LTPDA Repository README and Installation Guide

1.0 Software requirements

1.1 Browsers

Useful information

Viewing the data

When you want to have a look at the XML data in the "objs" table, you should be aware of some facts: By default, the output is cut off at 500 characters, every single line is cut off at 100 characters. This is necessary, since the XML data is very large and the tables will be unusable. If you want to view the XML data of a certain entry, just use the default settings, download the file of your choice and use your favorite XML viewer software.

Internal names

Tables and columns for the data sets must not contain any other characters than alphanumeric, underscore (_) or a dash (-)

Custom querys

When executing a custom query, the script reconnects to the database with the login data of the user. This prevents, that the user can access or even modify more data than he is allowed to. As the passwords are saved md5 encrypted, the user has to supply his password, everytime he wants to execute a query.

Clean Installation

First check that the server machine on which you want to run an LTPDA Repository has a working apache server with properly configured PHP support complete with the PHP MySQL modules. Also check that a MySQL server is running and that you have the root access for the machine and the MySQL server.

Configure MySQL Server

The MySQL server should be configured (in my.cnf) to have:

• max_allowed_packet = 256M

Configuring Apache

The apache server needs to be configured (in php.ini) to have: memory_limit = 256M. You need to restart the apache server after this change.

Installing the PHP code

Installing an LTPDA Repository from scratch, then requires the following steps (may be slightly different on different Linux distributions):

1. Unzip the repository source files
2. Copy all files/folders contained within the unzipped folder to the apache html folder. For example:
   # cp -r * /var/www/html/ltpdarepo
3. Check that the apache server is running
4. Change the owner of the repository files:

   # cd /var/www/html

   # chown -R apache:apache ltpdarepo

5. Change permissions of the config file.

   # cd ltpdarepo

   # chmod a+w config.inc.php

6. Confirm the MySQL server is running.
7. Start the install procedure by opening a web-browser (either on the server, or another client machine) and enter the URL http://my.servermachine.com/ltpdarepo/install.php
8. Follow the on-screen instructions
9. After all that, delete the file install.php and change the permissions of config.inc.php back to # chmod 640 config.inc.php

Installing the LTPDA Repository Robot

The LTPDA Repository includes an additional program which is intended to be used for two purposes:

1. To generate plots of data in the repository on demand (when the use clicks on a object in the web interface)
2. To generate dumps of the XML data to a specified directory. This is intended to be run via crontab.

Setting up the on-demand plot generation

1. On the web-interface, go to "general options"
2. Check/set the paths in the section "Repository Robot", for example:
   
   

   Internal path to plot and meta files:	/var/www/html/ltpdarepo/plots
   External path to plot files:	http://my.servermachine.com/ltpdarepo/plots
   Path to ltpda repo robot:	/var/www/html/ltpdarepo/ltpdareporobot.rb

   (remember to click save if you make any changes)

Setting up the XML dump as a cron job

This is to make XML dumps via root's crontab.

1. Copy ltpdareporobot.rb and run_multi-core.sh to /root/bin
2. Make sure that /root/bin is only readable by root
3. chmod 700 /root/bin
4. Edit run_multi-core.sh and follow the comments in the file.
5. Add an entry to root's crontab to execute run_multi-core.sh periodically.

Updating V2.0 to V2.1

Unzip the new repository package and copy the following files to the existing repository installation.