Chapter 4 Installing the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Documentation

This chapter provides information on the documentation collections provided with the Solaris 8 Admin Pack and instructions for installing the AnswerBook2^TM documentation server.

• "The Solaris 8 Admin Pack Documentation"

• "Installing the Answerbook2 Server"

• "Installing the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Collections"

• "Registering an Answerbook2 Document Server"

• "Using the AnswerBook2 Server"

See the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Release Notes for late-breaking information related to the Admin Pack documentation.

The Solaris 8 Admin Pack Documentation

All Admin Pack documentation is available on the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Documentation CD, except for online help that is integrated into the application software, the Release Notes, which are available on the Solaris 8 Admin Pack product CD, and the Start Here card and Product List, both of which are printed. The documentation on the Documentation CD is in AnswerBook2 format. Documentation can be installed using Solaris Web Start or the pkgadd command.

Table 4-1 lists the AnswerBook2 collections on the Documentation CD.

Table 4-2 lists other documentation and where it is located.

Installing the Answerbook2 Server

The AnswerBook2 product is Sun Microsystems' online documentation system. It uses a Web browser interface to view, print, and search the documentation.

To view the Admin Pack online documentation, you must have access to an Answerbook2 documentation server. The AnswerBook2 documentation server enables you to view Sun documentation using your favorite browser. It renders documentation in 3.2-compliant HTML, sending it to a browser for display; it also supports the previous AnswerBook documentation format. The AnswerBook2 documentation server software is included on the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Documentation CD and on the Solaris 8 Documentation CD.

For occasional viewing of the Admin Pack document collections, you need not install the AnswerBook2 documentation server software. Instead, you can run it directly off the Admin Pack Documentation CD using the ab2cd script. For detailed information about this feature, see the README on the Admin Pack Documentation CD. For this, you must have root access to the system on which the CD is connected.

However, to provide your users with access to the documentation of the Admin Pack products, it is necessary to install the AnswerBook2 documentation server software. Once you have installed the Admin Pack server software, you must install the Admin Pack documentation on that server. For information on installing the server software and documentation included on the Admin Pack Documentation CD, see the README file on that CD. For general information about using the AnswerBook2 product, see the module "Accessing Online Documentation" in the Solaris 8 (SPARC Platform Edition) Installation Guide or the Solaris 8 (Intel Platform Edition) Installation Guide.

If you do not have access to an AnswerBook2 document server or do not want to install it locally, you can view all released Solaris documentation at the http://docs.sun.com Web site.

How to Run the Answerbook2 Server From the Admin Pack Documentation CD

Be aware that running the document server directly from the CD is slow. You should use another approach if you expect other users to access the Admin Pack document collections.

1. Log in as root.

2. Insert the Admin Pack Documentation CD in the CD-ROM drive.

   A File Manager window opens to display files included on the CD. One of these files is named ab2cd.

3. Double-click the ab2cd icon.

4. To view the documentation, launch any HTML 3.2-compliant Web browser and go to the following URL:

   http://localhost:8888

   where localhost is the name of the machine to which the CD is attached.

5. To stop running the server from the CD, run the following command from a terminal window:

   /cdrom-mount-point/ab2cd stop

   where cdrom-mount-point is the mount point, including volume name, for the CD-ROM device.

How to Install the AnswerBook2 Documentation Server

1. Insert the Admin Pack Documentation CD in the CD-ROM drive.

   A File Manager window opens, listing folders and files included on the CD.

2. Double-click the Installer file to open the Web Start installation window.

   If an Action: Run window opens, click OK to continue. An Installer Console window opens and displays installation events and the location of installation log files.

3. If prompted, enter the system's root password and click Log in.

   The Web Start Welcome screen opens.

4. Click Next in the Welcome screen and choose either Default or Custom Install.

   Default Install installs the documentation server software and all document collections on the CD. Custom Install enables you to select to install the documentation server software and specific collections. See Table 4-1 for the list of Admin Pack collections.

5. Upon completion of the installation, a script automatically starts the server software. To verify the server has started, use one of the following methods.

   • Launch an HTML 3.2-compliant Web browser and go to the URL http://localhost:8888, where localhost is the name of the server on which you have just installed the AnswerBook2 software.

     You should see an AnswerBook2 Library page with at least one document collection (the AnswerBook2 Help Collection), depending on the collections you installed.

   • Look for the server process using the following command:

     ps -eaf | grep dwhttpd

     If the server is not running, type the following command as superuser:

     /usr/lib/ab2/bin/ab2admin -o start

6. When the installation is finished, your server starts up using default configuration information. For information about changing your server's configuration, see the README on the Admin Pack Documentation CD.

How to Install the Answerbook2 Documentation Server Using the pkgadd Command

1. Insert the Admin Pack Documentation CD in the CD-ROM drive.

2. Log in as root on the documentation server machine and change directory to the location of the installation packages.

3. Type the command:

   pkgadd -d .

4. Select these server software packages to install.

   • SUNWab2r (0.40 Megabytes) installs in root partition and provides configuration and startup files.

   • SUNWab2s (1.36 Megabytes) provides shared files for performing document processing. Do not relocate this package.

   • SUNWab2u (33.85 Megabytes) provides executable and back-end processing files for server and administration functions.

5. Start the server, if needed.

   Installing the packages should start the server on the default port of 8888. If it does not start, type the following command to start it:

   # /usr/lib/ab2/bin/ab2admin -o start

Installing the Solaris 8 Admin Pack Collections

Before the AnswerBook2 documentation server can do its job, you must install the documentation collections. See Table 4-1 for a list of the Admin Pack documentation collections.

Use the pkgadd utility to install the new book collections onto your server. If you are adding the Admin Pack document collections to an existing AnswerBook database, use either the Add Collection to List function or the ad2admin -o add_coll command to add the collections.

If collection packages are already installed on the documentation server, you can use the server's Scan for Locally Installed Collections function or the ab2admin -o scan command to have them automatically found and added to the server's documentation database. This function only works for locally installed packages.

To serve documentation collections located on another documentation server, use the Add Collection to List function or the ab2admin -o add_coll command and provide the full path name to the ab_cardcatalog or collinfo file. For example, if the document server is ab2docserver and you want it to serve the PPP 3.0.1 document collections on the system named bingo, you might type the following command:

ab2admin -o add_coll -d /net/bingo/opt/answerbooks/english/PPP_3.0.1/SUNWdsab

Registering an Answerbook2 Document Server

If you want other users to automatically find your document server through Federated Naming Services (FNS), you need to register the server. Registration will include your server in a pool of servers for a site, and give users the ability to choose from document servers.

How to Register an AnswerBook2 Document Server

1. Type the following command:

   # /usr/lib/ab2/bin/ab2regsvr server_url

   where server_url is the fully qualified URL to get to this server.

   For example: ab2docserver.eng.com:8888

Using the AnswerBook2 Server

AnswerBook2 can be started in one of the following ways.

• Open the Help menu from the CDE Front Panel, select AnswerBook2.

• From the Open Windows Programs menu, choose AnswerBook2.

• From the UNIX command line, type answerbook2.

• From a Web browser, enter the name of the AnswerBook2 server and the port, following this syntax:

  http://document_server:port.

  For example: http://ab2docserver:8888