-<!--#include virtual="/doctype.inc" -->
- <head>
- <title>
- Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System
- </title>
-<!--#include virtual="/style.inc" -->
- </head>
- <body>
- <div id="container">
- <div id="main">
-<!--#include virtual="/header.inc" -->
- <div id="contents">
- <h1 class="top">
- Getting Started
- </h1>
- <h2>
- Getting Started with the i-scream Central Monitoring System
- </h2>
- <h3>
- 1. Installing the corba services (pre-requisite for the
- server)
- </h3>
- <p>
- The server requires a CORBA Naming Service to run. It may
- be that you already have such a system running, in which
- case you can use that. Simply edit the jacorb.properties
- file to point to your Naming service. If you don't have a
- naming service running you could just set up your own
- manually, but if like us you want the easy approach,
- install our corba services program.
- </p>
- <p>
- This program runs the naming service and provides a builtin
- webserver to serve requests to the server application. The
- documentation details how to get this running. It should
- simply be a case of extracting and running.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 1. Installing the server
- </h3>
- <p>
- The first stage is to download and install the server
- application. The latest version of the CMS application
- can be found in the <code>cms</code> directory of our
- <a href="/mirrors.xhtml">download mirrors</a>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once downloaded, the archive should be extracted to a
- directory of your choice. The server will run on most Java
- enabled platforms (including Windows, Linux and FreeBSD).
- </p>
- <p>
- The archive consists of only a few files and directories.
- The main file is the iscream-server.jar archive which
- contains all the binary code for the server. The lib
- directory contains other JAR archives which the server
- requires to run. The etc directory contains (or will
- contain) configuration for most of the i-scream central
- monitoring system. The next step is to configure the server
- to suit your requirements.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 2. Configuring the server
- </h3>
- <p>
- The configuration is split into two main files. The first,
- default.properties can be considered a bootstrap
- configuration. This means that it provides basic
- configuration to get the server started, after which point
- the main configuration system takes over. This file should
- be checked through, and is pretty well explained by
- comments.
- </p>
- <p>
- The rest of the server configuration is based on
- system.conf. This can hold the entire system configuration,
- including hosts. It may also specify other configuration
- files to be included in the main configuration. This file
- is also commented extensively.
- </p>
- <p>
- This step may well take some time to get right, and you can
- come back to it at any point. Lots of the configuration can
- be changed "on the fly" as well.
- </p>
- <p>
- For fuller and complete details of the configuration
- system, and the server in general, please see the Server
- User Guide in the documentation section of the website.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 2a. Setting up the database
- </h3>
- <p>
- The i-scream central monitoring system can make use of a
- database for generating historical reports. The
- documentation explains how you would configure the system
- to do this. You will need to create a single basic table
- yourself, this is also explained in the documentation.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 3. Starting the server
- </h3>
- <p>
- Starting up the server is a trivial task. Usually you can
- just get away with running the run script provided. This
- will boot the server up displaying some basic information
- to the console. If something goes wrong, the error message
- should point to the cause.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 4. Setting up hosts
- </h3>
- <p>
- Hosts can be run on either Unix (tested with Solaris,
- FreeBSD and some Linux distributions) or Windows. Both are
- equally easy to setup.
- </p>
- <p>
- Firstly, the Unix host is called "ihost". This can be
- downloaded from the i-scream website. Once extracted it
- just needs to be started up. You need two pieces of
- information to do this: the filtermanager (part of the
- server) host and port number. If you haven't changed much
- in terms of configuration this will be the machine the
- server is running on, and port 4567. To start ihost you
- simply type:
- </p>
- <pre>
-ihost.pl server.domain.com port
-</pre>
- <p>
- ihost will then contact the server to obtain it's
- configuration and start sending information.
- </p>
- <p>
- The windows host, winhost, is very similar. All you need to
- do is install it using the provided installer in the
- download, and then edit the ini file to provide the two
- bits of information above. Running the application starts
- up communication with the server and data sending
- commences.
- </p>
- <p>
- Full details of both of these hosts can be found in the
- relevant documentation on the website.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 5. Using Conient
- </h3>
- <p>
- Conient allows you to view, in real time, the data being
- sent by the hosts. This is a perfect way to test that all
- the above steps have successfully been completed.
- </p>
- <p>
- At present Conient is simply another archive which can be
- extracted and run. However, in the near future we hope to
- have an installer to make life easier. Conient is a Java
- application and will run on most Java enabled platforms.
- </p>
- <p>
- After extracting, the run script can be used to start
- Conient, or in some cases the JAR file can be executed
- manually. The GUI will then load. The configuration section
- requires you to enter a host and port for the server. By
- default this will be the machine on which the server is
- running and port 4510. Conient will then connect upon
- request and start displaying information.
- </p>
- <p>
- Assuming data is displayed you have successfully setup the
- i-scream central monitoring system. Well done!
- </p>
- <p>
- This is explained in much more detail in the Conient
- documentation.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 6. Setting up DBReporter
- </h3>
- <p>
- If you are making use of a database you can setup the
- DBReporter to generate web-based reports of the information
- collected. This is just a case of extracting the archive to
- a suitable location, configuring it, and setting it to run
- on a regular basis (we suggest daily). DBReporter will also
- ensure the database is kept relatively clean.
- </p>
- <p>
- Full instructions are available in the DBReporter
- documentation.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 7. Setting up the Web Interface
- </h3>
- <p>
- The Web interface allows you to view various aspects of the
- i-scream central monitoring system's output. These include
- realtime viewing of data (much like Conient), links to the
- DBReporter above, and full displaying of the alerts that
- can be generated by the server.
- </p>
- <p>
- The archive contains a series of PHP scripts which should
- be placed on your PHP enabled web server. The configuration
- files allow you to tailor the setup to suit your needs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Full instructions are available in the relevant
- documentation.
- </p>
- <h3>
- 8. Further
- </h3>
- <p>
- You may decide to expand your setup to cover a larger
- network. For example, a distributed filter arrangement
- could cut down on the amount of traffic being sent around
- the network. The server itself can be distributed to suit
- your needs. You may wish to run the database section of the
- server on the same machine as the database, while running
- the rest on another machine.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some discussion about this is available in the server
- documentation.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you have any questions about any of the above, please
- don't hesitate to contact us on our mailing lists.
- If you find we've missed something out, again, please let
- us know.
- </p>
- <p>
- Finally, we'd like to thank you for trying this i-scream
- product. We realise that it's still at an early stage, and
- we therefore appreciate you taking the time to try it out.
- </p>
- <p>
- The i-scream team.
- </p>
- </div>
-<!--#include virtual="/footer.inc" -->
- </div>
-<!--#include virtual="/menu.inc" -->
- </div>
- </body>
-</html>