McMasterOscar^? is packaged for installation on a freshly-built RedHatLinux^? server. This is not an appealing arrangement for happy FreeBSD SystemAdministrators^?.

Fortunately, with a little work, McMasterOscar^? can be installed on a pre-existing FreeBSD server. Here's how:

Step 0: A few comments

Before you start, you should know that this isn't quite as bad as it seems. The official installation method is to change to the root filesystem of a RedHatLinux^? i386 server and extract a lot of files. This manual process is very similar, except that you're installing most of the software via FreeBSD's own packaging system, and only copying over a relatively small amount of data into your running system.

The instructions look a bit complicated, but a simply copy-and-paste into a shell will probably suffice for most people. Please be aware of what you're doing before you do it, though. Certain files on your system will be overwritten or highly modified, including your Jakarta/Tomcat server configuration (if you already have one) and your MySQL^? databases.

Include the standard disclaimer here: The following steps worked for me, but they may cause damage or monetary loss for you. Take them at your own risk.

Step 1: Prepare the server

McMasterOscar^? runs under the JakartaTomcat^? WebServer^?. You'll need to install JakartaTomcat^?, MySQL^?, a Java JDK, and a MySQL^?/JDBC class. This step assumes that you've already installed the PortUpgrade package:

portinstall www/jakarta-tomcat4 databases/mysql323-server databases/mysql-jdbc-mm java/jdk13

Note: Although I may be wrong, it seems as if any Java jar files that you wish to use under JakartaTomcat^? have to be installed in that applications's own lib directory. If you know this to be incorrect, please fix these instructions. Otherwise:

cp /usr/local/share/java/classes/* /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/common/lib/

Step 2: Install OSCAR

• Go to OSCAR's project page on SourceForge^? and download the "version 1.0 (stable release)" TarBall.

• Extract it somewhere and change into the main directory just created:

cd /tmp/oscar_mcmaster

• Install the oscar_mcmaster.properties file:

cp oscar_mcmaster.properties /root

• Install the oscar_security.properties file:

cp oscar_security.properties ~www/     # Note: not in /root!

• Unpack the TarBalls contained in the main package:

tar zxf oscar_mcmaster1.0-tomcat-4.0.6.tar.gz
tar zxf oscar_mcmaster1.0-java-1.4.0_01.tar.gz
tar zxf oscar_mcmaster1.0-OscarDocument.tar.gz
tar xzf oscar_mcmaster1.0-webapps.tar.gz

• Manually install some of the files you just unpacked:

# Copy the Java classes
cd usr/local/j2sdk1.4.0_01/jre/lib
cp ext/mm.mysql-2.0.4-bin.jar /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/shared/lib
cp i386/libjsig.so /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/shared/lib

# Copy the Jakarta/Tomcat configuration file
cd /tmp/oscar_mcmaster/usr/local/jakarta-tomcat-4.0.6/conf
cp server.xml /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/conf/

# Copy the documentation
mkdir -p /usr/local/oscar/document
cd /tmp/oscar_mcmaster/usr/local/OscarDocument
mv * /usr/local/oscar/document/

# Copy the web application
cd /tmp/oscar_mcmaster
mv oscar_mcmaster /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/webapps/

• Load the MySQL^? tables. Note: I've made no attempt to verify that this won't drop or overwrite important tables you already have on your server. It is probably safe, but if you have irreplaceable data on your server, then procede at your own risk.

cd /tmp/oscar_mcmaster
mysql < oscar_mcmaster_table.dump
mysql < oscar_mcmaster_data.dump
mysql -e "flush privileges"

• Edit the default configuration files. In particular, I changed /root/oscar_mcmaster.properties to read:

HOME_DIR: /usr/local/oscar/document/oscar_mcmaster/billing/download/
DOCUMENT_DIR: /usr/local/oscar/document/oscar_mcmaster/document/

• Edit the Jakarta/Tomcat configuration file. I had to comment the SSL connector and uncomment the non-SSL HTTP/1.0 Test Connector. I haven't played with Jakarta/Tomcat enough to know how to set this up correctly, but I'm certain it's possible.

Testing

Start Jakarta/Tomcat with the following command:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/020.jakarta-tomcat4.sh start

Look at /usr/local/jakarta-tomcat4.0/logs/* to see if any errors need to be fixed.

Finally, load http://hostname:8083/oscar_mcmaster/ to see if the application is running. You should now be able to log in to a fully-functional McMasterOscar^? installation. Enjoy!

-- KirkStrauser - 11 Mar 2003