Sriram Natarajan's Weblog: Do more with Web Server

     For some reason, I always like products with screen shots describing how to proceed rather than staring at a whole bunch of steps to figure out as to where to start. But, again I  never see this in  most of Sun's documentation. So, I figured let me try doing this and figure out why folks are so reluctant to put documents with lot of screen shots in them. Well, here you go...

    This is the piece that I wrote while on the train en route to Java ONE'2006  but never got around to publish for so long due to other distractions at work.  This is not complete but a good start !. During Java ONE'2006, Sun annouced the Technology Preview 1 release of its next version of Web Server.  As an engineer involved in the development of this release, I guess I can write a quick blog about our installer and  what it takes to successfully complete the Web Server 7 installation.

Hope, this blog helps you better understand this products' installation and the features that are exposed within the installer. I admit that I have not written everything that I wanted to - like the custom installer that is waiting for some other day ...

Have suggestions for improvements, bring it on !. After all, the purpose of coming up with a Technology Preview release is get your feedback.

Pre Requisites:

  We all know that it is always useful to take time to read through any product's Release Notes before proceeding any further. This practice will save lot of time in trouble shooting through failed installations. But, in reality, no one really reads the 'Release Notes'or any product's manual, for that matter, unless things stop working the way we expect it to .

  Here is the minimum that you will need to know before installing Sun Java System Web Server 7 on Linux and Solaris.

Folks running on Linux:

   Honestly, I wonder if any one can keep track of the numberof Linux distributions that are out there today. I am sure, you would understand that one cannot expect Sun to officially test its products'on all Linux distributions.

  To keep things simple, Sun has officially tested this product on Redhat Enterprise Linux 3.x, 4.x as well as on SuSE Enterprise Linux10.x.  So, if you are running on one of these platforms, you are in luck. Please go ahead with confidence and send us your feedback.

  Also, if you are running on Fedora, then I have been personally able to use on Fedora Core 2 and 3 without any issue.  But on Fedora Core 4 or 5, you might have to download and install the compatibility standard C++ libraries rpm's for Fedora Core 4 and  Fedora Core 5 before proceeding any further.

  For folks using other distributions, please try it out and let us know, if you run into any issues.

Folks running on Solaris:

  If you are using Solaris either on SPARC or on x86, it is most likely that you will need to install the following shared library patchfor C++ before installing our Technology Preview build. So, what you do to install this patch on your system:

- Click the below URL corresponding to your Solaris version to downloadthe patch
- You might wanna save this patch in /tmp
- Become root (su - )
- Now, run the following command to install the patch on your system
cd /tmp ; patchadd .

Operating System	Required Patches for WebServer  7 (32 bit)	Required Patches for Web Server7 (64 bit)
Solaris 8 SPARC	108434-18 (Shared library patch for C++)	108435-18 (Shared library patch for C++)
Solaris 9 SPARC	111711-12 (Shared library patch for C++)	111712-12 (Shared library patch for C++)
Solaris 10 SPARC	NOT REQUIRED	NOT REQUIRED
Solaris 9 x86	111713-12 (Shared library patch for C++) 117172-17( Kernel Patch )	NOT SUPPORTED
Solaris 10 x86	119964-03 (Shared library patch for C++)	SUNWlxml

 
If you haven't already downloaded this release yet, now would be a besttime to give it a try. If you wonder as to why you neeed another webserver, when you are happy with your current web server, do  readblogs.sun.com/roller/page/sabada"> this column.

I am running Solaris x86 on my laptop. So, I will start with downloading the Solaris x86 version of Sun Java System Web Server 7. Now, if you are a linux fan (like myself) or a traditional windows user, please download your platform specific build. 

In my case, I have downloaded  the file 'sjsws-7.0_2006Q1-b44.2-solaris-amd64.tar.gz' to /tmp directory.

Notice that the file name has 'amd64' in it. If you wonder, whether this server can run on intel hardware, you bet !. This release can run on both Intel and AMD hardware and also on x64 processors.  This product bundles "64 bit version" for both SPARC and x64  architecture on Solaris. For Linux and Windows, not yet - some thing has got to wait for next release blogs.sun.com/images/smileys/smile.gif" class="smiley" alt=":-)" title=":-)" />

First, let me unpack this downloaded tar ball. So, I use the traditional unix commands to get this done....

cd /tmp ( I have downloaded the file to /tmp).

Now, wherever you have downloaded this file, go to that location and unpack the downloaded tar ball.

On Windows, if you have WinZip or an equivalent unzip program installed, then you should be able to double click the downloaded 'zip' file and you will be able to find 'setup' program

On my Solaris machine, I would do something like this to unpack the download tar ball.
gunzip -c sjsws-7.0_2006Q1-b44.2-solaris-amd64.tar.gz | tar xfp -

Again, on windows, it might be enough to unpack them using tools like Win

Now, you should see a file named 'setup' in this directory

So, I am going to start of the installer by running this file

./setup

You should now see the below welcome screen





Now, let us proceed, by clicking on 'Next' button.

 


Please carefully go through the license terms and if you like what you read, click on the button next to 'Yes' and then click  on 'Next'.  This should take you to the screen which asks you the default location as to where you would  like to install  thisWeb  Server. 

On Solaris and Linux machines, the default installation is /sun/webserver7. While on Windows, you might notice that the default installation location is 'c:\Program Files\Sun\WebServer7'.  To keep things simple, let us just choose the default value and press 'Next'.





Now, a nice message box pops up asking me if I would like to go ahead and create this directory.  What the heck, let us say 'yes'


Now, I was hoping to see the next installation screen. But, instead, I now got a message box as



Ooops... , Well, it turns out that I am trying to install as 'non-root'(applies only for UNIX/Linux platforms) and the installer program`does not have the permission to create a directory as 'webserver7' under '/sun'. So, the default value shown here will not work in my case.

Fair enough, I will install this time under my local home directory. In your case, if you run into similar issue,  please choose an appropriate location to where you have 'write' permission (like your home directory ~/sun/webserver7) and click on 'Next' button. WS7 Installer will now ask you as to if we want to create this directory. Let us just click on 'yes' and click 'Next'.

Looks like, I was able to cross this step and installer program now shows the next screen asking me to choose as to which type of installation that I would like to choose.



If you , like most of us, wonder as to what the heck is this different types of installation mean ? So, here is a very brief intro..

- Express - Installer will choose the default values and ask you only basic questions like the password for you Administration Server. In this mode, Installer program will install a copy of Java 5.0u6 , an Administration Server and a  server instance fully configured.  This option seems the way to go if you want to do some quick evaluation of this product.  Also, with this option, you can host a simple web site in matter of no time. 


- Custom - This option is for folks, who have used Web Server 7 for quite a while and would like to venture into new areas like choosing a different port number or different JDK version or use Web Server Agent(for clustering) or like me - who always run short on space and will need to reduce the installation footprint. For e.g, I want installer program to use the version of JDK that I use for other programs and hate another copy of JDK to be installed along with Web Server . In nutshell, you will have complete choice of what components will be installed and how you would like to configure your installation. I will find time to blog more about this later.

For simplicity sake, let us go with Express Install mode right now. So,I  will go ahead and click 'Next' and I am now faced with this screen.



Staring at this screen, made me realize that Web Server is going toinstall an administration server and is asking for password and this is the password that I should use to access the Administration Server GUI  after installation. Now, still the program hasn't informed us as tohow to start the administration server GUI or how to access this GUI. Iguess, this part will probably come at the end.

If you have already used 'Netscape' 'IPlanet or 'Sun ONE' version of web server, this must be nothing new. After all, this release is more of an evolutionary of these previous products and had a full fledged GUI based Admin Server for quite some time.

Now, let us choose a password (something that you could easily remember) and click 'Next'. Now, this screen seems to




tell me as to what is being installed. Well, most of the information mentioned here doesn't seems to be of much relevant to me. So, I will just go ahead and click 'Install Now' button. This seems to get us going since I am seeing a nice progress bar screen showing up




Cool, looks like , we are finally done as the Installer program now came up with a summary screen.




Trouble shooting failed installation:

    Well, you don't have to go through this , if you are able to successfully complete the installation.

For some wierd reason, if  Web Server installer program is not able to successfully complete the installation, then please go through installation log files found under your 'installation root/setup' directory (Thislocation is also provided in the screen). If this did not provide any info to find the root cause of this failed installation, then please write to us  to get free help in getting past this issue.

Moving ahead:

    Finally, now we have useful and important information as to how to start our WS7 Administration Server and how to access them. You might wanna write this down in a sticky post and paste it in front of yourcomputer. You will find this handy.

    Let us click on 'Finish' button. Now, we will need to follow the steps mentioned in the Summary screen to access the WS7Administration GUI screen.

    In my case, I will open a terminal window and go to my web server 7 installation directory by doing something like

cd ~/sun/webserver7
admin-server/bin/startserv

I see, some information seeming to say that the server started successfully. So far, so good. Let me now, fire up <ahref=http://www.firefox.com>FireFox</a> browser and use the URL mentioned in 'Step 2' .

In my case, I will use 'https://localhost:8989' to access the just now installed Web Server 7 Administration Server as mentioned in 'Step:2'of the summary screen. In your case, you might want to use the correct host name and port number as shown in your installation summary window.

Here is the new Web Server 7 nice Administration GUI showing up.

As soon as we hit the enter button in the browser, I got up a pop up box as shown below. Well, when I saw this box in the first time, it did look scary - sounded more like some security alert to me... But, after going through the entire text shown in this box, it is obvious that this is happening because of the following reasons -
  - Web Server 7 now uses SSL connection to connect to the Server GUI console. This is something new with 7.0 release and is being done to provide enhanced security to both customers and for Agents (we will talk more on this in the coming weeks) to talk to the server.
  - Because of this, users will now need to verify the SSL connection and confirm that they have to trust this connection. This is how SSL connections actually work !.

In nutshell, it is safe enough to click on 'Accept Temporarily for this session' radio button and proceed.                                                                                                                                                                                       

    Once you click OK on the above screen, Web Server 7 GUI nicely loads.  Here is a snap shot of how it looks...

    Now, some of the cool things with 7.0 GUI is

- you can now  get the list of tasks done through Wizard based approach. No longer, you have to memorize the sequence of steps involved in getting a task done.

- As the below screen shows, there are Common  Tasks button for doing common things like Adding a Web Application (WAR file deployment) , Managing virtual servers, Enabling SSL connections etc.

   

Go ahead , click through the rest of the GUI buttons, click on the context help to understand what these terminologies mean and how could we do to improve this product ...

Your feedback, as usual , is very critical for our success...

Cheers..