11 Feb 2008

VMOSS - Install
================

o   VMOSS is powered by Sahana (http://sahana.lk), so its installation is much like the installation of Sahana.

o   Assume that php and MySQL installed and working properly.

    Requirements:
        o php 5.x or later
        o MySQL 5.0 or later
        o Apache web server 2.x or later
        o latest php5-gd libs
        
o   Checkout the latest version of VMOSS from SourceForge.net using any Subversion (SVN) client. The URL
  to the SVN repository is: http://vmoss.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vmoss/vmoss-dev/trunk
  
    To checkout VMOSS using the command-line subversion client, use the following syntax at the command line:
  
        svn checkout http://vmoss.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vmoss/vmoss-dev/trunk .
        
    This command will place all VMOSS directories into the current directory. For maximum security, it is 
  recommended that you checkout VMOSS in a directory that is not under your Apache DocumentRoot directory.
  If you do this, you will also need to place a symlink to the VMOSS "www" directory in your Apache 
  DocumentRoot.
     For example, if you checked out VMOSS in directory /usr/share/vmoss/, and your Apache DocumentRoot
  is /usr/local/apache/htdocs, create the symlink with the following syntax under Linux:
  
        ln -s /usr/share/vmoss/www/ /usr/local/apache/htdocs/vmoss
  
    Symlinks are also available under some versions of Mac, and the only Windows operating system that supports
  symlinks is Windows Vista. 
  
    For more information on Subversion, see http://subversion.tigris.org/
  
o Try to access VMOSS from a client machine,

        http://<ip_address_of_the_sahana_machine>/<path_to_vmoss>

  If client and server are the same then use loop-back address,

        http://127.0.0.1/<path_to_vmoss>
        
  <path_to_vmoss> will be either the name of the symlink you created, or the path to the VMOSS "www" directory
  relative to your Apache DocumentRoot.
      
o   "Installation Step 1" will appear in the browser. This is where the necessary dependencies are checked for 
  VMOSS. If the relevant PHP version or libraries are not installed, you will need to install them before 
  moving on. See http://php.net for more information.
    Also, you will need to make the given directories writable.
    Once all dependencies have been met, you may click "Next".

o   "Installation Step 2" will appear. This step involves setting up the database needed for VMOSS. 
    Section 1:
    In this section, you must provide information about the Database Management System (DBMS) that will be used
 by VMOSS to store and retrieve information.
 
    Section 2:
    In this section, you must provide credentials to be used to log into the DBMS specified in the
 section above in order to setup and install the VMOSS database. For this reason, it would be wise for these 
 to be the credentials of the MySQL administrator, or a MySQL user who has privileges to create databases, 
 insert, update, create users, and grant privileges to users.
 
    Section 3:
    In this section, you must provide the credentials that will be used to log into the DBMS specified in 
 section one above when the actual VMOSS application is running. These credentials differ from the credentials used
 in the second section in the following manner:
 
    The database credentials in the second section:
        - Are used only once to setup and install the database for VMOSS. 
        
    The database credentials in the third section: 
        - Are used during VMOSS runtime.
        - Are used every time the VMOSS application requests access to the database. 
        - Are stored in plaintext in the VMOSS configuration file.
        
    For security reasons, it is therefore wiser to keep the database credentials from sections 2 and 3 separate from
    each other. If you would like to use the same credentials for both sections, just check the "Use above MySQL 
    credentials" box. Also, if you do specify a different user in the third section and the user does not yet exist,
    VMOSS will create it and give it permission only to the VMOSS database.

    Once you are done, click the "Setup VMOSS Database" button.

o   "Installation Step 3" will appear. In this step, you must create an administrator account for the VMOSS application.
  This user will have full privileges in the VMOSS application. Once you are done, click the "Write Configuration File"
  button.

o   Installation is now complete. As the installer mentions, it would be wise to remove write permissions from the 
 "conf/sysconf.inc" file in the VMOSS directory. To begin VMOSS, click "Begin Using VMOSS". To see a help file on how
 to get started using VMOSS, click "How to use VMOSS".