Problem

You want to set up and configure TrackBack functionality for your system

Solution

Use the TrackBack configuration directives in mt-config.cgi

Discussion

Configuration of the TrackBack functionality is done in both the mt-config.cgi file and the Weblog settings. The following are the configuration directives that are related to TrackBacks and pings.

• TrackBackScript

  Sets the name of the TrackBack script in the MT home directory. The default is mt-tb.cgi.

• GenerateTrackBackRSS

  Individual RSS 0.91 feeds will be automatically created and managed, listing the pings for each TrackBack item in your Movable Type system. Using this directive with a value of 0 (false) suppresses this functionality.

The TrackBack functions in MT rely on the widely used LWP package, Perl's libraries for fetching and processing web resources. The package's user agent is used to send pings in conjunction with the following directives. Other LWP-powered scripts may utilize these settings also.

• PingTimeout

  The time in seconds that the agent will wait before aborting the operation. This avoids any lengthy waits that may (seemingly) freeze the system. The default is 15 seconds.

  This value is passed to LWP::Agent::timeout method.

• PingInterface

  Outgoing pings are sent to the Internet using the default network interface card (NIC) on the server running MT. In some cases, it may be necessary or desirable to have the outbound ping traffic sent over a different NIC or network connection. In these situations, enter the IP address of the NIC that should be used to send the outgoing notifications.

  Specify only the IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), or IP address and port number (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:#). If no port number is specified the outgoing ping will be sent from the specified IP address using the next available port number.

  If you are using this directive, do not specify a port unless it's absolutely necessary. If the specified port is in use the outgoing ping will fail without error.

• PingProxy

  In cases where the MT system is behind a firewall or on an internal, private network, a proxy server must be used to access the Internet for outbound pings. This directive takes the fully-qualified URL of the proxy server and routes all outbound pings through it. The default is null (blank) which indicates that you have direct access to the Internet.

  This value is used with the LWP::Agent::proxy method.

• PingNoProxy

  When PingProxy is set, MT will route outbound pings through the specified proxy except for pings to the domains listed with this directive. Multiple domains are separated by commas. The default is "localhost, 127.0.0.1".

  This value is passed to LWP::Agent::no_proxy method.

These configuration values are used system wide. MT's implementation of TrackBack allows for a few settings to be enabled on a per-weblog basis.