Annotation of doc/shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt, revision 1.4
1.4 ! harris41 1: $Id: shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt,v 1.3 2002/04/22 00:07:19 harris41 Exp $
1.1 harris41 2:
1.4 ! harris41 3: INSTALLING LON-CAPA ON A REDHAT 7.2/7.3 SYSTEM
1.1 harris41 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:
1.4 ! harris41 17: PLEASE contact sharrison@users.sourceforge.net if these instructions
1.1 harris41 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:
1.4 ! harris41 22: 1. Download the current version of LON-CAPA from
! 23: http://install.lon-capa.org/downloads/
! 24: 2. tar xzvf loncapa-N.N.tar.gz (where N.N is the current version number)
1.1 harris41 25: 3. cd loncapa
26: 4. Read the README file (this file).
27: 5. EXECUTE: ./UPDATE
28: 6. EXECUTE: ./TEST
29:
30: Please follow the instructions that are given
31: to you by the TEST command. You will probably
32: have to make a few changes and continue to run
33: TEST until all the system-critical steps are
34: taken care of.
35:
36: Support
37: -------
38:
39: LON-CAPA is a GPL-based project which originally was, and in a
40: significant sense still is, located at Michigan State University.
41: The installation, software versioning, and specification is
42: currently maintained by the freeware community which includes
1.2 harris41 43: the author of this document and more importantly you!
1.1 harris41 44:
45: Your interest, questions and suggestions are enthusiastically
46: invited for the specific development of the GPL code.
47:
48: We do our best to help get you started with a 100% operational
1.4 ! harris41 49: system. Please e-mail sharrison@users.sourceforge.net or
! 50: helen@lon-capa.org for help with software installation.
1.1 harris41 51:
1.2 harris41 52: Hardware Recommendation
53: -----------------------
1.1 harris41 54:
1.2 harris41 55: For full-time, classroom usage, an adequate LON-CAPA server
56: should be/have:
1.1 harris41 57:
1.2 harris41 58: * a multiprocessor machine,
59: * a CPU speed of 1 gigahertz,
60: * a gigabyte of memory,
61: * and at least 40 to 80 gigabytes of hard disk space.
62:
63: A lesser machine can be used for toying around with LON-CAPA
64: (LON-CAPA will run for a single user on most any machine).
65:
66: LON-CAPA servers experience significant peaks of activity
67: before a homework submission deadline. To support these critical
68: peaks of activity, it is strongly advised that LON-CAPA machines
69: fit the above recommendation.
1.1 harris41 70:
1.4 ! harris41 71: If thousands of students start accessing the box as a web server,
! 72: then you may want to consider more options. The design of the LON-CAPA
1.2 harris41 73: system is to naturally and transparently load-balance on multiple
74: computer clusters. So, a simple solution for running an entire
75: college campus is to just have an adequate plurality of LON-CAPA
76: servers rather than a single, particularly monstrous server.
77:
1.4 ! harris41 78: We like to think of high web server usage as "a good problem" though.... :)
1.2 harris41 79:
80: More Information on Hardware and System Administration
81: ------------------------------------------------------
82:
83: I find that LON-CAPA works nicely (for development purposes)
84: on a Pentium II, 20 gigabytes of hard-disk space, 256M RAM,
85: and 400MHz. The consensus is though, that this may only
86: be adequate for a class of a dozen students.
87:
88: If you are making a serious investment, we suggest you
89: join our mailing list by visiting
90: http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users.
91: By posting to this mailing list, you can learn about what
92: solutions have worked for others.
93:
94: LON-CAPA works on any Intel-based RedHat-compatible
95: hardware. Unlike other software systems, it works
96: comparatively well on dusty old crippled machines without
97: much RAM or processing.
1.1 harris41 98:
99: We support Linux OS. LON-CAPA has been shown to work on Debian,
100: Mandrake, and RedHat. Instructions are based on RedHat-centric
101: installs. Given the current level of new LON-CAPA feature requests
102: and frequency of new software versions, we suggest that you stick
1.2 harris41 103: with RedHat to reduce high-frequency system administration overhead.
1.1 harris41 104:
1.4 ! harris41 105: Critical system software: a "strategic" outlook
! 106: ---------------------------------------------
! 107:
! 108: In this section, issues related to LON-CAPA server software
! 109: are discussed. (The section after this section describes how to test
! 110: and fix problems associated with the issues described below.)
! 111:
! 112: In general, you should expect that LON-CAPA "completely overtakes"
! 113: a Linux server system. Using the same LON-CAPA server computer to disseminate
! 114: other unrelated services to your institution is not recommended.
1.1 harris41 115:
116: *** PERL ***
1.4 ! harris41 117: A LON-CAPA system needs to have all the
! 118: necessary perl modules inside /usr/lib/perl5/.
1.1 harris41 119:
1.4 ! harris41 120: *** RPMs ***
! 121: RPMs are the software packages on a RedHat linux system (the standard,
! 122: supported operating system for LON-CAPA). For security reasons, you need
! 123: to keep your RPMs up to date. For security and performance reasons, a
! 124: knowledgeable system administrator at your institution should try to have
! 125: a reasonably minimal set; e.g. a LON-CAPA server probably does not need the
! 126: "pine" RPM (an e-mail client).
1.1 harris41 127:
128: *** MYSQL ***
1.4 ! harris41 129: The MySQL database facilitates fast transactions by passing information on
! 130: the LON-CAPA server to the world-wide web. Important point: in order to
! 131: prevent problems associated with 1) corrupted database files,
! 132: 2) database crashes, 3) changing versions of MySQL, and 4) information export
! 133: and import, the information in the MySQL database IS NOT AUTHORITATIVE.
! 134: In other words, if the MySQL database gets wiped out, YOU HAVE NOT LOST
! 135: CRITICAL DATA. The authoritative data exists on the filesystem and
! 136: the MySQL database is dynamically repopulated and refreshed by
! 137: /home/httpd/perl/searchcat.pl.
1.1 harris41 138:
139: *** APACHE ***
1.4 ! harris41 140: LON-CAPA expects that conf/loncapa_apache.conf will be the last Apache
! 141: configuration file to be processed before launching the httpd server. This
! 142: may interfere with other ways in which you utilize your web server. For
! 143: instance, LON-CAPA requires that httpd run as user=www and group=www.
1.1 harris41 144:
145: Testing
146: -------
1.4 ! harris41 147:
! 148: The ./TEST command automates five different kinds of tests.
1.1 harris41 149:
150: 1. Perl
151:
152: 2. MySQL
153:
154: 3. Web Layer
155:
156: 4. File Status
157:
158: 5. RPM Status
159:
160: Acknowledgements
161: ----------------
162:
163: Many thanks to Matthew Hall (Michigan State University),
164: Guy Albertelli (Michigan State University), Felicia
165: Berryman (Michigan State University), Gerd Kortemeyer
166: (Michigan State University) and Martin Siegert (Simon
167: Frasier University) for their responsive feedback regarding
168: ideas in this document.
169:
FreeBSD-CVSweb <freebsd-cvsweb@FreeBSD.org>
![[BACK]](/icons/back.gif){kind=icon}
Return to shortest_path_redhat7.2.txt CVS log ![[TXT]](/icons/text.gif){kind=icon}
![[DIR]](/icons/dir.gif){kind=icon}
Up to [LON-CAPA] / doc