Annotation of doc/build/sles11_install.frag, revision 1.4
1.1 raeburn 1: <h1>Installing LON-CAPA on a minimal SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11</h1>
2: <p>
3: This document guides you through the process of setting up a new LON-CAPA
4: server running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11) with a minimum of packages installed.
5: The computer will be configured solely as a LON-CAPA server and will be
6: expected to have no other services running. Your server is expected to have
7: a reasonably fast connection to the internet.
8: </p><p>
9: More information is available at
10: <a href="http://install.lon-capa.org/">http://install.lon-capa.org/</a>.
11: </p>
12:
13: <h2>Before you begin</h2>
14: <p>
15: Installing Linux is getting easier and easier.
16: You will be required to log in to the machine and execute
17: some routine Unix commands. Familiarity with the Apache web server, mod_perl,
18: perl, and MySQL are not required to install and run LON-CAPA.
19: </p>
20:
21: <h2>Installation Overview</h2>
22: <p>
23: The installation process takes the following steps:
24: </p>
25: <ol>
26: <li><a href="#obt">Obtain SLES 11 installation media</a></li>
27: <li><a href="#net">Determine Network Settings</a></li>
28: <li><a href="#lin">Install SLES 11</a></li>
29: <li><a href="#upd">Update your system</a></li>
30: <li><a href="#ilc">Install LON-CAPA</a></li>
31: <li><a href="#cdc">Create a Domain Coordinator</a></li>
32: <li><a href="#sts">Start/Restart services</a></li>
33: <li><a href="#log">Log in to LON-CAPA</a></li>
34: </ol>
35:
1.4 ! bisitz 36: <hr>
1.1 raeburn 37: <h2>1. <a name="obt">Obtain SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11</a></h2>
38: <p>
39: SuSE ISO files can be obtained from the Novell site: <a href="http://www.novell.com/products/server/">http://www.novell.com/products/server/</a>. Only DVD1 is required for each architecture (DVD2 contains source rpms for the various packages).
40: </p>
41:
42: <h2>2. <a name="net">Determine Network Settings</a></h2>
43: <p>
44: You will need to know the following network settings for your installation.
45: <b>Note:</b>You must have a static IP address to use LON-CAPA.
46: DHCP is <em>not</em> supported.
47: </p>
48: <ul>
49: <li>ip address </li>
50: <li>netmask </li>
51: <li>hostname </li>
52: <li>gateway </li>
53: <li>domain name server(s) </li>
54: </ul>
55:
56: <h2>3. <a name="lin">Minimal SLES 11 Install</a></h2>
57: <p>
58: Installing SuSE Linux Enterprise Server is quite easy if you've installed Linux products
59: before. Some documentation is available from
60: <a href="http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/">
1.4 ! bisitz 61: http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11/</a>.<br><br>
1.3 raeburn 62: Most of the installation screens are self explanatory.
1.1 raeburn 63: There are a few steps that require comment and are dealt with below.
64: </p>
65: <dl style="list-style:square outside none">
66: <dt>Installation Language</dt>
67: <dd>Use English as your installation language.</dd>
68:
69: <dt>Partitioning your Drive</dt>
70: <dd>For a LON-CAPA library server (i.e., the main server used
71: for permanent storage of course and user data),
72: a separate partition is recommended for /home, as this
73: simplifies future upgrades of the operating system.
74: If you are adding an additional access server to an
75: existing LON-CAPA domain, this does not apply as no
76: permanent data are stored on an access server.
77: As LON-CAPA resource files are stored in the /home directory,
78: the majority of the disk space should be allocated here.
79: If you have 20 GB of space for SLES11, /home should
80: receive at least 10 to 12 gigs. Since MySQL uses the /var
81: filesystem to store its databases you should have as least
82: 4 gigs of space available on /var. Be sure to
83: include adequate swap space. A minimum is 512 Megs, but you should
84: typically have 1 or 2x as much swap space as you do physical RAM.
85: </dd>
86: <dt>Software Selection</dt>
87: <dd>
88: Installation of the minimum set of packages is recommended. This will involve unchecking all checkboxes except for the base SLES installation.</dd>
89: </dl>
90: <p>Once you system has rebooted, you will use yast to complete the configuration. Change the following settings:
91: <dl style="list-style:square outside none">
92: <dt>Network Configuration</dt>
93: <dd>LON-CAPA will <b>not</b> work with a machine set up to use a dynamic
94: IP address. When configuring your network card, you should include you static IP address, netmask, host name information (e.g., host name = tmp1, domain = lite.msu.edu), as well as name servers and gateway.
95: </dd>
96: <dt>Online update</dt>
97: <dd>Indicate "Yes" when prompted to "run online update now?"</dd>
98: </dl>
99: <p>
100: Finish installing your server, read the "readme", reboot and log in as root.
101: </p>
1.4 ! bisitz 102:
1.1 raeburn 103: <h2>4. <a name="upd">Change software sources for your system</a></h2>
104: <p>
1.4 ! bisitz 105: You will use yast to import packages required for LON-CAPA.<br>
1.1 raeburn 106: Execute:
107: </p>
108: <pre>
109: yast
110: </pre>
111: <p>
112: Select "Change Source of Installation". The media you used to install SLES11 will be listed as an installation source. If you do not already have a SLES11 installation source at your location, you may want to consider creating one from the iso files you used to create . Proceed as follows (e.g., for 32 bit):</p>
113: <pre>
114: mkdir -p sles11/DVD1
115: mount -o ro,loop SLES-11-DVD-i586-GM-DVD1.iso /mnt
116: cp -rv /mnt/* sles11/DVD1
117: umount /mnt
118: </pre>
119: <h3>Add an additional installation source</h3>
1.4 ! bisitz 120: <p>
! 121: Add the LON-CAPA SLES 11 repository as an additional installation source, so software installation in yast will have access to at least two repositories - a SuSE/Novell source (for packages included for the standard distribution) and the LON-CAPA repository (for extra packages needed to run LON-CAPA). For the LON-CAPA source you will use:
! 122: </p>
1.1 raeburn 123: <dl style="list-style:square outside none">
124: <dd>Protocol</dd>
125: <dt>HTTP</dt>
126: <dd>Server Name</dd>
127: <dt>install.loncapa.org</dt>
128: <dd>Directory on server</dd>
129: <dt>suse/sles11/</dt>
130: <dd>Authentication</dd>
131: <dt>Anonymous</dt>
132: </dl>
1.4 ! bisitz 133: <p>
1.1 raeburn 134: After saving this configuration information for the LON-CAPA repository, quit yast.
135: </p>
1.4 ! bisitz 136:
1.1 raeburn 137: <h2>5. <a name="ilc">Installing LON-CAPA</a></h2>
138: <h3>Install prerequisites</h3>
139: <p> Execute: </p>
140: <pre>
141: yast -i LONCAPA-prerequisites
142: </pre><p>
1.3 raeburn 143: This may take some minutes due to LON-CAPA's large number of dependencies.
1.1 raeburn 144: </p>
1.2 raeburn 145: <h3>Configure Firewall Settings</h3>
146: <p>After installing the prerequisites you should start yast, and select Security and Users -> Firewall. At step 2 include the following services: HTTP, HTTP with SSL, and Secure Shell.
147: </p>
1.1 raeburn 148: <h3>Retrieve and execute LON-CAPA setup program</h3>
149: <p>
150: Retrieve the LON-CAPA setup with one of the following commands:
151: </p>
152: <pre>
1.3 raeburn 153: wget http://install.loncapa.org/linux/install.tar
1.1 raeburn 154: </pre>
155: <p>
156: Extract the archive with the following command:
157: </p>
158: <pre>
1.3 raeburn 159: tar xf install.tar
1.1 raeburn 160: </pre>
161: <p>
162: This creates a directory named <tt>installation</tt>. Change to it and
163: execute the setup script with the following commands:
164: </p>
165: <pre>
166: cd installation
167: ./install.pl
168: </pre>
169: <p>
1.3 raeburn 170: The script is used to prepare a Linux system to run LON-CAPA, and can also be
171: used to check the configuration of a system on which LON-CAPA has already been installed. Typically, though, you will run this script only once, when you first install LON-CAPA.
1.1 raeburn 172: </p>
1.3 raeburn 173: <p>
174: The script will analyze your system to determine which actions are recommended. The script will then prompt you to choose the actions you would like taken.
175: Once a choice has been entered for all nine possible actions, required changes will be made.
176: </p>
177: <p>The possible actions are:
178: <ul>
179: <li>Create the www user/group</li>
180: <li>Install the package LON-CAPA uses to authenticate users.</li>
181: <li>Set-up the MySQL database</li>
182: <li>Set-up MySQL permissions</li>
183: <li>Configure Apache web server</li>
184: <li>Configure start-up of services</li>
185: <li>Check firewall settings</li>
1.4 ! bisitz 186: <li>Stop services not used by LON-CAPA,<br>
1.3 raeburn 187: e.g., services for a print server: cups daemon</li>
188: <li>Download LON-CAPA source code in readiness for installation</li>
189: </ul>
190: </p>
191:
1.1 raeburn 192: <h3>Determine LON-CAPA Settings</h3>
193: <p>
194: LON-CAPA requires a number of identifying parameters to be set in order
195: for it to function at all. Below is a list with descriptions.
196: </p>
197: <dl>
198: <dt>Host Type (library or access)</dt>
199: <dd>The server must be designated a 'library' or an 'access' server. In
200: general you should have a library server for your instructors to create
201: their course content on and run their courses. Students should connect
202: to access servers. If you are doing the first install of LON-CAPA at
203: your site, or if you are playing with it for your own edification you
204: should make your machine a 'library' server.</dd>
205: <dt>LON-CAPA domain</dt>
206: <dd>Each site or school which installs LON-CAPA needs its own domain.
207: Here at MSU we use 'msu'. You should choose something short but
208: meaningful. <i>Restriction: One word, no hyphens, underscores, or
209: special characters.</i>
210: </dd>
211: <dt>LON-CAPA host id</dt>
212: <dd>Each LON-CAPA server requires a unique internal name. We use names
213: such as "msul1" for the first library server. <i>Restriction: One word,
214: no hyphens, underscores, or special characters.</i>
215: </dd>
216: <dt>Host administrator email</dt>
217: <dd>The amount of email sent to this address is relatively minimal. Messages
218: are sent every time the system starts up, or if the system is in
219: serious trouble. On a laptop, make this <tt>root@localhost</tt>.
220: </dd>
221: </dl>
222:
223: <h3>Configuring LON-CAPA</h3>
224: <p>
225: To configure and install LON-CAPA, execute the following commands:
226: </p>
227: <pre>
1.3 raeburn 228: cd /root/loncapa-X.Y.Z (X.Y.Z should correspond to a version number like '2.10.0')
1.1 raeburn 229: ./UPDATE
230: </pre>
231: <p>
232: You will need to enter the LON-CAPA configuration information you determined
233: in the previous section.
234: </p>
1.4 ! bisitz 235:
1.1 raeburn 236: <h2>6. <a name="cdc">Creating a Domain Coordinator</a></h2>
237: <p>
238: You will need at least one user at your site who has the role of
239: 'domain coordinator'. This user creates accounts for other users and
240: grants them additional privileges. The make_domain_coordinator.pl script
1.3 raeburn 241: invoked below requires that you enter the user's password.
242: Feel free to use the "passwd username" command to change it later.
243: Replace USERNAME and DOMAIN with an appropriate user name and your domain.
1.1 raeburn 244: </p>
245: <pre>
1.3 raeburn 246: cd /root/loncapa-X.Y.Z/loncom/build
1.1 raeburn 247: perl make_domain_coordinator.pl USERNAME DOMAIN
248: </pre>
249:
250: <h2>7. <a name="sts">Start/Restart Services</a></h2>
251: <p>
252: The LON-CAPA network services take a moment to start. Most misconfigurations
253: will be apparent at this step.
254: </p>
255: <pre>
256: /etc/init.d/loncontrol start
257: /etc/init.d/apache2 start
258: </pre>
259: <p>
260: If you receive warnings when starting the httpd about missing perl modules,
261: please make sure you followed the instructions in
262: <b>Installing LON-CAPA Dependencies</b>. If you still have errors, please
263: contact the LON-CAPA group.
264: </p>
265:
266: <h2>8. <a name="log">Log in to your LON-CAPA Machine</a></h2>
267: <p>
268: Point a web browser at your new machine and log in as the domain
269: coordinator. Congratulations!
270: </p>
271:
1.4 ! bisitz 272: <hr>
1.1 raeburn 273: <h2>If things aren't working right</h2>
274: <p>
275: If you've followed the steps above and the server doesn't start or you think
276: there's something wrong, please get in touch with the LON-CAPA group.
1.4 ! bisitz 277: You can submit a help request using our web form:<br>
! 278: <a href="http://help.loncapa.org/help/">http://help.loncapa.org/help/</a><br>
1.1 raeburn 279: If there were errors in installation of the dependency RPMs or during the
280: automatic setup, please send us as much information as possible.
281: If some part of this document is unclear please let us know.
282: </p>
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