Forum OpenACS Q&A: newbie..trouble installing OpenACS

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Posted by Rick Yun on
Hi all,

I'm very excited about getting into OpenACS, but my only background is in Visual Basic and MS Access programming (please show mercy).

I have installed postgresql 8.2.4, tcl 8.4.14, and aolserver 4.5 using the Cognovis scripts. I have tested the database, and can get a tcl shell. I'm now trying to install OpenACS 5.3.2. I've downloaded and uncompressed the source file, moved the folder containing the uncompressed files to SERVERROOT (/var/lib/aolserver/) and renamed the directory to $OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME.

However, when I enter "su - $OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME" in accordance with the installation instructions, in preperation for downloading the install script from cvs, I get an "Unknown id" error. WAs I supposed to create an AOLserver account named $OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME? I believe the postgresql user I created before is names "postgres." Later in the instructions, it looks like I'm supposed to create another user in postgresql named $OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME, I haven't previously specified OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME in the installation process. Can anyone tell me if I'm missing something here?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Rick

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Posted by Brian Fenton on
Hi Rick,
Welcome to the community! Let's try and get you up and running...

That doesn't quite right what you're doing - can you post a link to the documentation you're following?

thanks
Brian

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Posted by Torben Brosten on
Welcome, Rick,

I believe the Cognovis scripts mention setting up a user in "Install OpenACS": http://cognovis.de/developer/en/openacs_setup This url is referred to on this page: https://openacs.org/xowiki/openacs-system-try

The manual instructions mention setting up a user account for each website "Set up a user account for each site" here:

https://openacs.org/xowiki/aolserver-install#openacs-setup

See also https://openacs.org/xowiki/openacs-reference-platform for the meaning of $OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME etc.

btw, my background before OpenACS was MS Excel macros (pre-dates VB a few years). best wishes!

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Posted by Rick Yun on
Thanks for the quick replies.

Between going back and forth between the various installation methods on the website, I guess I missed some instructions.

I am installing on Debian 4. Up to this point, I've used the Cognovis scripts to install pg, tcl, and aolserver (http://cognovis.de/developer/en/pg82, http://cognovis.de/developer/en/aolserver_install).

Per Torbin's provided link, I decided to proceed with the Cognovis instructions for setting up an aolserver user (http://cognovis.de/developer/en/openacs_setup):

export SERVICE0=service0
sudo useradd $SERVICE0
sudo mkdir /var/lib/aolserver/$SERVICE0/
sudo chown -R $SERVICE0.web /var/lib/aolserver/$SERVICE0
sudo usermod -g web $SERVICE0
sudo usermod -d /var/lib/aolserver/$SERVICE0 $SERVICE0

/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createuser -s $SERVICE0 -U postgres
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb -E UNICODE -U $SERVICE0 $SERVICE0

sudo su - $SERVICE0

At this point I switched (foolishly?) to the instructions on https://openacs.org/xowiki/openacs-subsystem-install, since they had more detail on how to proceed.

cvs -d :pserver:mailto:anonymous@cvs.openacs.org:/cvsroot co -d install openacs-4/etc/install

I was expecting the install.tcl and other files to be placed in /home/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME/install, but instead they are in /var/lib/aolserver/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME directory, and the /home/$OPENACS_SERVICE_NAME directory doesn't exist.

This has me a bit worried that I missed something earlier, or that there is some incompatibility with the installation methods. Before I muck things up further, I thought I'd see if anyone could spot anything obviously wrong...

Rick

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Posted by Brian Fenton on
Rick,

Well, taking a glance at the Cognovis notes it looks like everything will be in /var/lib/aolserver/ so it looks like you followed those notes correctly.

I'd say you'll be ok if you stick to the /var/lib/aolserver/ path - just use that everywhere you see /home in the other notes. It's only paths but I know it can seem a bit hairy the first time.

keep asking questions if you get stuck,

Brian