PrepServer Installation Instructions

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Revision as of 20:37, 30 August 2010

Requirements

• Windows, Linux, Unix, or Mac OSX
• Sun (Oracle) Java 1.5+
• Tomcat 6
• IDL 7.0+
• Preferably Apache 2.2

Preparations

1. Create an unprivileged user and group, e.g. prepserver with group prepserver. Make prepserver available as $PREP_USER
2. Create a home directory for user prepserver
3. Set prepserver home directory to $PREP_SERVER (e.g. /home/prepserver, /usr/local/prepserver, C:\Programs\PrepServer, etc.)
4. Download prepserver.jar, prepserver.war, prepserver.libs.zip, prepserver.properties, re-startup.csh, and get_idl_path.pro to a temporary directory
5. Make sure that the Tomcat installation is available at $CATALINA_HOME

Installation (Mac/Unix/Linux)

PrepServer

1. Log in as prepserver
2. Create the following folders in $PREP_SERVER: lib, bin, logs, tmp
3. Copy prepserver.jar and prepserver.properties to $PREP_SERVER
4. Copy extract Java libraries from prepserver.libs.zip to $PREP_SERVER/lib
5. Copy re-startup.csh and get_idl_path.pro to $PREP_SERVER/bin
6. Check the #Configuration section

Tomcat

1. Log in as prepserver or as the appropriate Tomcat user
2. Copy prepserver.war to $CATALINA_HOME/webapps
   1. If necessary, deploy application prepserver.war (on some systems auto-deploy is disabled)
3. Check the #Configuration section

Configuration

PrepServer

1. Edit $PREP_SERVER/prepserver.properties
   1. Set publishing.dir to the publicly shared folder in Tomcat (most likely something like $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/prepserver/public. Make sure that prepserver has read/write access to that folder.
   2. Set publishing.url to the web url under which the public folder from the step before is available (e.g. http://my.server.com:8080/prepserver/public).
2. Edit $PREP_SERVER/bin/re-startup.csh and make sure all Global Variables are set correctly.
3. On certain systems the IDL Pre-processing Server may experience an error because of the absence of an active X11 window. See the #Troubleshooting section.
4. Test the installation by running $PREP_SERVER/bin/re-startup.csh as prepserver and checking the logs in $PREP_SERVER/logs. Also see PrepServer Maintenance and Diagnostic.
5. To start the PrepServer after a system reboot, add line to /_etc/rc.local (without the dash, on Linux/Unix) or create a Launch Control startup item (Mac).
   1. rc.local
      1. Log in as root
      2. Add the line

         su $PREP_USER -c $PREP_SERVER/bin/re-startup.csh

   2. Launch Control
      1. Log in as root
      2. Download the file gov.nasa.prepserver.plist and copy it to /System/Library/LaunchDaemons
      3. Edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons to fit your system. Please notice that this file comes with automatic restart of the PrepServer.
6. To reboot the PrepServer every day after an SSW update, create a CRON job (Linux/Unix) or a Launch Control startup idem (Mac).
   1. CRON job
      1. Log in as root
      2. Edit the crontab by typing

         crontab -e

         and adding

         6 * * * * su $PREP_USER -c $PREP_SERVER/bin/re-startup.csh

   2. Mac (if using Launch Control):
      1. See previous instructions on Launch Control

Troubleshooting

IDL Pre-processing Server breaks on startup

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