How to use this guide

Paths and Users

Figure 2.2. Assumptions in this section

Fully qualified domain name of your serveryourserver.test
name of administrative access accountremadmin
OpenACS serviceservice0
OpenACS service accountservice0
OpenACS database nameservice0
Root of OpenACS service file tree/var/lib/aolserver/service0
Location of source code tarballs for new software/tmp
The OpenACS tarball contains some files which are useful while setting up other software. Those files are located at:/tmp/openacs-5.0.0a1/packages/acs-core-docs/www/files
Database backup directory/var/lib/aolserver/service0/database-backup
Service config files/var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc
Service log files/var/lib/aolserver/service0/log
Compile directory/usr/local/src
PostGreSQL directory/usr/local/pgsql
AOLServer directory/usr/local/aolserver

None of these locations are set in stone - they're simply the values that we've chosen. The values that you'll probably want to change, such as service name, are marked like this. The other values we recommend you leave unchanged unless you have a reason to change them.

Note

Some of the paths and user accounts have been changed from those recommended in previous versions of this document to improve security and maintainability. See this thread for discussion.

Getting Help during installation

We'll do our best to assure that following our instructions will get you to the promised land. If something goes wrong, don't panic. There are plenty of ways to get help. Here are some tips:

  • Keep track of the commands you are run and record their output. I like to do my installations in a shell inside of emacs (M-x shell) so that I can save the output if needed. An alternative would be to use the script command.

  • We'll point out where the error logs for the various pieces of software are. Output from those logs will help us help you. Don't worry if you feel overwhelmed by all the information in the error logs. Over time, you'll find that they make more and more sense. Soon, you'll actually look forward to errors so that you can run to the log and diagnose the problem.

  • Search the bboards at openacs.org - you'll often find many people who have struggled through the same spot that you're in.

  • The bottom of each page has a link to OpenACS.org, where you can post comments and read other users comments about the contents of the page.

  • Ask questions at the irc channel on openprojects.net (#openacs). They're knowledgeable and quite friendly if you can keep them on topic.

  • Post a question on the bboards. Make sure you've done a search first. When you do post, be sure to include your setup information (OS, etc) as well as the exact commands that are failing with the accompanying error. If there's a SQL error in the TCL error or in the log, post that too.

  • If you find errors in this document or if you have ideas about making it better, please post them in our BugTracker.

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