OpenACS Installation Guide

Roberto Mello (rmello@fslc.usu.edu) and the OpenACS Team

This is the Installation Guide for the ArsDigita Community System port for the PostgreSQL Relational Database Management System. This documentation is based on Philip Greenspun's ACS installation docs with parts of it (marked with [1]s) being quoted here.

This is the April 2001 revision of the documentation.


Table of Contents
1. What is OpenACS
2. What you need to run OpenACS
2.1. Installing Using Binary Packages (RPM or .deb)
2.2. Installing from Source Code
3. Getting Ready to Install
3.1. Getting Ready to Untar [1]
3.2. Installing OpenACS from RPMs
3.3. Installing OpenACS from Debian GNU/Linux .deb files
4. AOLserver/OpenNSD
4.1. Installing AOLserver
4.2. Configuring AOLserver
4.3. Sample nsd.tcl file
5. PostgreSQL
5.1. Which version: Postgresql 6.5.3 or 7 or 7.1?
5.2. Installing PostgreSQL
5.3. Some PostgreSQL tips from Don Baccus
5.4. Notes on PostgreSQL 7.1
6. Configuring OpenACS itself
6.1. What is where (OpenACS directories and what is inside each of them)
6.2. Configuring OpenACS
6.3. Configuring Permissions [1]
6.4. Adding Yourself as a User and Making Yourself a Sysadmin [1]
6.5. CAVEAT for those that want encrypted passwords in the DB
6.6. Closing Down Access [1]
6.7. Making sure that it works (and stays working)
6.8. Ensure that your service automatically starts on boot (or any other time the service dies).
7. Everything works, now what ?
7.1. Backing up your PostgreSQL databases
7.2. If you are using the e-commerce module
8. Where do go I for help and how can I help ?
8.1. Why Not MySQL ?
8.2. Some Useful Links
9. Contributed Items
10. Acknowledgements