Preamble: referenced user accounts

In subsequent sections, we will refer to a number of different accounts, as follows:

  • Linux user accounts:

    • The user Linux account is the account that you use to log onto the Linux system as a regular user.

    • The root Linux account is an account that has system administrator privileges. On Debian and Fedora you can switch to this account from your user account by issuing the su - command and entering the password for the root account when prompted. On Ubuntu you can switch to this account from your user account using the sudo su - command and entering the password for your user account when prompted.

    • The opensrf Linux account is an account that you create when installing OpenSRF. You can switch to this account from the root account by issuing the su - opensrf command.

    • The postgres Linux account is created automatically when you install the PostgreSQL database server. You can switch to this account from the root account by issuing the su - postgres command.

  • PostgreSQL user accounts:

    • The evergreen PostgreSQL account is a superuser account that you will create to connect to the PostgreSQL database server.

  • Evergreen administrator account:

    • The egadmin Evergreen account is an administrator account for Evergreen that you will use to test connectivity and configure your Evergreen instance.

Preamble: Getting an Evergreen official release tarball

To download and extract the source for the current release of Evergreen, issue the following commands as the user Linux account:

wget -c http://evergreen-ils.org/downloads/Evergreen-ILS-2.1.5.tar.gz
tar xzf Evergreen-ILS-2.1.5.tar.gz

Preamble: Developer instructions

Note
 Skip this section if you are using an official release tarball downloaded from http://evergreen-ils.org/downloads

Developers working directly with the source code from the Git repository, rather than an official release tarball, must install some extra packages and perform one step before they can proceed with the ./configure step.

As the root Linux account, install the following packages:

  • autoconf

  • automake

  • libtool

As the user Linux account, issue the following command in the Evergreen source directory to generate the configure script and Makefiles:

./autogen.sh

After running make install, developers also need to install the Dojo Toolkit set of JavaScript libraries. The appropriate version of Dojo is included in Evergreen release tarballs. Developers should install the Dojo 1.3.3 version of Dojo by issuing the following commands as the opensrf Linux account:

wget http://download.dojotoolkit.org/release-1.3.3/dojo-release-1.3.3.tar.gz
tar -C /openils/var/web/js -xzf dojo-release-1.3.3.tar.gz
cp -r /openils/var/web/js/dojo-release-1.3.3/* /openils/var/web/js/dojo/.

Installing prerequisites

Evergreen has a number of prerequisite packages that must be installed before you can successfully configure, compile, and install Evergreen.

  1. Begin by installing the most recent version of OpenSRF (2.0 or later). You can download OpenSRF releases from http://evergreen-ils.org/opensrf.php

  2. On many distributions, it is necessary to install PostgreSQL 9 from external repositories.

    • On Debian Squeeze, open /etc/apt/sources.list in a text editor as the root Linux account and add the following line: 

      deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main contrib

    • On Ubuntu Lucid, you can use a PPA (personal package archive), which are package sources hosted on Launchpad. The one most commonly used by Evergreen Community members is maintained by Martin Pitt, who also maintains the official PostgreSQL packages for Ubuntu. As the root Linux account, issue the following commands to add the PPA source: 

      apt-get install python-software-properties
add-apt-repository ppa:pitti/postgresql

    • Fedora 15 comes with PostgreSQL 9, so no additional steps are required.

  3. On Debian and Ubuntu, run aptitude update as the root Linux account to retrieve the new packages from the backports repository.

  4. Issue the following commands as the root Linux account to install prerequisites using the Makefile.install prerequisite installer, substituting debian-squeeze, fedora15, ubuntu-lucid, centos, or rhel for <osname> below: 

    make -f Open-ILS/src/extras/Makefile.install <osname>
    Note
    		 centos and rhel are less tested than the debian, fedora, and ubuntu options. Your patches and suggestions for improvement are welcome!

  5. Add the libdbi-libdbd libraries to the system dynamic library path by issuing the following commands as the root Linux account:

    Debian / Ubuntu
    echo "/usr/local/lib/dbd" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/eg.conf
ldconfig
    Fedora
    echo "/usr/lib64/dbd" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/eg.conf
ldconfig

Configuration and compilation instructions

For the time being, we are still installing everything in the /openils/ directory. From the Evergreen source directory, issue the following commands as the user Linux account to configure and build Evergreen:

./configure --prefix=/openils --sysconfdir=/openils/conf
make

Installation instructions

  1. Once you have configured and compiled Evergreen, issue the following command as the root Linux account to install Evergreen, build the server portion of the staff client, and copy example configuration files to /openils/conf. Change the value of the STAFF_CLIENT_STAMP_ID variable to match the version of the staff client that you will use to connect to the Evergreen server. 

    make STAFF_CLIENT_STAMP_ID=rel_2_1_5 install

  2. The server portion of the staff client expects http://hostname/xul/server to resolve. Issue the following commands as the root Linux account to create a symbolic link pointing to the server subdirectory of the server portion of the staff client that we just built using the staff client ID rel_name: 

    cd /openils/var/web/xul
ln -sf rel_name/server server

Change ownership of the Evergreen files

All files in the /openils/ directory and subdirectories must be owned by the opensrf user. Issue the following command as the root Linux account to change the ownership on the files:

chown -R opensrf:opensrf /openils

Create the oils_web.xml configuration file

Many administration interfaces, such as acquisitions, bookings, and various configuration screens, depend on the correct configuration of HTML templates. Copying the sample configuration file into place should work in most cases:

cp /openils/conf/oils_web.xml.example /openils/conf/oils_web.xml

Configure the Apache Web server

  1. Use the example configuration files in Open-ILS/examples/apache/ to configure your Web server for the Evergreen catalog, staff client, Web services, and administration interfaces. Issue the following commands as the root Linux account:

    Debian and Ubuntu
    cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/eg.conf       /etc/apache2/sites-available/
cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/eg_vhost.conf /etc/apache2/
cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/startup.pl    /etc/apache2/
# Now set up SSL
mkdir /etc/apache2/ssl
cd /etc/apache2/ssl
    Fedora
    cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/eg.conf       /etc/httpd/sites-available/
cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/eg_vhost.conf /etc/httpd/
cp Open-ILS/examples/apache/startup.pl    /etc/httpd/
# Now set up SSL
mkdir /etc/httpd/ssl
cd /etc/httpd/ssl

  2. The openssl command cuts a new SSL key for your Apache server. For a production server, you should purchase a signed SSL certificate, but you can just use a self-signed certificate and accept the warnings in the staff client and browser during testing and development. Create an SSL key for the Apache server by issuing the following command as the root Linux account: 

    openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out server.crt -keyout server.key

  3. As the root Linux account, edit the eg.conf file that you copied into place.

    1. Replace Allow from 10.0.0.0/8 with Allow from all (to enable access to the offline upload / execute interface from any workstation on any network - note that you must secure this for a production instance)

  4. Change the user for the Apache server.

    • (Debian and Ubuntu): As the root Linux account, edit /etc/apache2/envvars. Change export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data to export APACHE_RUN_USER=opensrf.

    • (Fedora): As the root Linux account , edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. Change User apache to User opensrf.

  5. Configure Apache with performance settings appropriate for Evergreen:

    • (Debian and Ubuntu): As the root Linux account, edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:

    • (Fedora): As the root Linux account, edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:

      1. Change KeepAliveTimeout to 1. Higher values reduce the chance of a request timing out unexpectedly, but increase the risk of using up all available Apache child processes.

      2. Optional: Change MaxKeepAliveRequests to 100

      3. Update the prefork configuration section to suit your environment. The following settings apply to a busy system: 

        <IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
   StartServers           20
   MinSpareServers         5
   MaxSpareServers        15
   MaxClients            150
   MaxRequestsPerChild 10000
</IfModule>

  6. (Debian and Ubuntu): As the root Linux account, enable the Evergreen site: 

    a2dissite default  # OPTIONAL: disable the default site (the "It Works" page)
a2ensite eg.conf

Configure OpenSRF for the Evergreen application

There are a number of example OpenSRF configuration files in /openils/conf/ that you can use as a template for your Evergreen installation. Issue the following commands as the opensrf Linux account:

cp -b /openils/conf/opensrf_core.xml.example /openils/conf/opensrf_core.xml
cp -b /openils/conf/opensrf.xml.example /openils/conf/opensrf.xml

When you installed OpenSRF, you created four Jabber users on two separate domains and edited the opensrf_core.xml file accordingly. Please refer back to the OpenSRF README and, as the opensrf Linux account, edit the Evergreen version of the opensrf_core.xml file using the same Jabber users and domains as you used while installing and testing OpenSRF.

Note
 The -b flag tells the cp command to create a backup version of the destination file. The backup version of the destination file has a tilde (~) appended to the file name, so if you have forgotten the Jabber users and domains, you can retrieve the settings from the backup version of the files.

eg_db_config.pl, described in the following section, sets the database connection information in opensrf.xml for you.

Creating the Evergreen database

By default, the Makefile.install prerequisite installer does not install the PostgreSQL 9.0 database server required by every Evergreen system; for production use, most libraries install the PostgreSQL database server on a dedicated machine. You can install the packages required by Debian, Ubuntu, or Fedora on the machine of your choice using the following commands as the root Linux account:

(Debian / Ubuntu) Installing PostgreSQL 9.0 server packages
make -f Open-ILS/src/extras/Makefile.install install_pgsql_server_debs_90
(Fedora 15) Installing PostgreSQL 9.0 server packages
make -f Open-ILS/src/extras/Makefile.install install_fedora_pgsql_server

For a standalone PostgreSQL server, install the following Perl modules as the root Linux account:

(Debian / Ubuntu) Installing additional Perl modules on a standalone PostgreSQL 9.0 server
aptitude install gcc libxml-libxml-perl libxml-libxslt-perl
cpan Business::ISBN
cpan JSON::XS
cpan Library::CallNumber::LC
cpan MARC::Record
cpan MARC::File::XML
cpan UUID::Tiny
(Fedora 15) Installing additional Perl modules on a standalone PostgreSQL 9.0 server
yum install gcc perl-XML-LibXML perl-XML-LibXSLT perl-Business-ISBN
cpan JSON::XS
cpan Library::CallNumber::LC
cpan MARC::Record
cpan MARC::File::XML
cpan UUID::Tiny

You need to create a PostgreSQL superuser to create and access the database. Issue the following command as the postgres Linux account to create a new PostgreSQL superuser named evergreen. When prompted, enter the new user’s password:

createuser -s -P evergreen

Once you have created the evergreen PostgreSQL account, you also need to create the database and schema, and configure your configuration files to point at the database server. Issue the following command as the root Linux account from inside the Evergreen source directory, replacing <user>, <password>, <hostname>, <port>, and <dbname> with the appropriate values for your PostgreSQL database (where <user> and <password> are for the evergreen PostgreSQL account you just created), and replace <admin-user> and <admin-pass> with the values you want for the egadmin Evergreen administrator account:

perl Open-ILS/src/support-scripts/eg_db_config.pl --update-config \
       --service all --create-database --create-schema --create-offline \
       --user <user> --password <password> --hostname <hostname> --port <port> \
       --database <dbname> --admin-user <admin-user> --admin-pass <admin-pass>

This creates the database and schema and configures all of the services in your /openils/conf/opensrf.xml configuration file to point to that database. It also creates the configuration files required by the Evergreen cgi-bin administration scripts, and sets the user name and password for the egadmin Evergreen administrator account to your requested values.

Creating the database on a remote server

In a production instance of Evergreen, your PostgreSQL server should be installed on a dedicated server. To create the database in that case, you can either:

  • Install the PostgreSQL contrib modules on the machine on which you are installing the Evergreen code, and use the --create-database option from that machine, or

  • Copy the Open-ILS/src/sql/Pg/create_database.sql script to your PostgreSQL server and invoke it as the postgres Linux account: 

    psql -vdb_name=<dbname> -vcontrib_dir=`pg_config --sharedir`/contrib -f create_database.sql

Then you can issue the eg_db_config.pl command as above without the --create-database argument to create your schema and configure your configuration files.

Starting Evergreen

  1. As the root Linux account, start the memcached and ejabberd services (if they aren’t already running): 

    /etc/init.d/ejabberd start
/etc/init.d/memcached start

  2. As the opensrf Linux account, start Evergreen. The -l flag in the following command is only necessary if you want to force Evergreen to treat the hostname as localhost; if you configured opensrf.xml using the real hostname of your machine as returned by perl -ENet::Domain 'print Net::Domain::hostfqdn() . "\n";', you should not use the -l flag. 

    osrf_ctl.sh -l -a start_all

    • If you receive the error message bash: osrf_ctl.sh: command not found, then your environment variable PATH does not include the /openils/bin directory; this should have been set in the opensrf Linux account’s .bashrc configuration file. To manually set the PATH variable, edit the configuration file ~/.bashrc as the opensrf Linux account and add the following line: 

      export PATH=$PATH:/openils/bin

  3. As the opensrf Linux account, generate the Web files needed by the staff client and catalogue and update the organization unit proximity (you need to do this the first time you start Evergreen, and after that each time you change the library hierarchy in config.cgi): 

    autogen.sh -u

  4. As the root Linux account, restart the Apache Web server: 

    /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

    If the Apache Web server was running when you started the OpenSRF services, you might not be able to successfully log in to the OPAC or staff client until the Apache Web server is restarted.

Testing connections to Evergreen

Once you have installed and started Evergreen, test your connection to Evergreen via srfsh. As the opensrf Linux account, issue the following commands to start srfsh and try to log onto the Evergreen server using the egadmin Evergreen administrator user name and password that you set using the eg_db_config.pl command:

/openils/bin/srfsh
srfsh% login <admin-user> <admin-pass>

You should see a result like:

Received Data: "250bf1518c7527a03249858687714376"
------------------------------------
Request Completed Successfully
Request Time in seconds: 0.045286
------------------------------------
Received Data: {
   "ilsevent":0,
   "textcode":"SUCCESS",
   "desc":" ",
   "pid":21616,
   "stacktrace":"oils_auth.c:304",
   "payload":{
      "authtoken":"e5f9827cc0f93b503a1cc66bee6bdd1a",
      "authtime":420
   }
}
------------------------------------
Request Completed Successfully
Request Time in seconds: 1.336568
------------------------------------

If this does not work, it’s time to do some troubleshooting.

  • As the opensrf Linux acccount, run the settings-tester.pl script to see if it finds any system configuration problems. The script is found at Open-ILS/src/support-scripts/settings-tester.pl in the Evergreen source tree.

  • Follow the steps in the troubleshooting guide.

  • If you have faithfully followed the entire set of installation steps listed here, you are probably extremely close to a working system. Gather your configuration files and log files and contact the Evergreen development mailing list for assistance before making any drastic changes to your system configuration.

Getting help

Need help installing or using Evergreen? Join the mailing lists at http://evergreen-ils.org/listserv.php or contact us on the Freenode IRC network on the #evergreen channel.