new to linux....plz help

[jrmorris1958]

i am fairly new to web design and i have a customer with a small company that would like the folowing items on his site but i have never worked with a linux server before....

his site has 4 different downloads
he would like to keep track of who is downloading what....

he wants the user to click on download link and that would take him to a form that is set up as follows:

already signed up.....login below

username___________
password_____________

if not sign up below

choose username____________
choose password____________
verify password____________

department/service name
contact name
title
email address
phone number(optional)
city
state
zip code

when the user clicks the submit button, he is taken to the download page....

he would like for a time/date to be auto inserted into the database along with the above info...also an auto reply should be sent to user welcoming them to site and telling the user his username and password.....and taken they to the page for downloads

then if a user comes back another time and wants to down load he wants it set up so they can just log in....

he also would like to be able to set up an administrator page that would allow him to query the database by clicking buttons for different info(ie...say he wants to find all the users from alaska he could use dropdown menu to choose state then click button and get that info from database)

he would like simalar setup for any query he might have based on above info categories......

does anyone know how to do all this.....or can someone point me to where i might find scripts that would accomplish these goals....

any help would be helpful.....as i said i have never work with anything but access databases and linux servers wont suppot access.......

thanks and sorry for the lengthy post....but i am desperate

 

[BitFuzzy]

What you're looking for doesn't actually have anything to do with "linux".

The type of access authentication you're looking for can be done in a number of ways using perl, cgi , mysql w/ php etc.

Here are a couple of links that should have some items that will help.

http://cgi.resourceindex.com/

http://php.resourceindex.com/

Good luck

 

[RhythmAce]

I agree. Those are two great resources for scripts. If you find one that is close to what you want, you can tweak or edit it (with the author's blessings) to better fit your needs. You would be wise to pick up on cgi and/or php scripting to help you design more useful and interactive websites.

 

[jrmorris1958]

thanks for the tip......i think i can find the scropts that i need from what i saw.....the reason i mentioned linux was because i was told that i can not use micro soft access databases on linux.....because the database would have to be created using perl.........i was just unsure about where i could find the scripts to do what my client wants.....thanks again guys

 

[Norwich]

Hi,

The most common Internet installation of a webserver, database and scripting language must be Apache, MySQL and PHP.

MySQL is a free, simple, fast relational database. More suitable for web deployment than access - fully relational, scalable etc. Alternatives would be PostgreSQL and Oracle but they may be too OTT for what you need.

PHP is a scripting language like perl but is more suitable when using with databases and integrating into HTML code.

In fact, Apache, PHP and MySQL is often refered to as the 'holy trinity' of web installations as is its ubiquity...

http://www.php.net/

http://www.mysql.com/

Also look at phpMyAdmin to enable remote administration of MySQL. It's a group of scripts that will let you create, manipulate and browse the databases on the server. Very easy to install (one ini file) but make sure you secure access to the directory it's installed it - using htaccess say - for administration security.

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/