<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><title>Prerequisite Software</title><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.64.1"><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="OpenACS Core Documentation"><link rel="up" href="install-overview.html" title="Chapter�2.�Installation Overview"><link rel="previous" href="install-steps.html" title="Basic Steps"><link rel="next" href="complete-install.html" title="Chapter�3.�Complete Installation"><link rel="stylesheet" href="openacs.css" type="text/css"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><a href="http://openacs.org"><img src="/doc/images/alex.jpg" border="0" alt="Alex logo"></a><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header" border="0"><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="install-steps.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter�2.�Installation Overview</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="complete-install.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="sect1" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="individual-programs"></a>Prerequisite Software</h2></div></div><div></div></div><div class="authorblurb"><p>by <a href="mailto:joel@aufrecht.org" target="_top">Joel Aufrecht</a></p>
          OpenACS docs are written by the named authors, and may be edited
          by OpenACS documentation staff.
        </div><p>
	OpenACS requires, at a minimum, an operating system, database,
	and webserver.  Many additional programs, such as a Mail
	Transport Agent and source control system, are also needed for
	a fully effective instance.
  </p><div class="table"><a name="compatibility-matrix"></a><p class="title"><b>Table�2.2.�Version Compatibility Matrix</b></p><table summary="Version Compatibility Matrix" cellspacing="0" border="1"><colgroup><col><col><col><col><col><col><col><col><col></colgroup><thead><tr><th colspan="2" align="center">OpenACS Version</th><th>3.2.5</th><th> 4.5 </th><th> 4.6 </th><th>4.6.1</th><th>4.6.2</th><th>4.6.3</th><th>5.0.0</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="7">AOLserver</td><td>3</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" align="center">Yes</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="6" align="center">No</td></tr><tr><td>3.3+ad13</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="6" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td>3.3oacs1</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="6" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.2</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="7" align="center">No</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.2oacs1</td><td bgcolor="yellow" colspan="4" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="2" align="center">Yes</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.5</td><td bgcolor="yellow" colspan="4" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="2" align="center">Yes</td><td bgcolor="red" align="center">No</td></tr><tr><td>4.0</td><td bgcolor="yellow" colspan="4" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="3" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">PostgreSQL</td><td>7.0</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" align="center">Yes</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="6" align="center">No</td></tr><tr><td>7.2.x</td><td class="auto-generated">�</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="5" align="center">Yes</td><td bgcolor="red" align="center">No</td></tr><tr><td>7.3.2 - 7.3.4</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="5" align="center">No</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="2" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td>7.4</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="6" align="center">No</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Oracle</td><td>8.1.6</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="6" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td>8.1.7</td><td bgcolor="yellow" align="center">Maybe</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" colspan="6" align="center">Yes</td></tr><tr><td>9i</td><td bgcolor="red" colspan="6" align="center">No</td><td bgcolor="lightgreen" align="center">Yes</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><a name="openacs-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://openacs.org/projects/openacs/download/" target="_top">OpenACS 5.0.4</a>.�</b>The OpenACS tarball comprises the core packages and
            many useful additional packages.  This includes a full set
            of documentation.  The tarball works with both PostgreSQL
            and Oracle.</p></li><li><p><b>Operating System.�</b>OpenACS is designed for a Unix-like system.  It is
          developed primarily in Linux.  It can be run on Mac OS X,
          and in Windows within VMWare.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p><b>Linux.�</b>The installation assumes a linux kernel of 2.2.22 or newer, or 2.4.14 or newer.</p></li><li><p><b>FreeBSD.�</b><a href="http://www.orchardlabs.com/freebsd/" target="_top">FreeBSD
                guide</a>.  The Reference Platform uses bash, which is the
              standard Linux shell.  If you are using a different
              shell, you will need to substitute your shell's
              conventions for setting environment variables when
              appropriate.</p></li><li><p><b>Mac OS X.�</b><a href="mac-installation.html" title="OpenACS Installation Guide for Mac OS X">the section called &#8220;OpenACS Installation Guide for Mac OS X&#8221;</a></p></li><li><p><b>Windows/VMWare.�</b><a href="win2k-installation.html" title="OpenACS Installation Guide for Windows2000">the section called &#8220;OpenACS Installation Guide for Windows2000&#8221;</a>  The only
              way to run OpenACS on Windows is through the VMWare
              emulator.  (Please let me know if you have OpenACS
              running directly in Windows.)</p></li></ul></div></li><li><p><b>Build Environment.�</b>The Reference Platform installation compiles most programs from
          source code.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p><b>glibc 2.1 or newer, REQUIRED.�</b>You need recent versions of these libraries for
              Oracle to work properly. If you want Unicode support,
              you'll need glibc 2.2.  This should be included in your
              operating system distribution.</p></li><li><p><b>GNU Make 3.76.1 or newer, REQUIRED.�</b>PostgreSQL and AOLserver require gmake to
			  compile. Note that on most linux
			  distributions, GNU Make is simply named
			  <tt class="computeroutput">make</tt> and
			  there is no
			  <tt class="computeroutput">gmake</tt>,
			  whereas on BSD distributions,
			  <tt class="computeroutput">make</tt> and
			  <tt class="computeroutput">gmake</tt> are
			  different.</p></li></ul></div></li><li><p><b>TCL 8.3.�</b></p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p><b>TCL 8.3, REQUIRED.�</b>OpenACS is written in TCL, an interpreted
              language.  The TCL interpreter must be installed for
              OpenACS to function.  TCL is included in most standard
              distributions. </p></li><li><p><b>TCL 8.3 development headers and libraries, OPTIONAL.�</b>  The site-wide-search service, OpenFTS, requires these to
			  compile. (Debian users: <tt class="computeroutput">apt-get install
			  tcl8.3-dev</tt>).  You need this
              to install OpenFTS.</p></li></ul></div></li><li><a name="source-tdom"></a><p><b>tDOM, REQUIRED.�</b>OpenACS 5.0.4 stores
          queries in XML files, so we use an AOLserver module called
          tDOM to parse these files.  (This replaces libxml2, which
          was used prior to 4.6.4.)  tDOM is available from <a href="http://www.tdom.org" target="_top">http://www.tdom.org</a>).</p></li><li><a name="source-tclwebtest"></a><p><b>tclwebtest, OPTIONAL.�</b>tclwebtest 0.3 is a tool for testing web interfaces
            via tcl scripts. <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31075" target="_top">http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=31075</a>.</p></li><li><p><b>Web Server.�</b>The web server handles incoming HTTP requests, provides
        a runtime environment for OpenACS's tcl code, connects to the
        database, sends out HTTP responses, and logs requests and
        errors.  OpenACS uses AOLserver; some people have had success
        running Apache with mod_nsd - see <a href="http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=21461" target="_top">this
        post.</a></p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><a name="source-aolserver"></a><p><b><a href="http://uptime.openacs.org/aolserver-openacs/aolserver3.3oacs1.tar.gz" target="_top">AOLserver 3.3oacs1</a>, REQUIRED.�</b>Mat Kovach's source distribution of AOLserver, including all of the patches listed below.</p><p>
      Mat Kovach is graciously maintaining an AOLserver distribution that
      includes all the patches and modules needed to run OpenACS 5.0.4. 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 <a href="http://uptime.openacs.org/aolserver-openacs/" target="_top">uptime.openacs.org</a>.
    </p><p>
      It's also possible to download all the pieces and patches yourself:
    </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p>
          AOLserver is available at <a href="http://aolserver.com" target="_top">aolserver.com</a> 
        </p></li><li><p>
          The OpenACS PostgreSQL driver (nspostgres.so) is available from
          <a href="http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/aolserver/nspostgres-3.5.tar.gz?download" target="_top">SourceForge. If
          you do decide to use nspostgres.so, you have to remember to
          change the AOLserver config file to point to nspostgres.so
          instead of postgres.so. This guide uses Mat Kovach's distro
          (i.e. postgres.so)</a>

        </p></li><li><p>
          The patch that makes <tt class="computeroutput">exec</tt> work
          on BSD is available at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&amp;aid=415475&amp;group_id=3152&amp;atid=303152" target="_top">sourceforge.net</a>
        </p></li><li><p>
          The patch that makes <tt class="computeroutput">ns_uuencode</tt>
          work for binary files is available at <a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&amp;aid=474259&amp;group_id=3152&amp;atid=303152" target="_top">sourceforge.net</a>
        </p></li><li><p>
          The patch that makes AOLserver respect the
          <tt class="computeroutput">-g</tt> flag is available at
          <a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&amp;aid=509413&amp;group_id=3152&amp;atid=303152" target="_top">sourceforge.net</a>
        </p></li></ul></div></li><li><a name="nsopenssl-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://www.scottg.net/download/nsopenssl-2.1a.tar.gz" target="_top">nsopenssl 2.1a</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>Provides SSL capabilities for AOLserver.  It requires
	    OpenSSL.  You need this if you want users to make
	    secure (https) connections to your webserver. (<a href="http://www.scottg.net/webtools/aolserver/modules/nsopenssl/" target="_top">home
              page</a>)</p></li><li><a name="nspam-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://braindamage.alal.com/software/ns_pam-0.1.tar.gz" target="_top">ns_pam
              0.1</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>Provides PAM capabilities for AOLserver.  You
              need this if you want OpenACS users to authenticate
              through a PAM module (such as RADIUS).  (<a href="http://braindamage.alal.com/software/nspam.html" target="_top">home
              page</a>)</p></li><li><a name="pam-radius-download"></a><p><b><a href="ftp://ftp.freeradius.org/pub/radius/pam_radius-1.3.16.tar" target="_top">pam_radius 1.3.16</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>Provides RADIUS capabilities for PAM.  You need
              this if you want to use RADIUS authentication via PAM in OpenACS.</p></li><li><a name="nsldap-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3152" target="_top">ns_ldap 0.r8
              </a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>Provides LDAP capabilities for AOLserver.  You need
              this if you want to use LDAP authentication in OpenACS.</p></li><li><a name="openfts-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/openfts/Search-OpenFTS-tcl-0.3.2.tar.gz" target="_top">OpenFTS TCL 0.3.2</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>Adds full-text-search to PostgreSQL and includes a
               driver for AOLserver.  You need this if you want users
               to be able to search for any text on your site.</p></li><li><p><a name="analog-download"></a><b><a href="http://www.analog.cx/analog-5.32.tar.gz" target="_top">Analog 5.32</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>This program examines web server request logs, looks up
	    DNS values, and produces a report.  You need this if you
	    want to see how much traffic your site is getting.</p></li></ul></div></li><li><p><b>Database.�</b>The data on your site (for example, user names and passwords,
        calender entries, and notes) is stored in the database.
        OpenACS seperates the database with an abstraction layer,
        which means that several different databases all function
        identically.  While you can run the core OpenACS on any
        supported database, not all contributed packages support all
        databases.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p><b>Oracle 8.1.7 (Either this or PostgreSQL is REQUIRED).�</b>You can register and download Oracle from <a href="http://otn.oracle.com/software/content.html" target="_top">Oracle
              TechNet</a>.  You need this if you want to use an
              Oracle database.</p></li><li><p><a name="source-postgresql"></a><b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/pgsql/" target="_top">PostgreSQL 7.3.4</a> (Either this or Oracle is REQUIRED).�</b>You need this if you want to use a PostgreSQL database.</p></li></ul></div></li><li><p><b>Process Controller.�</b>This is software that initiates other software, and
          restarts that software if it fails.  On Linux, we recommend
          using Daemontools to control AOLserver and qmail.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><a name="daemontools-download"></a><p><b><a href="http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/daemontools-0.76.tar.gz" target="_top">Daemontools 0.76</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>You need this if you want AOLserver and qmail to run
              "supervised," meaning that they are monitored and
              automatically restarted if they fail.</p></li><li><p><b>Mail Transport Agent.�</b>A Mail Transport Agent is a program that handles all
          incoming and outgoing mail.  The Reference Platform uses
          Qmail; any MTA that provides a sendmail wrapper (that is,
          that can be invoked by calling the sendmail program with the
          same variables that sendmail expects) can be used.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc"><li><p><a name="qmail-download"></a><b><a href="http://www.qmail.org/netqmail/" target="_top">Netqmail 1.04</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>You need this (or a different Mail Transport
              Agent) if you want your webserver to send and receive email.</p></li><li><p><a name="ucspi-download"></a><b><a href="http://cr.yp.to/ucspi-tcp/ucspi-tcp-0.88.tar.gz" target="_top">ucspi-tcp 0.88</a>, OPTIONAL.�</b>This program listens for incoming TCP connections and
              hands them to a program.  We use it instead of inetd,
              which is insecure.  You need this if you are running qmail.</p></li></ul></div></li></ul></div></li><li><p><b>DocBook, OPTIONAL.�</b>(docbook-xml v4.2, docbook-xsl v1.56, libxslt 1.0.21,
          xsltproc 1.0.21).  You need this to write or edit documentation. 
</p></li><li><p><b>Source Control.�</b>A Source Control system keeps track of all of the old
          versions of your files.  It lets you recover old files,
          compare versions of file, and identify specific versions of
          files.  You can use any source control system; the Reference
          Platform and the OpenACS.org repository (where you can
          get patched and development code in between releases) use cvs.</p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="circle"><li><p><b>cvs 1.11.2, OPTIONAL.�</b>cvs is included in most unix distributions. You
              need this if you want to track old versions of your
              files, do controlled deployment of code from development
              to production, or get or contribute development code from openacs.org.</p></li></ul></div></li></ul></div><div class="cvstag">($Id: software.xml,v 1.8 2003/10/29
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