NaviServer - programmable web server

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# admin-install(n) 4.99.8 manual "NaviServer Manual"

## Name

admin-install - NaviServer Installation Guide

## Table Of Contents

## Description

NaviServer is distributed in source form.

## Getting Started

NaviServer is reasonably portable and known to compile and run on the following platforms:

- Linux 2.2 and better (x86 and others)

- FreeBSD 3.4 and better (x86 and others)

- OpenBSD 2.5 and better (x86 and others)

- Solaris 2.x and better (SPARC and x86)

- OpenSolaris (OmniOS, OpenIndiana)

- IRIX 6.x (mips)

- HP/UX 10 and 11 (hppa)

- DEC Tru64 &amp;OSF/1 4.0 and better (alpha)

- UnixWare 7.x and better (x86)

- Apple OS/X "Darwin"

It's likely NaviServer can compile on other systems and/or higher or lower numbered versions but this has not been extensively tested. The primary development platforms for NaviServer at AOL are IRIX 6.4 and Solaris 7. We also use HP/UX 10.20/11.0, Solaris 2.6, and VA Linux 6.2.1 (Linux 2.2).

You will need a C compiler. The best one to use is GNU GCC from http://www.gnu.org and its mirrors. The versions we use are 2.95.2. NaviServer (and the included Tcl libraries) are written entirely in ANSI standard C.

GNU make is also required. It is also available from the GNU web site.

## Downloading

Released versions are available from SourceForge Download area

Latest development version is available from Mercurial repository

    hg clone http://bitbucket.org/naviserver/naviserver
    cd naviserver
    ./autogen.sh
    make install

## Building

We've tried to make building NaviServer as simple as possible. On the supported platforms, simply type:

    ./configure
    make

Some modules use third-party libraries. If the library is missing, the NaviServer build will continue without error -- it just will not build the offending module.

Note: If you have any problems building, the two files include/Makefile.global and include/Makefile.module have all the information you need to change settings throughout the NaviServer environment.

Two options to configure.sh script worth noting:

1. --enable-symbols to enable debugging information to be compied in for easy debugging, otherwise it will be compiled with optimization enabled and that will prevent from effective troubleshooting in case of server crash

## Installing

Type "make install" to make a production server. This will create an installation directory at /usr/local/ns/, populate the directories with various startup files and configuration files, copy the binaries to the /usr/local/ns/bin directory, and finish. To install confidence tests, type "make install-tests" and they will appear in the tests/ directory of your server's pageroot. The default location for installations can be overridden by typing "gmake install PREFIX=/your/directory/".

## Downloading and Installing Modules

To download and install additional modules:

    hg clone http://bitbucket.org/naviserver/modulename
    cd modulename
    make install

At this moment the following modules are available:

nsaccess nsclamav nsdbi nsdbmysql nsdhcpd nsicmp nsmemcache nssip nsstats nsvfs nsaspell nsconf nsdbilite nsdbpg nsdns nsimap nsphp nssmtpd nssyslogd nszlib nsauthpam nsconfigrw nsdbimy nsdbsqlite nsexpat nsldapd nsradiusd nssnmp nstftpd nschartdir nsdbbdb nsdbipg nsdbtds nsgdchart nsloopctl nsrtsp nsssl nsudp To check what modules ara available go to http://bitbucket.org/naviserver/.

Not all modules will be compiled by default due to external dependencies, so please look into module's README file for any additional information.

## Configuring

The installation directory contains several config files under /usr/local/ns/conf installation directory. This configuration will:

1. Listen for http connections on your computer's primary interface at port 8080. To use another port and/or select interfaces, you can set the "post" and "address" parameters.

2. Check security settings for nscp (Control Port module) and listen on localhost:2080 if they are set.

Note: Some modules have been disabled in the sample nsd.tcl for security reasons. They are nscp and nsperm. They aren't required to run a server unless you want to use the Control Port and/or the Permissions module, respectively. Before using them, change the passwords and default permissions by following the instructions in the NaviServer documentation.

Although you must be root to start NaviServer on port 80, the server itself must change to a regular user shortly after initialization. You either need to start the server as a non-root user (in which case you will not be able to listen for connections on privileged ports such as port 80) or you must include a -u user command line flag to which the server will setuid(2) after startup.

If Naviserver was installed with default nsd.tcl config file, just type /usr/local/ns/bin/nsd and it will be started in the background listening on port 8080.

You may either specify a Unix username or numeric uid, e.g.: bin/nsd -t conf/nsd-config.tcl -u user

For the mode of operation, there are four choices: Foreground, Background, Background with watchdog and Inittab.

- Foreground mode:

  bin/nsd -f -t conf/nsd-config.tcl -u user -g group

  In Foreground mode , the server starts and emits diagnostic log messages directly to the terminal window. This is useful for testing, configuration or debugging a server. To start the server in foreground mode use:

  To stop a server running the foreground simply press interrupt on your keyboard (e.g., ctrl-c or the DEL key) which will send a SIGINT to the server and initiate shutdown.

- Background mode:

  bin/nsd -t conf/nsd-config.tcl -u user -g group

  In Background mode, the server forks and disassociates from the terminal. Diagnostic messages are appended to log/server.log. This is a typical daemon-style mode of operation. To start the server in background mode use:

  To stop a server running the background you may either use the kill(2) command to send a SIGTERM to the background process id(*) or the special -K flag of the nsd binary. This flag will determine the process id from a special marker file, send the signal and wait for shutdown, e.g.:

- Background mode with built-in watchdog:

  /usr/local/ns/bin/nsd -w -t /usr/local/ns/nsd-config.tcl -u user -g group

  In Watchdog mode, the server is restarted automatically when it crashes independent from the respawn support from the operating system.

- Inittab mode:

  w1:23:respawn:/usr/local/ns/bin/nsd -i -t /usr/local/ns/nsd-config.tcl -u user -g group

  In Inittab mode, the server runs in the foreground but opens the log file as with background mode. This mode is used when the server is started from an entry in the /etc/inittab file. The benefit of this mode is that init will restart the server if it happens to crash.

Note: While running NaviServer on some Unix platforms (e.g., Linux, SGI), you'll notice multiple nsd processes. This is normal and represents the individual threads. The main process id can be determined by checking the log/nsd.pid file or looking at the last few entries of the server log, each of which will include the process id and thread id in the form [pid.tid]. You can also telnet to the control port and type "ns_info pid".

## See Also

admin-maintenance

## Keywords

command-line-options, nsd