RequirementsHardware Requirements
At a minimum, you need a hardware platform that allows you to run the
Oracle RDBMS comfortably. You
can do this on a wide variety of hardware platforms. At ArsDigita, we
are most familiar with running ACS production servers using Sun and HP
hardware. However, the software can also be run comfortably on Linux
and even Windows 2000.
The emphasis of this document is on a Linux installation. Installing
this software on other UNIX systems, such as Solaris, is much the
same, but you will need to substitute commands native to your UNIX
system if the Red Hat Linux commands here don't work. For example,
there is a standard tool for creating new users under Solaris and Red
Hat, useradd. If your system does not support this, you
will need to substitute the appropriate command.
Installing the ArsDigita Community System under Windows 2000 is a
different matter that this document does not address. Please see the
Windows 2000 installation guide
for instructions.
Minimum Hardware Requirements for Installing onto Linux A PC with a Pentium processor or better 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended) with 400 MB swap file 3.5 GB hard drive space A network connection - have your network configuration information
(such as IP address) handy when following this guide
Software Requirements
The ArsDigita Community System requires:
A UNIX operating system (e.g. Solaris, Linux, HP-UX), or Windows 2000 The Oracle 8i RDBMS The open-source AOLServer 3.0 Web Server running with the 8.3 Tcl interpreter (nsd8x)
There are also initiatives to create versions of ACS that work with
other databases (see the OpenACS
project) and with other web servers (see the mod_aolserver package for Apache). However, this guide presumes a UNIX operating system,
specifically Red Hat Linux, with Oracle 8.1.6 and AOLServer 3.0. This
information may apply and be useful for other platforms, but please
exercise careful judgment in following any of the instructions.
Experience with UNIX
Running a reliable database-backed web server requires experience with
the server's environment, in this case UNIX. UNIX is not always an
intuitive environment and this guide cannot hope to explain every
nuance. You should be comfortable with the following tasks before
attempting an installation:
Adding users, groups, setting passwords Starting an X server and running an X program remotely Basic file management using cp, rm, mv, and cd Compiling a program using a makefile
If you've never done these things before, consider exploring UNIX in
greater depth before installing the ArsDigita Community System. Some
useful resources for doing this taken from Philip Greenspun's bookshelf
are listed below.
An excellent introduction to the command line tools and basic programs
of UNIX is UNIX
Power Tools. An excellent online resource is The UNIX Reference Desk.
However, you need to read further to get a firm grasp on
System Administration.
For System Administration:
UNIX
System Administration Handbook (the "red book"; a classic but dated) Essential
System Administration (typical O'Reilly book; also dated) UNIX
System Administrator's Bible (LePage and Iarerra 1998; IDG)
For Solaris:
Sun
Performance and TuningConfiguration
and Capacity Planning for Solaris ServersSolaris
2.X for Managers and Administrators
For HP-UX:
Jay
Shah's HP-UX System and Administration Guide
For Linux:
The Linux Documentation ProjectRunning
LinuxLinux
in a Nutshell
Above basic system administration, you need a good text editor. While
vi is functional, Emacs offers more features and is
arguably more extensive than any other text editor available today.
These two books are excellent:
Learning
Gnu EmacsWriting
Gnu Emacs Extensions($Id: requirements.xml,v 1.1.1.1 2001/03/13 22:59:26 ben Exp $)