possible reasons. First, if you are trying to run Interchange on an ISP, go to the section about ISP problems. It is probably one of those. If you are running Interchange on a single machine, it is probably one of:

   1. Permissions problems
   2. Interchange on NFS-mounted file system

Check the error_log file for your HTTP server -- it will almost always tell you what the problem is, unless there is a simple permissions problem.

Permissions are easy. If starting Interchange like this works:

        interchange -r SocketPerms=666

then you have a socket permission problem. Try restarting interchange without the above adjustment of SocketPerms=666, and then try accessing it again with each of these mode changes:

        chmod u+s cgi-bin/storename
        chmod u-s cgi-bin/storename

           cgi-bin/storename = path to your executable

If neither of those work, either the UID the program is owned by is wrong, or your HTTP server is interfering in some fashion. If you are running Interchange on an NFS-mounted file system, it cannot run in server mode because UNIX-domain sockets don't work on NFS. You will need to change to static mode from server mode, or better yet, put Interchange on a file system that is directly mounted.

You can use Interchange in INET mode along with the tlink.c program to allow running across NFS boundaries. If you have not changed the configured defaults, and still it will not communicate, you should try setting the LINK_HOST and LINK_PORT directives in tlink.c and recompiling.