ILux Unix Solaris SQL Anywhere Installation Guide

ILux Unix Solaris
SQL Anywhere
Installation Guide

This document describes several key pieces of information you will need to gather before Installing ILux. Be sure to closely review the information below.

A Conceptual Overview of ILux

Preparing to Install ILux

Installing the ILux Server

Starting the ILux Server

Stopping the ILux Server

A Conceptual Overview of ILux

ILux is a client/server application for analyzing web site usage. ILux is comprised of several components that can be installed in a fully distributed environment. The basic components are:

ILux can be configured for a variety of operating systems and databases. In addition, you can place the various components on one or more servers. This flexibility allows you to adapt ILux to your existing Internet or Intranet server configuration. Because ILux is so flexible, be sure to closely review the information below. For performance reasons, you may at several points in the process find it a good idea to put one of the ILux components on a different server or in a different location.

The ILux Server

The server is the central component, and is used to import, parse, store, and index information from your web server's log files. The ILux Server also serves all ILux client requests. This version of ILux can be installed on Sun Solaris 2.5 or higher. The ILux Server requires a LAN, WAN, or FTP connection to the web site(s) that will be analyzed, and a read/write local or network connection to all ILux components.

The ILux Database

The SQL Anywhere version of the ILux Database is bundled with the ILux server. The database schema is automatically generated during installation.

The ILux Client

The client is a Java-based application and is the user's interface to ILux. The ILux client can be run from any computer.

The ILux Reports

The ILux reports are the final output from all web site analyses. The reports are in HTML format. For the reports to be viewed over Internet, this directory must be located anywhere under a web server's web root directory.

Preparing to Install ILux

The installation procedure requires you to make decisions on directory locations for the ILux components, and provide details about your system.

The ILux Server

The ILux Server occupies approximately 10MB of disk space, and can be installed to any local directory.

Your Web Site(s)

The ILux server needs the following information for each web site to be analyzed. For each ILux server, you can monitor up to three web servers. However, you should consider possible degradation in performance when monitoring more than one.

Site name

For example,

webserver.mydomain.com

www.mydomain.com.

IP address

Use the form,

nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn

Web root directory

The directory under which all web files are served. If the machine hosting the ILux server has a direct or network connection with read access to the file system containing the web document root, you can specify the web root directly by a Unix path, such as:

/net/server/www/html

You can also access the web directory structure via FTP, using a normal or anonymous login, such as:

ftp://userid:password@ webserver.mydomain.com/html (normal)

ftp://webserver. mydomain.com/html (anonymous)

ILux does not support the use of an e-mail address for the password of an anonymous FTP user.

Log File Directory

If the machine hosting the ILux server has a direct or network connection with read access to the file system containing the web server's log files, you can specify the log files using a Unix path, such as:

/net/server/www/logs

If you do not have a network connection, you can also access the web directory structure via FTP, using a normal or anonymous login, such as:

ftp://userid:password@ webserver.mydomain.com/logs(normal)

ftp://webserver. mydomain.com/logs (anonymous)

ILux does not support the use of an e-mail address for the password of an anonymous FTP user.

Name of Log File(s)

Identify the naming pattern of your web server's log files. To choose a range of log files, use wildcards. (For example, access*)

Case Sensitive Log Files

If the web server to be monitored is on an operating system with a case-sensitive file system (for example, Unix), select this option. If the web server is on an operating system with a case insensitive file system (for example, Windows), do not select this option.

Port number

The TCP/IP port that is used by the web server for HTTP communication. Typically, this is port 80.

The ILux Client

During ILux server install, two sets of ILux client files are created. One set is for launching the ILux client as a Java applet from any Java enabled web browser, while the other set is a client installation set for launching ILux as a Java application from a Java virtual machine. The files for the web browser based ILux Java Applet must be placed under a web server root on the SAME machine as the ILux Server and its storage requirement is approximately 1.2MB. Its default location is:

<webroot>\ilux\client

The ILux Java Application client installation files (sample/) reside in a separate directory under the main ILux server directory. The default location is:

/usr/local/ilux/client_install

For convenience, this directory and its contents should be later placed in a shareable directory for ease of client installation.

ILux Report Directory

ILux produces all its reports in HTML format. For the reports to be viewed by a browser, the report directory must be located anywhere under any web server's web root directory. Because the nature of the ILux reports are typically for internal usage, we suggest that the reports are stored on a password-protected Internet location or an Intranet web server.

SMTP Server

ILux allows you to request email notification to be sent to users for certain events, such as when reports have completed. You will need to enter your SMTP mail server's DNS name or the IP address used by the domain, such as

postmaster.mydomain.com

Installing the ILux Server

Before beginning installation, be sure you have collected all the information described in the previous portions of this Guide.

Install ILux as root or ensure that required directories are writable.

Installing With Root Privileges

The installation of ILux requires write permission in a couple of directories that may be owned by root. The simplest way to accommodate this is to run install_ilux as root.

Running Without Root Privileges

If you don't want to give a foreign Perl script root privileges on your machine, you can still perform the installation fairly easily. You will need to create two directories and make them both writable by the user running the installation script. They are:

The directory which will hold the ILux server and support files. The default location is /usr/local/ilux, but you can install the ILux server anywhere you like.
The directory which will hold the ILux reports and the Java Applet client files. This directory should be within the html document tree of the web server that will provide access the the ILux Java client. The default location is a directory called "ilux", immediately below the httpd server's document root, but you can place it anywhere you wish.

Running the Installation Script

Simply run the installation script with no arguments:

./install_ilux

It will ask you for everything it needs, offering defaults when possible. To accept the default values [shown within square brackets], just press Enter.

Correcting Errors / Aborting and Restarting Installation

The installation script attempts to validate as much data as possible, offering you the options of re-entering the information or using the data as is (in case you know something the script can't figure out.)

In the event that you need to abort the installation, you can restart from where you left off. The script saves all your answers to the file "answers.txt". To re-start an aborted session, invoke the script like this:

./install_ilux -ianswers.txt

When the input file is exhausted, the script reverts to reading from the terminal. The answers file is saved at the end of a session and whenever you press CTRL+C to abort the script.

Starting the ILux Server

Starting the ILux
Log Reporting Service

After making sure the SQL Anywhere database server is running properly, start the ILux Log Reporting Service: From the /ilux/bin directory launch:

./iluxstart

ILux Server Parameters

You can use these parameters for the ILux server.

To review this list of parameters on line, go the directory where iluxd resides and run:

./iluxstart --help

Stopping the ILux Server

To stop the ILux Log Reporting daemon, from the /ilux/bin directory, execute:

./iluxstop <port_number>

This stops the ILux daemon listening on <port_number>. If you run iluxstop without a parameter, it will assume port 1600 as default.

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