Annotation of doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt, revision 1.1

1.1     ! harris41    1: $Id$
        !             2: 
        !             3: INSTALLING LON-CAPA ON A REDHAT 7.2 SYSTEM
        !             4: 
        !             5: Scott Harrison
        !             6: 
        !             7: * Quick Instructions
        !             8: * Support
        !             9: * System Requirements
        !            10: * Strategy
        !            11: * Testing
        !            12: * Acknowledgements
        !            13: 
        !            14: Quick Instructions
        !            15: ------------------
        !            16: 
        !            17: PLEASE contact harris41@msu.edu if these instructions
        !            18: do not work.
        !            19: PLEASE subscribe yourself to the ANNOUNCE MAILING LIST!
        !            20: Go to http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-announce 
        !            21: 
        !            22: 1. Download http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/current/loncapa.tar.gz
        !            23:    (from a linux terminal, type
        !            24:     wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/current/loncapa.tar.gz)
        !            25: 2. tar xzvf loncapa.tar.gz
        !            26: 3. cd loncapa
        !            27: 4. Read the README file (this file).
        !            28: 5. EXECUTE: ./UPDATE
        !            29: 6. EXECUTE: ./TEST
        !            30: 
        !            31: Please follow the instructions that are given
        !            32: to you by the TEST command.  You will probably
        !            33: have to make a few changes and continue to run
        !            34: TEST until all the system-critical steps are
        !            35: taken care of.
        !            36: 
        !            37: Support
        !            38: -------
        !            39: 
        !            40: LON-CAPA is a GPL-based project which originally was, and in a
        !            41: significant sense still is, located at Michigan State University.  
        !            42: The installation, software versioning, and specification is
        !            43: currently maintained by the freeware community which includes
        !            44: the document author and more importantly you!
        !            45: 
        !            46: Your interest, questions and suggestions are enthusiastically
        !            47: invited for the specific development of the GPL code.
        !            48: 
        !            49: We do our best to help get you started with a 100% operational
        !            50: system.  Please e-mail harris41@msu.edu or helen@lon-capa.org
        !            51: for help with software installation.
        !            52: 
        !            53: System Requirements
        !            54: -------------------
        !            55: 
        !            56: It should be an intermediate-to-high-level
        !            57: performance workstation computer.  A ballpark suggestion
        !            58: is that it is PentiumII or greater, has 20 gigabytes of
        !            59: harddisk space, 256M RAM, and 400MHz CPU processing speed...
        !            60: Dr. Kortemeyer at Michigan State University can give a more
        !            61: thorough response if needed (he has experience with setting
        !            62: up high-performance web server clusters).
        !            63: 
        !            64: A specifically high-level suggestion is a multi CPU machine
        !            65: (with a CPU speed of 1 gigahertz), a gigabyte of memory and
        !            66: at least 40 to 80 gigabytes of hard disk space.
        !            67: 
        !            68: You can use a lesser machine for toying around with LON-CAPA (It will
        !            69: install an run for a single user on most anymachine) but if you wish
        !            70: to support students and you wish to support deadline crunches my
        !            71: suggestion is to go with the above.
        !            72: 
        !            73: LON-CAPA will work on any Intel-based RedHat compatible
        !            74: hardware.  And, unlike other software systems, it works
        !            75: comparatively well on dusty old crippled machines without
        !            76: much RAM or processing.  I am just projecting the characteristics
        !            77: that make LON-CAPA nice to use without any unreasonable slowness,
        !            78: and in terms of hard disk space, how to make it at least 5 years
        !            79: down the road, if not more.
        !            80: 
        !            81: If thousands of students start accessing the box as a web server...
        !            82: well you may want to consider more options (LON-CAPA supports
        !            83: load-balancing on multiple computers for instance).  We like
        !            84: to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.. :)
        !            85: 
        !            86: We support Linux OS.  LON-CAPA has been shown to work on Debian,
        !            87: Mandrake, and RedHat.  Instructions are based on RedHat-centric
        !            88: installs.  Given the current level of new LON-CAPA feature requests
        !            89: and frequency of new software versions, we suggest that you stick
        !            90: with RedHat to reduce high frequency system administration overhead.
        !            91: 
        !            92: Strategy
        !            93: --------
        !            94: 
        !            95: *** PERL ***
        !            96: It is important to check and see if your system has all 
        !            97: needed perl modules in /usr/lib/perl5/.
        !            98: 
        !            99: *** RPMS ***
        !           100: It is important to:
        !           101: * keep your RPMs up to date
        !           102: * try to have a reasonably minimal set
        !           103: 
        !           104: *** MYSQL ***
        !           105: It should be kept operational at all times.
        !           106: In case of failure, there is a resynchronizing
        !           107: strategy so that the data on the filesystem
        !           108: continually refreshes the data within the
        !           109: MYSQL database.
        !           110: 
        !           111: *** APACHE ***
        !           112: LON-CAPA expects that conf/loncapa.conf will be the
        !           113: last Apache configuration file to be processed before
        !           114: launching the httpd server.  This may interfere
        !           115: with other ways in which you utilize your web server.
        !           116: For instance, LON-CAPA requires that httpd
        !           117: run as user=www and group=www.
        !           118: 
        !           119: Testing
        !           120: -------
        !           121: 
        !           122: 1. Perl
        !           123: 
        !           124: 2. MySQL
        !           125: 
        !           126: 3. Web Layer
        !           127: 
        !           128: 4. File Status
        !           129: 
        !           130: 5. RPM Status
        !           131: 
        !           132: Acknowledgements
        !           133: ----------------
        !           134: 
        !           135: Many thanks to Matthew Hall (Michigan State University),
        !           136: Guy Albertelli (Michigan State University), Felicia
        !           137: Berryman (Michigan State University), Gerd Kortemeyer
        !           138: (Michigan State University) and Martin Siegert (Simon
        !           139: Frasier University) for their responsive feedback regarding
        !           140: ideas in this document.
        !           141: 

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