<html><head><title>Setting up a Red Hat7.3 LON-CAPA Server</title></head><body>
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<h1>Setting up a Red Hat 7.3 LON-CAPA Server</h1>
<h2>Before you begin</h2>
<p>
Installing Linux is getting easier and easier. However, it is still a
non-trivial undertaking and experience with Red Hat Linux will make this
process easier. You will be required to log in to the machine and execute
some routine Unix commands. Some familiarity with Linux is assumed.
</p>
<h2>Installation Overview</h2>
<p>
The installation process takes the following steps:
<ol>
<li> Obtain Red Hat 7.3 </li>
<li> Gather information for installing Red Hat </li>
<li> Install Red Hat 7.3 </li>
<li> Determine your LON-CAPA Settings </li>
<li> Install LON-CAPA </li>
<li> Configure LON-CAPA </li>
<li> Pick a hosts.tab file </li>
<li> Create a Domain Coordinator </li>
<li> Start/Restart services </li>
<li> Log in to LON-CAPA </li>
</ol>
</p>
<h2>Obtain the Red Hat 7.3 installation CDs</h2>
<p>
If you like, you may contact the LON-CAPA development staff and we can
mail the CDs to you. Another option is to download the cd images and
burn them yourself, or install from a mirror site using ftp or http.
</p>
<h2>Determine Network settings for your site</h2>
<p>
You will need to have the following information for your site. You must
have a static IP address (do not use DHCP).
<ul>
<li>ip address </li>
<li>netmask </li>
<li>network </li>
<li>broadcast </li>
<li>hostname </li>
<li>gateway </li>
<li>domain name server(s) </li>
</ul>
</p>
<h2>Install Red Hat 7.3</h2>
<p>
When you install RedHat you will need to ensure the following (the list below
is in the order the issues appear in the installation of Red Hat 7.3):
<dl>
<dt>Installation Type
<dd>You should definitely do a "Server" install. We do not recommend
Trying to install LON-CAPA with a different installation type.
<dt>Partitioning your Drive
<dd>You may want to use the automatic partitioning feature of Red Hat,
however you should review the results and be prepared to modify them.
LON-CAPA resource files are stored in the /home directory, so the
lion's share of the drive should be allocated here. If you have 8 GB
of space for Red Hat, /home should receive 4 to 6 gigs. Be sure to
include adequate swap space. A minimum is 512 Megs, but you should
typically have 1 or 2x as much swap space as you do physical RAM.
<dt>Network Configuration
<dd>LON-CAPA will <b>not</b> work with a machine set up to use a dynamic
IP address. When configuring your network card, be sure to unselect
the DHCP option and enter in your network information.
<dt>Firewall Configuration
<dd>The installation script will remove and disable your firewall.
<dt>Package Group Selection
<dd>At a minimum, install the following packages:
<ul>
<li>NFS File Server </li>
<li>Windows File Server </li>
<li>Web Server </li>
</ul>
Other packages can be installed as you like.
<dt>X Windows Configuration
<dd>If you chose to install the X-windows packages you will need to
configure them. If you are unsure of the support for your video
card you may wish to skip the configuration.
</dl>
Other notes:
<ul>
<li>Use md5 and shadow passwords if you are given the choice (this is
the default). </li>
</ul>
</p>
<h2>Determine LON-CAPA settings</h2>
<p>
LON-CAPA requires a number of identifying parameters be set in order
for it to function at all. Below is a list with descriptions.
<dl>
<dt>Host Type (library or access)
<dd>The server must be designated a 'library' or an 'access' server. In
general you should have a library server for your instructors to create
their course content on and run their courses. Students should connect
to access servers. If you are doing the first install of LON-CAPA at
your site, or if you are playing with it for your own edification, you
should make your machine a 'library' server.
<dt>LON-CAPA domain
<dd>Each site or school which installs LON-CAPA needs its own domain.
Here at MSU we use 'msu'. You should choose something short but
meaningful.
<i>Restriction: One word, no hyphens, underscores, or special characters</i>
<dt>LON-CAPA host id
<dd>Each LON-CAPA server requires a unique internal name. We use names
such as "msul1" for the first library server.
<i>Restriction: One word, no hyphens, underscores, or special characters</i>
<dt>Host administrator email
<dd>The amount of email sent to this address is relatively minimal. Messages
are sent every time the system starts up, or if the system is in
serious trouble. On a laptop, make this <tt>root@localhost</tt>.
<dt>Root password for SQL database
<dd>In order to keep people from corrupting the MYSQL database, a root
password is needed. You'll need to remember this.
</dl>
</p>
<h2>Install LON-CAPA</h2>
<p>
Log in as root with the password you provided during the Red Hat
installation process.
<pre>
wget http://install.loncapa.org/versions/rh73install/loncapa-rh73install.tar
tar xf loncapa-rh73install.tar
cd install
./install.pl
</pre>
</p>
<h2>Configure LON-CAPA</h2>
<p>
Execute the following commands
<pre>
cd /root/loncapa/
./UPDATE
</pre>
You will need to enter the LON-CAPA configuration information you requested
above.
</p>
<h2>Picking a hosts.tab file</h2>
The "hosts.tab" file controls which LON-CAPA servers your server attempts
to access and which servers it will respond to. If this is your first
install of LON-CAPA on your network, we suggest choosing a 'standalone'
"hosts.tab". On a laptop, you must choose 'standalone'.
Please contact the support staff at www.loncapa.org for
information about adding more hosts to your "hosts.tab" file.
<p>
<b>Note:</b> for <b>non</b>-standalone configurations, you do need to add
yourself to the <tt>/home/httpd/lonTabs/hosts.tab</tt> to initially test your
configuration. Eventually, you will be added to the general cluster tables by
LON-CAPA staff, so this is temporary. A <tt>hosts.tab</tt> entry has the
format
<pre>
lonHostID:domain:hosttype:dns-name:ipaddress
</pre>
for example
<pre>
103l5:library:s17.lite.msu.edu:35.8.63.27
</pre>
Please edit this file with a UNIX editor, not a PC or Mac one, so that the
linebreaks are correct.
</p>
<h2>Creating a Domain Coordinator</h2>
<p>
You will need at least one user at your site who has the role of
'domain coordinator'. This user creates accounts for other users and
grants them additional privileges. The make_domain_coordinator.pl script
invoked below requires that you enter the users password. The password will
show in plaintext as you type it. Feel free to use the "passwd username"
command to change it later. Replace USERNAME and DOMAIN with an
appropriate user name and your domain.
<pre>
cd /root/loncapa/loncom/build
perl make_domain_coordinator.pl USERNAME DOMAIN
(WILL PROMPT FOR PASSWORD HERE)
mkdir ~USERNAME/public_html
chown USERNAME:www ~USERNAME/public_html
chmod 0775 ~USERNAME/public_html
chmod a+x ~USERNAME
</pre>
</p>
<h2>Start/Restart Services</h2>
<p>
The services take about 10 minutes to start.
<pre>
/etc/init.d/loncontrol start
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
</pre>
</p>
<h2>Make Sure that Services Autostart on Boot</h2>
<p>On Redhat 7.3 it is not guaranteed that Apache and MySQL automatically
restart on boot. You should run /usr/sbin/ntsysv and set the following
daemons to be started at boot:
<pre>
httpd
mysqld
</pre>
It is not necessary to reboot after doing this as they should already be
running by this point in the installation.
<pre>
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
/etc/init.d/mysqld restart
</pre>
</p>
<h2>Log in to your LON-CAPA Machine</h2>
<p>
Point a web browser at your new machine and log in as the domain
coordinator. Congratulations!
</p>
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