Install AOLserver 3.3+ad13
Download the Distribution
Mat Kovach is graciously maintaining an AOLServer distribution that
includes all the patches and modules needed to run OpenACS &version;. These
instructions will describe how to install using his source
distribution. He also has binaries for SuSE 7.3 and OpenBSD 2.8 (and
perhaps more to come), currently located at uptime.openacs.org.
It's also possible to download all the pieces and patches yourself:
AOLServer is available at aolserver.com
ArsDigita's AOLServer distribution (including
internationalization patches, nscache, nsrewrite, nssha1 and the
oracle driver) is available at arsdigita.com
The OpenACS PostgreSQL driver is available from OpenACS
nsxml is available at http://acs-misc.sourceforge.net.
The patch that makes exec work
on BSD is available at sourceforge.net
The patch that makes ns_uuencode
work for binary files is available at sourceforge.net
The patch that makes AOLServer respect the
-g flag is available at sourceforge.net
.... or just Download Mat's
AOLServer distribution to
/tmp
joeuser:~$ cd /tmp
joeuser:/tmp$ wget -c http://uptime.openacs.org/aolserver-openacs/aolserver3.3ad13-oacs1-beta-src.tar.gz
joeuser:/tmp$ cd
As root, untar
aolserver3.3ad13-oacs1-beta-src.tar.gz
into /usr/local/src
joeuser:~$ su -
Password: **********
root:~$ cd /usr/local/src
root:/usr/local/src# tar xzf /tmp/aolserver3.3ad13-oacs1-beta-src.tar.gz
Create the nsadmin user
You will need a special user account for running AOLServer. This user
will be called nsadmin and belong
top the special group web.
nsadmin's home directory will
be /usr/local/aolserver.You must
execute these steps as root.
Run these commands:
root:/usr/local/src# cd
root:~# groupadd nsadmin
root:~# groupadd web
root:~# useradd -g nsadmin -G web -d /usr/local/aolserver nsadmin
root:~# passwd nsadmin
; Set password for nsadmin
root:~# mkdir -p /web /usr/local/aolserver
root:~# chown -R nsadmin.web /usr/local/aolserver /web /usr/local/src/aolserver
root:~# chmod 775 /usr/local/aolserver /web
root:~# exit
Set up nsadmin's environment variables
At this point, you should customize the
nsadmin login scripts. Login as
nsadmin and add the following
lines to your
/usr/local/aolserver/.bash_profile:
joeuser:~$ su - nsadmin
Password: ***********
nsadmin:~$ emacs .bash_profile
Add the first set of lines, if you're using Oracle. The 2nd set
of lines, if you're using PostgreSQL. Oracle
Note: These environment variables are specific for a
local Oracle installation communicating via IPC. If you are
connecting to a remote Oracle installation, you'll need to adjust
these appropriately. Also, make sure that the '8.1.7' matches
your Oracle version.
# For Oracle
export ORACLE_BASE=/ora8/m01/app/oracle
export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7
export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib
export ORACLE_SID=ora8
export ORACLE_TERM=vt100
export ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data
# For PostgreSQL
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/pgsql/bin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/pgsql/lib
Be absolutely certain that you have entered these lines correctly
and that you have saved the file - a slight error in these lines
can lead to many inscrutable error messages. Logout and log back
in so these settings will take effect. Use the
echo command to be sure that the
environment variables have been properly assigned.
nsadmin:~$ exit
joeuser:~$ su - nsadmin
Password: *********
nsadmin:~$ echo $PATH
...some other directory paths...:/usr/local/pgsql/bin
nsadmin:~$ echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
:/usr/local/pgsql/lib
Note: The result should be different if you're using Oracle.
/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7
should have been in $PATH.
Install libxml2 & headers
In order for nsxml to compile, you need libxml2
(available from http://xmlsoft.org). On Debian,
this can be installed by doing apt-get install
libxml2-dev. Users of other distributions can
download rpms from ftp.gnome.org. You'll
need the libxml2 and
libxml2-devel packages.
Compile and install AOLserver
Prepare the distribution
nsadmin:~$ cd /usr/local/src/aolserver
nsadmin:/usr/local/src/aolserver$ ./conf-clean
cat: BUILD-MODULES: No such file or directory
Done.
Put the name of the driver(s) that you want into
conf-db. This can be
postgresql,
oracle, or
both.
nsadmin:/usr/local/src/aolserver$ echo "postgresql" > conf-db
conf-inst should contain the
location where AOLserver is to be installed. This defaults to
/usr/local/aolserver, so we
don't need to change it.
conf-make should contain the
name of the GNU Make command on your system. It defaults to
gmake. You may need to change
this to make.
nsadmin:/usr/local/src/aolserver$ echo "make" > conf-make
Compile and install AOLserver and modules
nsadmin:/usr/local/src/aolserver$ ./conf
This takes about 5 minutes. All of the results are logged to
files in
/usr/local/src/aolserver/log. Make
sure to check these files to see if any errors occurred.
Test AOLserver
You will now test to ensure AOLserver is running correctly. We'll
use the sample config file provided with AOLserver. This file
will attempt to guess your IP address and hostname. It will then
set up the server at port 8000 of that IP address.
nsadmin:/usr/local/src/aolserver$ cd
nsadmin:~$ ./bin/nsd -t sample-config.tcl
As the AOLserver daemon starts up, you should see a few normal
warnings (listed below), which are safe to ignore.
Warning: nsd.tcl: nsssl not loaded -- key/cert files do not exist.
Warning: nsd.tcl: nscp not loaded -- user/password is not set.
The first warning means that the server is missing files for
running ssl, a necessary module
for encrypted HTTPS. See Scott Goodwin's excellent
documentation if you want to set up SSL. The second
warning means that the AOLserver control panel, a special module
for administering AOLserver, could not be loaded. If you're
interested in configuring nscp, please see the AOLserver
documentation.
Test to see if AOLserver is working by starting
Mozilla or
Lynx, and surfing over to your
web page:
nsadmin:~$ lynx localhost:8000
You should see a "Welcome to AOLserver" page. If this
doesn't work, try going to
http://127.0.0.1:8000/. If this
still doesn't work, check out the section below.
Shutdown the test server:
nsadmin:~$ killall nsd
The killall command will kill
all processes with the name nsd,
but clearly this is not a good tool to use for managing your
services in general. We cover this topic in the section.
Troubleshooting the AOLserver Install
If you can't view the welcome page, it's likely
there's a problem with your server configuration. Start by
viewing your AOLserver log, which is in
/usr/local/aolserver/log/server.log.
You should also try to find lines of the form:
[01/Jun/2000:12:11:20][5914.2051][-nssock-] Notice: nssock: listening on http://localhost.localdomain:8000 (127.0.0.1:8000)
[01/Jun/2000:12:11:20][5914.2051][-nssock-] Notice: accepting connections
If you can find these lines, try entering the URL the server is
listening on. If you cannot find these lines, there must be an error
somewhere in the file. Search for lines beginning with the word
Error instead of
Notice.
The sample-config.tcl file grabs
your address and hostname from your OS settings.
set hostname [ns_info hostname]
set address [ns_info address]
If you get an error that nssock can't get the requested address,
you can set these manually:
#set hostname [ns_info hostname]
set hostname 127.0.0.1
#set address [ns_info address]
set address 127.0.0.1
If you get an error that nssock can't assign the requested port,
then that port may already be taken by another service. Try specifying
a different port in the config file.
($Id: aolserver.xml,v 1.4 2002/03/03 01:27:08 rmello Exp $)