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Revision: 1.11
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# Content
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3 <title>
4 Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System
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8 <body>
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12 <div id="contents">
13 <h1 class="top">
14 Getting Started
15 </h1>
16 <h2>
17 Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System
18 </h2>
19 <h3>
20 1. Installing the corba services (pre-requisite for the
21 server)
22 </h3>
23 <p>
24 The server requires a CORBA Naming Service to run. It may
25 be that you already have such a system running, in which
26 case you can use that. Simply edit the jacorb.properties
27 file to point to your Naming service. If you don't have a
28 naming service running you could just set up your own
29 manually, but if like us you want the easy approach,
30 install our corba services program.
31 </p>
32 <p>
33 This program runs the naming service and provides a builtin
34 webserver to serve requests to the server application. The
35 documentation details how to get this running. It should
36 simply be a case of extracting and running.
37 </p>
38 <h3>
39 1. Installing the server
40 </h3>
41 <p>
42 The first stage is to download and install the server
43 application. The latest version of the CMS application
44 can be found in the <code>cms</code> directory of our
45 <a href="/mirrors.xhtml">download mirrors</a>.
46 <p>
47 Once downloaded, the archive should be extracted to a
48 directory of your choice. The server will run on most Java
49 enabled platforms (including Windows, Linux and FreeBSD).
50 </p>
51 <p>
52 The archive consists of only a few files and directories.
53 The main file is the iscream-server.jar archive which
54 contains all the binary code for the server. The lib
55 directory contains other JAR archives which the server
56 requires to run. The etc directory contains (or will
57 contain) configuration for most of the i-scream central
58 monitoring system. The next step is to configure the server
59 to suit your requirements.
60 </p>
61 <h3>
62 2. Configuring the server
63 </h3>
64 <p>
65 The configuration is split into two main files. The first,
66 default.properties can be considered a bootstrap
67 configuration. This means that it provides basic
68 configuration to get the server started, after which point
69 the main configuration system takes over. This file should
70 be checked through, and is pretty well explained by
71 comments.
72 </p>
73 <p>
74 The rest of the server configuration is based on
75 system.conf. This can hold the entire system configuration,
76 including hosts. It may also specify other configuration
77 files to be included in the main configuration. This file
78 is also commented extensively.
79 </p>
80 <p>
81 This step may well take some time to get right, and you can
82 come back to it at any point. Lots of the configuration can
83 be changed "on the fly" as well.
84 </p>
85 <p>
86 For fuller and complete details of the configuration
87 system, and the server in general, please see the Server
88 User Guide in the documentation section of the website.
89 </p>
90 <h3>
91 2a. Setting up the database
92 </h3>
93 <p>
94 The i-scream central monitoring system can make use of a
95 database for generating historical reports. The
96 documentation explains how you would configure the system
97 to do this. You will need to create a single basic table
98 yourself, this is also explained in the documentation.
99 </p>
100 <h3>
101 3. Starting the server
102 </h3>
103 <p>
104 Starting up the server is a trivial task. Usually you can
105 just get away with running the run script provided. This
106 will boot the server up displaying some basic information
107 to the console. If something goes wrong, the error message
108 should point to the cause.
109 </p>
110 <h3>
111 4. Setting up hosts
112 </h3>
113 <p>
114 Hosts can be run on either Unix (tested with Solaris,
115 FreeBSD and some Linux distributions) or Windows. Both are
116 equally easy to setup.
117 </p>
118 <p>
119 Firstly, the Unix host is called "ihost". This can be
120 downloaded from the i-scream website. Once extracted it
121 just needs to be started up. You need two pieces of
122 information to do this: the filtermanager (part of the
123 server) host and port number. If you haven't changed much
124 in terms of configuration this will be the machine the
125 server is running on, and port 4567. To start ihost you
126 simply type:
127 </p>
128 <pre>
129 ihost.pl server.domain.com port
130 </pre>
131 <p>
132 ihost will then contact the server to obtain it's
133 configuration and start sending information.
134 </p>
135 <p>
136 The windows host, winhost, is very similar. All you need to
137 do is install it using the provided installer in the
138 download, and then edit the ini file to provide the two
139 bits of information above. Running the application starts
140 up communication with the server and data sending
141 commences.
142 </p>
143 <p>
144 Full details of both of these hosts can be found in the
145 relevant documentation on the website.
146 </p>
147 <h3>
148 5. Using Conient
149 </h3>
150 <p>
151 Conient allows you to view, in real time, the data being
152 sent by the hosts. This is a perfect way to test that all
153 the above steps have successfully been completed.
154 </p>
155 <p>
156 At present Conient is simply another archive which can be
157 extracted and run. However, in the near future we hope to
158 have an installer to make life easier. Conient is a Java
159 application and will run on most Java enabled platforms.
160 </p>
161 <p>
162 After extracting, the run script can be used to start
163 Conient, or in some cases the JAR file can be executed
164 manually. The GUI will then load. The configuration section
165 requires you to enter a host and port for the server. By
166 default this will be the machine on which the server is
167 running and port 4510. Conient will then connect upon
168 request and start displaying information.
169 </p>
170 <p>
171 Assuming data is displayed you have successfully setup the
172 i-scream central monitoring system. Well done!
173 </p>
174 <p>
175 This is explained in much more detail in the Conient
176 documentation.
177 </p>
178 <h3>
179 6. Setting up DBReporter
180 </h3>
181 <p>
182 If you are making use of a database you can setup the
183 DBReporter to generate web-based reports of the information
184 collected. This is just a case of extracting the archive to
185 a suitable location, configuring it, and setting it to run
186 on a regular basis (we suggest daily). DBReporter will also
187 ensure the database is kept relatively clean.
188 </p>
189 <p>
190 Full instructions are available in the DBReporter
191 documentation.
192 </p>
193 <h3>
194 7. Setting up the Web Interface
195 </h3>
196 <p>
197 The Web interface allows you to view various aspects of the
198 i-scream central monitoring system's output. These include
199 realtime viewing of data (much like Conient), links to the
200 DBReporter above, and full displaying of the alerts that
201 can be generated by the server.
202 </p>
203 <p>
204 The archive contains a series of PHP scripts which should
205 be placed on your PHP enabled web server. The configuration
206 files allow you to tailor the setup to suit your needs.
207 </p>
208 <p>
209 Full instructions are available in the relevant
210 documentation.
211 </p>
212 <h3>
213 8. Further
214 </h3>
215 <p>
216 You may decide to expand your setup to cover a larger
217 network. For example, a distributed filter arrangement
218 could cut down on the amount of traffic being sent around
219 the network. The server itself can be distributed to suit
220 your needs. You may wish to run the database section of the
221 server on the same machine as the database, while running
222 the rest on another machine.
223 </p>
224 <p>
225 Some discussion about this is available in the server
226 documentation.
227 </p>
228 <p>
229 If you have any questions about any of the above, please
230 don't hesitate to contact us at
231 <a href="mailto:dev@i-scream.org">dev@i-scream.org</a>.
232 If you find we've missed something out, again, please let
233 us know.
234 </p>
235 <p>
236 Finally, we'd like to thank you for trying this i-scream
237 product. We realise that it's still at an early stage, and
238 we therefore appreciate you taking the time to try it out.
239 </p>
240 <p>
241 The i-scream team.
242 </p>
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