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Revision: 1.5
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# User Rev Content
1 tdb 1.1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
2    
3     <!--
4     gettingstarted.shtml
5     Created by tdb1 27/05/2001
6     Last edited 27/05/2001
7     -->
8    
9     <html>
10    
11     <head>
12     <title>Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System</title>
13     </head>
14    
15     <basefont face="arial,sans-serif" size="2">
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21 tdb 1.2 <!--#include virtual="../left.inc" -->
22 tdb 1.1 </td>
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24 tdb 1.2 <!--#include virtual="../title.inc" -->
25 tdb 1.1
26 tdb 1.4 <font face="arial,sans-serif" size="2">
27    
28 tdb 1.1 <h2>Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System</h2>
29    
30 pjm2 1.3 <h3>1. Installing the corba services (pre-requisite for the server)</h3>
31 tdb 1.1 <p>The server requires a CORBA Naming Service to run. It may be that you already
32 pjm2 1.3 have such a system running, in which case you can use that. Simply edit the
33 tdb 1.1 jacorb.properties file to point to your Naming service. If you don't have a
34 pjm2 1.3 naming service running you could just set up your own manually, but if like us
35 tdb 1.1 you want the easy approach, install our corba services program.</p>
36     <p>This program runs the naming service and provides a builtin webserver to
37     serve requests to the server application. The documentation details how to get
38     this running. It should simply be a case of extracting and running.</p>
39     <h3>1. Installing the server</h3>
40     <p>The first stage is to download and install the server application. The
41     latest versions of all i-scream applications can be found at the following
42 pjm2 1.3 URL:</p>
43 tdb 1.1 <p><a href="http://www.i-scream.org.uk/downloads">http://www.i-scream.org.uk/downloads</a></p>
44 pjm2 1.3 <p>Once downloaded, the archive should be extracted to a directory of your
45 tdb 1.1 choice. The server will run on most Java enabled platforms (including
46     Windows, Linux and FreeBSD).</p>
47     <p>The archive consists of only a few files and directories. The main file is
48     the iscream-server.jar archive which contains all the binary code for the
49     server. The lib directory contains other JAR archives which the server
50     requires to run. The etc directory contains (or will contain)
51     configuration for most of the i-scream central monitoring system. The next
52     step is to configure the server to suit your requirements.</p>
53     <h3>2. Configuring the server</h3>
54     <p>The configuration is split into two main files. The first,
55     default.properties can be considered a bootstrap configuration. This means
56     that it provides basic configuration to get the server started, after
57     which point the main configuration system takes over. This file should be
58     checked through, and is pretty well explained by comments.</p>
59     <p>The rest of the server configuration is based on system.conf. This can
60     hold the entire system configuration, including hosts. It may also specify
61     other configuration files to be included in the main configuration. This
62     file is also commented extensively.</p>
63     <p>This step may well take some time to get right, and you can come back to
64     it at any point. Lots of the configuration can be changed "on the fly"
65     as well.</p>
66     <p>For fuller and complete details of the configuration system, and the
67     server in general, please see the Server User Guide in the documentation
68     section of the website.</p>
69     <h3>2a. Setting up the database</h3>
70     <p>The i-scream central monitoring system can make use of a database for
71     generating historical reports. The documentation explains how you would
72     configure the system to do this. You will need to create a single basic
73     table yourself, this is also explained in the documentation.</p>
74     <h3>3. Starting the server</h3>
75     <p>Starting up the server is a trivial task. Usually you can just get away
76     with running the run script provided. This will boot the server up
77     displaying some basic information to the console. If something goes wrong,
78     the error message should point to the cause.</p>
79     <h3>4. Setting up hosts</h3>
80 pjm2 1.3 <p>Hosts can be run on either Unix (tested with Solaris, FreeBSD and some
81     Linux distributions) or Windows. Both are equally easy to setup.</p>
82     <p>Firstly, the Unix host is called &quot;ihost&quot;. This can be downloaded from the
83 tdb 1.1 i-scream website. Once extracted it just needs to be started up. You need two
84 pjm2 1.3 pieces of information to do this: the filtermanager (part of the server) host
85 tdb 1.1 and port number. If you haven't changed much in terms of configuration this will
86     be the machine the server is running on, and port 4567. To start ihost you
87 tdb 1.5 simply type:</p>
88     </font>
89 tdb 1.1 <pre>ihost.pl server.domain.com port</pre>
90 tdb 1.5 <font face="arial,sans-serif" size="2">
91 tdb 1.1 <p>ihost will then contact the server to obtain it's configuration and start
92     sending information.</p>
93     <p>The windows host, winhost, is very similar. All you need to do is install it
94     using the provided installer in the download, and then edit the ini file to
95     provide the two bits of information above. Running the application starts up
96     communication with the server and data sending commences.</p>
97     <p>Full details of both of these hosts can be found in the relevant
98     documentation on the website.</p>
99     <h3>5. Using Conient</h3>
100     <p>Conient allows you to view, in real time, the data being sent by the
101     hosts. This is a perfect way to test that all the above steps have
102     successfully been completed.</p>
103     <p>At present Conient is simply another archive which can be extracted and
104     run. However, in the near future we hope to have an installer to make life
105     easier. Conient is a Java application and will run on most Java enabled
106     platforms.</p>
107 pjm2 1.3 <p>After extracting, the run script can be used to start Conient, or in some
108 tdb 1.1 cases the JAR file can be executed manually. The GUI will then load. The
109     configuration section requires you to enter a host and port for the
110     server. By default this will be the machine on which the server is running
111 pjm2 1.3 and port 4510. Conient will then connect upon request and start displaying
112 tdb 1.1 information.</p>
113     <p>Assuming data is displayed you have successfully setup the i-scream
114     central monitoring system. Well done!</p>
115     <p>This is explained in much more detail in the Conient documentation.</p>
116     <h3>6. Setting up DBReporter</h3>
117     <p>If you are making use of a database you can setup the DBReporter to
118     generate web-based reports of the information collected. This is just a
119     case of extracting the archive to a suitable location, configuring it, and
120     setting it to run on a regular basis (we suggest daily). DBReporter will
121     also ensure the database is kept relatively clean.</p>
122     <p>Full instructions are available in the DBReporter documentation.</p>
123     <h3>7. Setting up the Web Interface</h3>
124     <p>The Web interface allows you to view various aspects of the i-scream
125 pjm2 1.3 central monitoring system's output. These include realtime viewing of data
126 tdb 1.1 (much like Conient), links to the DBReporter above, and full displaying of
127     the alerts that can be generated by the server.</p>
128     <p>The archive contains a series of PHP scripts which should be placed on
129 pjm2 1.3 your PHP enabled web server. The configuration files allow you to tailor
130 tdb 1.1 the setup to suit your needs.</p>
131     <p>Full instructions are available in the relevant documentation.</p>
132     <h3>8. Further</h3>
133     <p>You may decide to expand your setup to cover a larger network. For example, a
134 pjm2 1.3 distributed filter arrangement could cut down on the amount of traffic
135 tdb 1.1 being sent around the network. The server itself can be distributed to suit your
136     needs. You may wish to run the database section of the server on the same
137     machine as the database, while running the rest on another machine.</p>
138     <p>Some discussion about this is available in the server documentation.</p>
139     <p>If you have any questions about any of the above, please don't hesitate to
140 pjm2 1.3 contact us at <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org.uk">dev@i-scream.org.uk</a>. If you find we've missed something out,
141 tdb 1.1 again, please let us know.</p>
142 pjm2 1.3 <p>Finally, we'd like to thank you for trying this i-scream product. We realise
143 tdb 1.1 that it's still at an early stage, and we therefore appreciate you taking
144     the time to try it out.</p>
145     <p>The i-scream team.
146 tdb 1.4
147     </font>
148 tdb 1.1
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150 tdb 1.1 </tr>
151     </table>
152    
153     </body>
154 pjm2 1.3 </html>