Generic Factory Service - System Administrator's / Installation Documentation

Overview of Installation

We'll begin by installing needed support software.  Then we will build the Generic Factory Service and then start it up.  We will then build and deploy the Generic Factory Servlet.  Finally, we'll look at how to interface with the Generic Factory Service through a provided command line client.  In the following instructions <GFAC_HOME> refers to the root of the Generic Factory Service installation directory.

Prerequisites

Java SDK 1.4.2+
Download and install the latest Java SDK 1.4.2+ from Sun's Java site.
  1. Follow the given instructions.
  2. Set the environment variable JAVA_HOME to the installation directory.
  3. Add $JAVA_HOME/bin to your PATH environment variable.
Ant 1.5+
Download and install the latest stable version of Ant from Jakarta's Ant site.
  1. Follow the given instructions.
  2. Set the environment variable ANT_HOME to the installation directory.
  3. Add $ANT_HOME/bin to your PATH environment variable.
Jakarta Tomcat 4.1+ (OPTIONAL)
Download and install the latest stable 4.1.x version of Tomcat from Jakarta's Tomcat site.  You'll need Tomcat in order to use the Generic Factory servlet interface.
Registry Service (NOT AVAILABLE)
The Generic Factory Service also relies on the Registry Service developed at the Extreme! Lab.  The Registry Service is not available at this time.  However, the Generic Factory Service will access an instance of the Registry Service running in our lab, and so should work for you.

Building the Generic Factory Service

  1. Untar the source bundle in the XDirectory installation directory: tar zxvf GFac-x.y.z.tgz
  2. Change to the untarred directory.
  3. Type ant all.  This will compile and build the source code.  If all goes well you will see at the end something like 
    all:
    BUILD SUCCESSFUL
    Total time: 8 seconds
     

Running the Generic Factory Service

To run the Generic Factory Service, use the provided <GFAC_HOME>/run.sh script as follows:

./run.sh service [--port <port_number>]

For example,

./run.sh service --port 1234

or simply,

./run.sh service

which runs on a random allocated port.

Building and Deploying the Generic Factory Servlet

To use the Generic Factory servlet you must first have Tomcat installed.  Here are the steps.
  1. Shutdown your Tomcat server.
  2. Copy build.properties.orig to build.properties in <GFAC_HOME>.
  3. Edit this new build.properties file.  The catalina.home variable should point to your installation of Tomcat.
  4. Now from <GFAC_HOME> type ant deploy.  This will deploy the servlet into the GFac web application in Tomcat.
  5. Start the Tomcat server.
  6. Test.  You should now be able to access the Generic Factory Servlet at http://localhost:8080/GFac/GFacServlet or something similar.

Using the Command Line Client

See the Developer's Guide for information on how to work with the Generic Factory Service from the command line.