Complete Contents
About This Guide
Chapter 1 Before You Install
Chapter 2 Installing Netscape Enterprise Server
Chapter 3 Troubleshooting Installation
Chapter 4 Migrating from 3.6 to 4.0
Netscape Enterprise Server Installation and Migration Guide: Before You Install
Previous Next Contents Index


Chapter 1 Before You Install

The following sections discuss the information you need to know before you install the Enterprise Server.

This chapter contains the following sections:


Supported Platforms
Netscape Enterprise Server runs on these platforms:


Required Patches
The following are the patches or Service Packs required for the supported platforms at the time the manual went to press. For the latest patch information, please see the release notes at http://home.netscape.com/eng/server/webserver/4.0.

Windows NT 4.0
You need Service Pack 4. To get service packs, see the Microsoft web site at http://www.microsoft.com.

Sun Solaris
The following patches are recommended for Solaris users of Enterprise Server. In addition, you should have the patches in Sun's recommended patch list.For Sun's recommended patch list, see http://sunsolve.sun.com/pubpatch

For each patch, use the listed revision or a higher revision. For example, if you need patch 111111-01, the later revision1111111-03 will also work.

To get Sun patches, see your Sun service provider. Public patches are available from http://sunsolve.sun.com/pubpatch.

If you are using a JDK, you may need additional patches.

Solaris 2.6
The following patches are the recommended patches for users running Enterprise Server on Solaris 2.6.

Solaris 7
The following patches are recommended for users running Enterprise Server on Solaris 7.

Compiler Patches for Solaris
The following Solaris patches are recommended for people using compilers.

For C, the recommended patch is 104668-09.

For C++, the recommended libC patch is shown in the following table.

Table 1.1 Solaris C++ LibC patches
Solaris
SPARC
SPARC/V9
2.6
105591-05
n/a
7
106327-04
106300-05

For CC 4.2, the recommended patch for 2.6 is 104668-0.

HP-UX
Install the specific HP-UX 11 patches after upgrading to the December 1998 or later version of the HP-UX Extension Pack Software (XSWGR1100 Revision B.11.00.43). To determine the version of the Extension Pack software already installed on your system, use the following command:

/usr/sbin/swlist -l bundle

More information on Extension Packs is available at http://us-support.external.hp.com.

In addition to the Extension Pack, HP-UX 11 requires the following patch set:

You can get patches from http://us-support.external.hp.com. That site also contains instructions on how to create a "patch bundle" so that the all the patches can be installed at the same time (avoiding the need for multiple system reboots).

If you are using IBM DB2, you will need to install several additional patches and modify some kernel parameters. See your IBM documentation and the release notes for more details.

For HP-UX year 2000 patch information, see http://us-support.external.hp.com or www.hp.com/year2000/products/patch.html

For additional information on compilers and other development issues, see the Enterprise Server release notes, at http://home.netscape.com/eng/server/webserver/4.0.

Modifying Kernel Parameters
After installing the patches, you need to modify some configurable parameters for the HP-UX kernel. You must modify these parameters before attempting to run Enterprise Server, otherwise you may receive error messages that appear unrelated to the actual problem.

Use the System Administration Manager (SAM) to change the kernel parameters listed in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 HP-UX kernel parameter settings
Parameter
Original Value
New Value
nproc
(20+8*MAXUSERS)
(20+32*MAXUSERS)
max_thread_proc
64
512
maxdsize
0x04000000
0x10000000
maxfiles_lim
1024
2048
maxfiles
60
1024
maxuprc
75
512
nflocks
200
8192
semmns
128
512
semmni
64
256
ninode (change to 2x original value)
((NPROC+16+MAXUSERS)+32+(2*NPTY))
(((NPROC+16+MAXUSERS)+32+(2*NPTY))*2)
nfile (change divisor for NPROC term to 2)
(16*(NPROC+16+MAXUSERS)/10+32+2*(NPTY+NSTRPTY+NSTRTEL))
(16*(NPROC+16+MAXUSERS)/2+32+2*(NPTY+NSTRPTY+NSTRTEL))

Important
You must change the parameters in the order listed Table 1.2, even though they appear in alphabetical order in SAM. The settings of later parameters depend upon the settings for earlier parameters.

The nsfc.conf File and Kernel Parameters
You can use the Enterprise Server configuration file nsfc.conf to tune the file cache. If you are using nsfc.conf, you may need to adjust the HP kernel parameters maxfiles and maxfiles_lim to support larger caches. If you need to update those parameters to be greater than 2048, you cannot use the SAM utility. Instead, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure you are root.

  2. Edit the values in the file /stand/system.

  3. Rebuild the kernel with the by typing mk_kernel -o /stand/vmunix

  4. Reboot the system by typing /etc/shutdown -r now
For more information on nsfc.conf, see the Netscape Enterprise Server Administrator's Guide.

IBM AIX
Install the latest maintenance level, available from the following URL:

http://techsupport.services.ibm.com/cgi-bin/support/rs6000.support/downloads

For IBM AIX year 2000 patch information, see:

http://www.software.ibm.com/year2000/papers/aixy2k.html

Compaq Tru64 UNIX
Install the latest patch kit, available from the following URL:

http://www.service.digital.com/patches/index.html


Hardware and Software Requirements
Netscape Enterprise Server requires specific software and hardware. In addition to the Unix or Windows NT operation system, before you can install the server, your computer must have the following hardware and software:

Unix
Windows NT

Other Technical Requirements
Once you have the proper hardware and software necessary to install Netscape Enterprise Server, you should make sure that you meet the following requirements:

Creating a DNS Alias for the Server
If your server will run on one machine among many in a network, you or your system administrator should set up a DNS CNAME record or an alias that points to the actual server machine. Later, you can change the actual hostname or IP address of the server machine without having to change all URLs that point to the server machine.

For example, you might call the server my_server.my_company.com and then use an alias like www.my_company.com. So the URLs to documents on your server would always use the www alias instead of my_server.

Unix User Accounts for the Server
If you don't know how to create a new user on your system, you should consult your system manual or a Unix administrator's handbook.
When the web server starts, it runs with a Unix user account that you specify during installation. Any child processes of the server are created with this account as the owner. Netscape recommends that you create a Unix account for the server that has restricted access to your system resources. The account needs read permissions for the configuration files and write permissions for the logs directory. For security reasons, the user account shouldn't have write permissions to some of the configuration files, though some, such as the access control files, should be group writable.

In addition, the user account you create for the server should belong to a group that contains the server users for all Netscape servers so that multiple servers can have access to shared files.

If you don't create a dedicated user account for Enterprise Server you can use the account with the name nobody, but you might not want to give the user nobody group permissions for all the Netscape servers. In addition, the user nobody might not work on some systems. Some systems assign a user ID of -2 for the user nobody. A user ID of less than 0 generates an error during installation. Check the /etc/passwd file to see if the uid for nobody exists, and make sure it is greater than 0.

Note. It's strongly recommended that you use a dedicated account for the server.

The Enterprise Administration Server can also run with a user account that has write permissions to the configuration files for all installed servers. However, it's much easier to run the Enterprise Administration Server as root because then the Enterprise Administration Server user can start and stop servers with port numbers less than 1024. (Port numbers greater than 1024 can be started by any user).

Windows NT User Accounts for the Server
If you don't know how to create a new user on your system, consult your system documentation.
You should create a Windows NT user account for your server. It should have restricted access to your system resources and run under a nonprivileged system user account (one that has a limited set of system permissions to your system). When the server starts, it runs with this user account. Any server extension modules the server uses are created with this user account as the owner.

During installation, the server uses the LocalSystem account, not the user account you created. Once you start and run the server, you should use the user account you created. You can change the user account for the server after the installation process. You can configure that user account so that is has permissions to get files on another computer, so that your server can serve files that are mounted from another computer.

In addition, the user account you create for the server should belong to a group that contains the server users for all Netscape servers so that multiple servers can have access to shared files.

Note. It's strongly recommended that you use a dedicated account for the server.

Choosing Unique Port Numbers
You need multiple port numbers: one for the Enterprise Administration Server and one for each instance of Enterprise Server.

The standard web server port number is 80 and the standard SSL-enabled web server port number is 443, but you can install the server to use any port. If you use a port other than the default port (port 80), the URL used to gain access to your home page changes. For example, if your computer is called www.mozilla.com and you choose port 9753, your server's URL will be http://www.mozilla.com:9753/.

You should choose a random number for the Enterprise Administration Server to make it harder for anyone to breach your server. When you configure your server, you use the Enterprise Administration Server's port number. For example, for server mozilla.com, the server's URL could be http://www.mozilla.com:2634/.

Make sure the port you choose isn't already in use. On Unix systems, you can check the file /etc/services on the server machine to make sure you don't assign a port number that is reserved for another service. If you choose a port that is being used by another service, the installation program prompts you for another port.

Note. If you use Unix, and you choose a server port number lower than 1024, you must be logged in as root to start the server. After the server binds to the port, the server changes from the root user account to the user account you specify. If you choose a port number higher than 1024, you don't have to be the root user to start the server.

 

©Copyright © 1999 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Some preexisting portions Copyright © 1999 Netscape Communications Corp. All rights reserved.