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Maintenance tasks, optional software, and alternate configurations for AOLserver.
The simplest way to start and stop and OpenACS site is to run the startup shell script provided, /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/daemontools/run. This runs as a regular task, and logs to the logfile. To stop the site, kill the script.
A more stable way to run OpenACS is with a "keepalive" mechanism of some sort, so that whenever the server halts or is stopped for a reset, it restarts automatically. This is recommended for development and production servers.
The Reference Platform uses Daemontools to control AOLserver. A simpler method, using init, is here.
Daemontools must already be installed. If not, install it.
Each service controlled by daemontools must have a directory in /service. That directory must have a file called run. Daemontools then creates additional files and directories to track status and log. A daemontools directory is included in the OpenACS tarball at /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/daemontools. To use it, first ill any existing AOLserver instances. As root, link the daemontools directory into the /service directory. Daemontools' svscan process checks this directory every five seconds, and will quickly execute run.
[service0 etc]$ killall nsd nsd: no process killed [service0 etc]$ exit [root root]# ln -s /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/daemontools/ /service/service0
Verify that AOLserver is running.
[root root]# ps -auxw | grep nsd service0 5562 14.2 6.2 22436 15952 ? S 11:55 0:04 /usr/local/aolserver/bin/nsd -it /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/config.tcl -u serve root 5582 0.0 0.2 3276 628 pts/0 S 11:55 0:00 grep nsd [root root]#
The user service0 can now control the service service0 with these commands:
svc -d /service/service0 - Bring the server down
svc -u /service/service0 - Start the server up and leave it in keepalive mode.
svc -o /service/service0 - Start the server up once. Do not restart it if it stops.
svc -t /service/service0 - Stop and immediately restart the server.
svc -k /service/service0 - Sends the server a KILL signal. This is like KILL -9. AOLserver exits immediately. If svc -t fails to fully kill AOLserver, use this option. This does not take the server out of keepalive mode, so it should still bounce back up immediately.
Install a script to automate the stopping and starting of AOLserver services via daemontools. You can then restart a service via restart-aolserver service0
[root root]# cp /var/lib/aolserver/service0/packages/acs-core-docs/www/files/restart-aolserver-daemontools.txt /usr/local/bin/restart-aolserver
[root root]# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/restart-aolserver
[root root]#At this point, these commands will work only for the root user. Grant permission for the web group to use svc commands on the service0 server.
[root root]# svgroup web /service/service0
[root root]#Verify that the controls work. You may want to tail -f /var/lib/aolserver/service0/log/service0-error.log in another window, so you can see what happens when you type these commands.
Most of this information comes from Tom Jackson's AOLserver+Daemontools Mini-HOWTO.
This is an alternative method for keeping the AOLserver process running. The recommended method is to run AOLserver supervised.
This step should be completed as root. This can break every service on your machine, so proceed with caution.
There are 2 general steps to getting this working.
Install a script called restart-aolserver. This script doesn't actually restart AOLserver - it just kills it.
Ask the OS to restart our service whenever it's not running. We do this by adding a line to /etc/inittab.
Calling restart-aolserver kills our service. The OS notices that our service is not running, so it automatically restarts it. Thus, calling restart-aolserver effectively restarts our service.
Copy this file into /tmp/restart-aolserver.txt.
This script needs to be SUID-root, which means that the script will run as root. This is necessary to ensure that the AOLserver processes are killed regardless of who owns them. However the script should be executable by the web group to ensure that the users updating the web page can use the script, but that general system users cannot run the script. You also need to have Perl installed and also a symbolic link to it in /usr/local/bin.
[joeuser ~]$ su - Password: *********** [root ~]# cp /tmp/restart-aolserver.txt /usr/local/bin/restart-aolserver [root ~]# chown root.web /usr/local/bin/restart-aolserver [root ~]# chmod 4750 /usr/local/bin/restart-aolserver [root ~]# ln -s /usr/bin/perl /usr/local/bin/perl [root ~]# exit
Test the restart-aolserver script. We'll first kill all running servers to clean the slate. Then, we'll start one server and use restart-aolserver to kill it. If it works, then there should be no more servers running. You should see the following lines.
[joeuser ~]$ killall nsd nsd: no process killed [joeuser ~]$ /usr/local/aolserver/bin/nsd-postgres -t ~/var/lib/aolserver/birdnotes/nsd.tcl [joeuser ~]$ restart-aolserver birdnotes Killing 23727 [joeuser ~]$ killall nsd nsd: no process killed
The number 23727 indicates the process id(s) (PIDs) of the processes being killed. It is important that no processes are killed by the second call to killall. If there are processes being killed, it means that the script is not working.
Assuming that the restart-aolserver script worked, login as root and open /etc/inittab for editing.
[joeuser ~]$ su - Password: ************ [root ~]# emacs -nw /etc/inittab
Copy this line into the bottom of the file as a template, making sure that the first field nss1 is unique.
nss1:345:respawn:/usr/local/aolserver/bin/nsd-postgres -i -u nobody -g web -t /home/joeuser/var/lib/aolserver/birdnotes/nsd.tcl
Important: Make sure there is a newline at the end of the file. If there is not a newline at the end of the file, the system may suffer catastrophic failures.
Still as root, enter the following command to re-initialize /etc/inittab.
[root ~]# killall nsd nsd: no process killed [root ~]# /sbin/init q
See if it worked by running the restart-aolserver script again.
[root ~]# restart-aolserver birdnotes
Killing 23750If processes were killed, congratulations, your server is now automated for startup and shutdown.
If you want your webserver to be http://yourserver.com, it must run on port 80, the default HTTP port. You set this in the config.tcl file. You will need to start the service as root. If you follow the instructions above for automating startup, this will be taken care of, but if you ever start the server from the command line, be sure to su - first.
Port 80 is a privileged port. Only certain users can claim it. When you start nsd as root, it obtains the port, and then changes to run as whatever user you specify in the server configuration file. This ensures a high level of security, as the server, once started, is not running as root. This mean that if someone was able to exploit your web server to execute a command on your server, they would not be able to gain root access.
Services on different ports. To run a different service on another port but the same ip, simply repeat Install OpenACS replacing service0, and change the
set httpport 8000 set httpsport 8443
to different values.
Services on different host names. For example, suppose you want to support http://foo.com and http://bar.com on the same machine. The easiest way is to assign each one a different ip address. Then you can install two services as above, but with different values for
set hostname [ns_info hostname] set address 127.0.0.1
If you want to install two services with different host names sharing the same ip, you'll need nsvhr to redirect requests based on the contents of the tcp headers. See AOLserver Virtual Hosting with TCP by markd.
nsopenssl is an open-sounce module for AOLserver which adds support for the ssl encryption layer. To use it, you must install the software, create or purchase certificates, and configure your OpenACS instance to use it.
Uncomment this line from config.tcl.
#ns_param nsopenssl ${bindir}/nsopenssl.so
Prepare a certificate directory for the service.
[service0 etc]$ mkdir /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/certs [service0 etc]$ chmod 700 /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/certs [service0 etc]$ mkdir /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/certs chmod 700 /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/certs
It takes two files to support an SSL connection. The certificate is the public half of the key pair - the server sends the certificate to browser requesting ssl. The key is the private half of the key pair. In addition, the certificate must be signed by Certificate Authority or browsers will protest. Each web browser ships with a built-in list of acceptable Certificate Authorities (CAs) and their keys. Only a site certificate signed by a known and approved CA will work smoothly. Any other certificate will cause browsers to produce some messages or block the site. Unfortunately, getting a site certificate signed by a CA costs money. In this section, we'll generate an unsigned certificate which will work in most browsers, albeit with pop-up messages.
Use an OpenSSL perl script to generate a certificate and key.
[service0 service0]$ cd /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/certs [service0 certs]$ perl /usr/share/ssl/misc/CA -newcert Using configuration from /usr/share/ssl/openssl.cnf Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key ...++++++ .......++++++ writing new private key to 'newreq.pem' Enter PEM pass phrase:
Enter a pass phrase for the CA certificate. Then, answer the rest of the questions. At the end you should see this:
Certificate (and private key) is in newreq.pem [service0 certs]$
newreq.pem contains our certificate and private key. The key is protected by a passphrase, which means that we'll have to enter the pass phrase each time the server starts. This is impractical and unnecessary, so we create an unprotected version of the key. Security implication: if anyone gets access to the file keyfile.pem, they effectively own the key as much as you do. Mitigation: don't use this key/cert combo for anything besides providing ssl for the web site.
[root misc]# openssl rsa -in newreq.pem -out keyfile.pem read RSA key Enter PEM pass phrase: writing RSA key [service0 certs]$
To create the certificate file, we take the combined file, copy it, and strip out the key.
[service0 certs]$ cp newreq.pem certfile.pem [root misc]# emacs certfile.pem
Strip out the section that looks like
-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Proc-Type: 4,ENCRYPTED
DEK-Info: DES-EDE3-CBC,F3EDE7CA1B404997
S/Sd2MYA0JVmQuIt5bYowXR1KYKDka1d3DUgtoVTiFepIRUrMkZlCli08mWVjE6T
(11 lines omitted)
1MU24SHLgdTfDJprEdxZOnxajnbxL420xNVc5RRXlJA8Xxhx/HBKTw==
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----Analog is a program with processes webserver access logs, performs DNS lookup, and outputs HTML reports. Analog should already be installed. A modified configuration file is included in the OpenACS tarball.
[root src]# su - service0
[service0 service0]$ cd /var/lib/aolserver/service0
[service0 service0]$ cp /var/lib/aolserver/service0/packages/acs-core-docs/www/files/analog.cfg.txt etc/analog.cfg
[service0 service0]$ mkdir www/log
[service0 service0]$ cp -r /usr/share/analog-5.31/images www/log/
[service0 service0]$
su - service0
cd /var/lib/aolserver/service0
cp /var/lib/aolserver/service0/packages/acs-core-docs/www/files/analog.cfg.txt etc/analog.cfg
mkdir www/log
cp -r /usr/share/analog-5.31/images www/log/Edit /var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/analog.cfg and change the variable in HOSTNAME "[my organisation]" to reflect your website title. If you don't want the traffic log to be publicly visible, change OUTFILE /var/lib/aolserver/service0/www/log/traffic.html to use a private directory.
Run it.
[service0 service0]$ /usr/share/analog-5.31/analog -G -g/var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/analog.cfg /usr/share/analog-5.31/analog: analog version 5.31/Unix /usr/share/analog-5.31/analog: Warning F: Failed to open DNS input file /home/service0/dnscache: ignoring it (For help on all errors and warnings, see docs/errors.html) /usr/share/analog-5.31/analog: Warning R: Turning off empty Search Word Report [service0 service0]$
Verify that it works by browing to http://yourserver.test:8000/log/traffic.html
Automate this by creating a file in /etc/cron.daily.
[service0 service0]$ exit logout [root root]# emacs /etc/cron.daily/analog
Put this into the file:
#!/bin/sh
/usr/share/analog-5.31/analog -G -g/var/lib/aolserver/service0/etc/analog.cfg[root root]# chmod 755 /etc/cron.daily/analog
Test it by running the script.
[root root]# sh /etc/cron.daily/analog
Browse to http://yourserver.test/log/traffic.html
The OpenACS uptime site can monitor your site and send you an email whenever your site fails to respond. If you test the url http://yourserver.test/SYSTEM/dbtest.tcl, you should get back the string success.