Web Sablime^® Installation Guide

What This Guide Covers

This guide provides Web Sablime® installation information and instructions for the Sablime® Administrator and for the System Administrator.  The guide applies to new installations and also to upgrades from previous (pre-v6.0u1) versions of Web Sablime.

Web Sablime® (re-)installation is not required for upgrading from v6.0u1 (Update 1) or  v6.0u2 (Update 2) to v6.0u3 (Update 3).   If you already had a working v6.0u1 or v6.0u2 Web Sablime® instance, and followed the basic installation instructions that came with the v6.0u3 update, then your Web Sablime® instance will already be updated. 

The Sablime® Administrator is the owner of Sablime®  binaries and databases. The System Administrator is a user that has "root" privileges on the host machine.  Tasks defined for the System Administrator must be run as root (i.e. while logged in as the "root" user).

Prerequisites for the Sablime®  Administrator 

1. Host Sablime®
   
   An instance of Sablime® v6.0, Update 3 must be present on the intended Web Server host.  The instance must have at least one Sablime®  "product" with at least one "generic".  A properly running instance will be able to execute licensed Sablime® commands, and be able to run "hotline.ck" and "setperm" without failures.
   
   Note that the Web Server host can be an NFS client of the Sablime®  host, as long as the Web Server has full access to all the Sablime® databases.
   
   
2. SABHOME location
   
   The Sablime® Administrator will need to tell the System Administrator where the Sablime® binaries are stored.   We refer to this location as SABHOME.  If this is an update of an existing Web Sablime®  instance and it is desired to re-use the existing Web Server password file, then the Sablime® Administrator will need to tell the System Administrator the location of that file too.

Prerequisites for the System Administrator

1. Review the "Web Sablime®  Security Guide".  
   
   This will help choose appropriate entries for the "config.input" file.
   
   
2. Web Server
   
   A fully operational Web Server should be running on the Unix/Linux host.  Web Sablime® is designed for use with the "Apache" server.  To avoid some serious Apache security problems, use version 1.3.27 or later, or 2.0.43 or later.
   
   
3. Perl
   
   Perl (version 5.004_01 or later) must be installed on the host.
   
   
4. "C" Compiler
   
   The host must have an ANSI "C" compiler installed and operable.
   

Tasks for the System Administrator

1. Update "config.input" file
   
   "cd" to SABHOME/web/root_install. SABHOME is the location where the Unix/Linux Sablime® binaries are installed. There should be a file in SABHOME/web/root_install named "config.input.tmpl".  Rename or copy this file to "config.input"; do "chmod 644 config.input"; and then edit the file.    The comments in the file should explain which items need updating.
   
   In particular, note that ROOT_INSTALL_DIR defaults to the current directory (i.e. SABHOME/web/root_install).  This directory is where the log files and the setuid-root executables (sabexec and sabpasswd) will exist.  If SABHOME/web/root_install is an NFS mounted filesystem, root might not be able to write to this directory.  Set ROOT_INSTALL_DIR to a root-writable directory.
   
   Also, if you specify a non-default location for the Web Sablime® password file (the variable WSAB_PASSWD_FILE in SABHOME/web/root_install/config.input), be sure to specify a full pathname (directory plus intended filename), not just a directory.
   
   
2. Execute "wsab_install"
   
   While still in SABHOME/web/root_install, execute "sh ./wsab_install".  This must be done as root.
   When wsab_install completes successfully, the following message will be displayed:
   

Root installation complete.

The web server must now be restarted, and SABADMIN must then run
SABHOME/web/admin/post_install

If problems are reported by wsab_install, it is usually due to errors in the "config.input" file.  Re-edit it and re-run wsab_install.

3. Restart the Web Server
   
   Note: If this is an update to a previous Web Sablime® instance, before re-starting the Web Server, go to the server's conf directory and edit the "httpd.conf" file:  remove the lines that were added by the previous Web Sablime.  Remove all the lines between: 
   

   #### BEGINNING of a generated part of configuration
   #### file dated <some date>
   
   and
   
   #### END of a generated part of configuration
   #### file dated <same date>
   

   These lines were added by the old Web Sablime® configuration.  The new version uses an "Include" statement to add the Sablime® configuration items.  Be sure not to delete the "Include" statement.
   

Tasks for the Sablime® Administrator

1. Update "post_install"
   
   "cd" to SABHOME/web/admin and view the file "post_install".   Review the internal comments in the first few lines of the file to see if any modification is necessary.

2. Execute "post_install"
   
   Web Sablime® uses a file named "prodGen" to identify the products and generics that will be accessible from the Web.
   
   If updating an existing Web Sablime® instance, verify that the existing prodGen file contains only v6.0u3 products, and then execute "./post_install /path/to/directory" where the "/path/to/directory" locates the existing prodGen file.  Otherwise, just execute "./post_install", and the script will ask for a specific generic, and will use that to initialize a prodGen file.
   
   The Sablime® Administrator can add other products and generics later by editing the prodGen file (located in SABHOME/web/wsab).
   
   
3. Establish user passwords and JRE
   
   If the web server password file was not brought forward from an earlier instance, each user who needs access to Web Sablime® must log in to the web server host and execute "SABHOME/sabpasswd" in order to create a Web Sablime® password.  Since these web server passwords are inherently less secure than system passwords, users should be discouraged from using their system password as a web server password.
   
   All Web Sablime users will need a Java-enabled browser.  If the browser does not include its own Java engine, the user will need to install the Java Runtime Environment on the client machine.  Users who run the "smerge" command will need the Java Runtime Environment in any case.  This may or may not already be present.  See the Sablime® v6.0u3 Release notes for more details.
   
   
4. Verify Installation Success
   
   Web Sablime® should now be fully functional.  To verify, use a browser to connect to the URL http://server_name:port_number/docs/wsab.html.  The server name and port number are defined in the web server's "httpd.conf" file. Log in and execute "wsabcheck" from the "Sablime Commands -> Administration" menu.  This will do a quick audit of the Web Sablime®  instance and should not report any problems.
   

Maintenance Tasks

1. Log file maintenance
   
   The System Administrator should be aware that the Web Server log files will grow over time.  There is no automatic maintenance, so the System Administrator should periodically truncate the log files as local disk space availability conditions require.
   
   
2. Perl location change
   
   If the path to the preferred "perl" executable changes, the Sablime® Administrator should update the value of  "PERL" in the "reset_perl" script at SABHOME/web/admin and then run the script as "./reset_perl".  This will update the other Web Sablime® perl scripts.
   
   
3. Add or delete Sablime®  products and generics
   
   The Sablime® Administrator can add or delete products and generics to the list of Web Sablime® accessible ones at any time by modifying SABHOME/web/wsab/prodGen.