Server Administration Index Page

The Oscailt Server Administration Index Page is found at admin.php

It contains links to all the pages that contain installation-wide administrative functions. Oscailt installations are divided up into site-sections and each of these has it's own administration section (linked from the bottom right of the page) where you can set things for each section. However, the other settings linked from the server administration index page are to things that apply to the entire installation. Any changes that you make here will be reflected on all site sections in the installation.

In general, the links really should be self-explanatory and the individual pages linked too are covered in the following sections of this documnetation.

how to integrate the admin page into your site's "look and feel"

When it is installed the admin page is embedded in the rescuepage page layout object. This is a page layout object that is entirely composed of static html - it is not produced by the object management system. In fact it is the only piece of html that is not generated in the entire system. This is to ensure that there is always some way of fixing things if you manage to mess up your basic page layout objects.

However, in almost all circumstances it is a good idea to integrate the admin page into the site's navigation system, add links to other parts of the site, menus, banners and so on. This is easy to do. You just need to create the page layout object that you want. Note the id of this object and go to the edit configuration page. Input this id number into the Administration Page Layout Object and save the configuration. The new layout will immediately be used for all the pages in this section.

help! I've set up a page layout for admin pages and it's broken, now I can't get in to change it back!

If you manage to break the administration page layout object so that it won't load (for example by putting some broken php code in one of the menus), you won't be able to view the admin page to change it back. Oscailt provides a rescue mode to allow you to get into the admin page in this situation. To access rescue mode, use the url admin.php?rescue_mode=on instead of the normal one. Once you have set rescue mode to on, for the duration of your session, all the central administration pages will use the rescue page and should be viewable. For this reason, you are discouraged from changing this page as, if you get it wrong,

-- ChekovFeeney - 02 Sep 2005