Introduction

This document describes the steps to perform to install Xobas-4GL version 1.0.6 binary RPM packages on the Redhat Fedora Core 5 platform and is intended for the following product releases:

If you are on a different release, please go to the matching installation page. This document is written for the i386 architecture. If you use Fedore Core 5 on a different architecture, you have to replace the i386 with your arch notation.

Upgrading

At the moment, the contents of the 4GL application repository will be overwritten when upgrading an existing xobas-repository installation. To move your applications to the new version, you first have to unload them from the repository. To do so, download this Repository Command and change the Application attributes stock to the name of your application. Then run the following command:

$ /usr/bin/xobasrepexec --in /home/backup/appn_dump.xml --out /home/backup/myAppn.xml

This will create a file containing all the objects of your application. Repeat this process for all your applications.

After upgrading your application, you can load your application on a similar way. Open the file myAppn.xml and in the Command element in the beginning of the file replace Name="Get" with Name="Put" and replace Mode="Response" with Mode="Request". After that run the following command:

$ /usr/bin/xobasrepexec --in /home/backup/myAppn.xml --out /home/backup/output.xml

Repeat this for all your applications. An automatic upgrade feature will be implemented in following releases. It is good practise to periodically archive your application this way. Physically, the repository lives in /share/xobas/system and the file name is system.

Prerequisites

Xobas products are built around numerous open source packages. Most of these packages like libxml2 or libglade are part of the major standard Linux distributions. When trying to install the Xobas RPMS, a messages will appear if a dependent 3rd party package is not available. In that case you can get the missing package from your distribution CD or you can download it from the web and install it on your machine.

There are a couple of packages that are not shipped with Fedora Core 5 Linux distributions that Xobas projects rely on. They are:

These packages have been compiled and built in-house and are availabe as RPMs at http://download.xobas.net/distributions/linux/fedora/core5. Download these packages for your architecture and install the packages in this order:

  1. xerces-c-2.7.0-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. pathan-2.0-1.dbxml228.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xquery-1.2.0-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  4. dbxml-2.2.8-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

You do not need the -devel- packages for a successful Xobas installation. You do need to have root privileges to install the RPMs.

Xobas-4GL uses libgda technologies to connect to a database. After installing Fedora Core 5, the following packages can be downloaded as part of fedora-extras:

These packages are not distributed by Xobas Software, but you can get them from your by running 'yum' or 'up2date' as root user. Make sure the 'Extra' channel is included. Alternatively, you can download them from the Redhat Fedora Extras Download Server or you can use one of their mirrors.

The libgda/gda and libgnomedb packages need to be installed, so a data source can be configured as explained further in this document. The Xobas-4GL 1.0.6 release needs to have access to some of the latest features of libgda. Therefore compiled libraries built from a CVS snapshot of libgda have to be installed as well. Download libgda-1.3.101-1-cvs051119.fc5.xobas.i386.tar.gz. You can find this file between all the other RPM files on the download server. Download this to your home ($HOME) directory for instance and execute the following commands as the root user (su):

# gunzip libgda-1.3.101-1-cvs051119.fc5.xobas.i386.tar.gz
# cd /
# tar xvf $(HOME)/libgda-1.3.101-1-cvs051119.fc5.xobas.i386.tar

If you have downloaded this file to another directory, replace $(HOME) with that one.

You should now have a directory called /usr/local/libgda-1.3.101-1-cvs051119 that contains all kinds of files and subdirectories. Once libgda 2.0 is released, a proper RPM will be made available.

Database setup

Although access to many different databases is available through libgda technology, only PostgreSQL and MySQL have been verified to work at this stage. Instructions of how to prepare a PostgreSQL and MySQL database are given in the next two sections.

Preparation of PostgreSQL database

A correctly configured PostgreSQL database should be running on your system. For PostgreSQL specific installation and configuration issues, visit the Web Site of PostgreSQL for any help, as this falls outside the scope of this document. You can check if PostgreSQL is installed by typing the following at the command line:

$ rpm -qa | grep postgres

This should return at least the entries "postgresql", "postgresql-libs" and "postgresql-server".

The daemon can started by typing:

# /sbin/service postgresql start

as root user from the command line.

Set a password for the user "postgres".

Some configuration files have to be modified. Go to the directory "/var/lib/pgsql/data" and edit file pg_hba.conf. Add a line as follows (if not already exists):

host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          trust

This enables the Postgres client to connect to the localhost.

In the same directory edit the file postgresql.conf, search for the string client_min_messages and add a line like this:

client_min_messages = warning

Messages of the type NOTICE must be avoided (libgda issue). Make sure the line is not commented out (#).

After these changes, you have to restart the postgresql daemon by typing:

# /sbin/service postgresql restart
Create database

The default Xobas installation uses a demo database called stock. To create this database in postgresql, logon as user postgres (or su - postgres) and type:

$ createdb stock

You should get a response "CREATE DATABASE" indicating that the database creation was successful.

Create user

The default Xobas installation uses a database user called xobas. To create this user in postgresql, logon as user postgres and type:

$ psql stock

At the psql prompt type:

stock=# CREATE USER xobas;

Exit psql.

stock=# \q

Double check if you can logon to postgres now as the xobas user. From the command line type:

$ psql -hlocalhost -U xobas stock

If you now type

stock=> \l

you should see the database stock among others (if any).

For more PostgreSQL specific details, please check their documentation at http://www.postgresql.org.

Preparation of MySQL database

A correctly configured MySQL database should be running on your system. For MySQL specific installation and configuration issues, visit the Web Site of MySQL for any help, as this falls outside the scope of this document. You can check if MySQL is installed by typing the following at the command line:

$ rpm -qa | grep mysql

This should return at least the entries "mysql" and "myql-server".

The daemon can started by typing:

# /sbin/service mysqld start

as root user from the command line.

No additional changes of MySQL configuration files is needed as a default installation works correctly.

Create database

To create the database in MySQL, logon to mysql client as the database administrator user (by default is this user root) and type:

$ mysql -h localhost -u root -p mysql

The database can then be created as follows:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE stock;

If this step went OK, you will see a result as follows:

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.06 sec)
Create user

The user can be created as follows:

mysql> GRANT ALL ON stock.* TO 'xobas'@'localhost';

In this example setup the user is given all privileges for the stock database. In production environments, stricter security measures should probably apply.

For more MySQL specific details, please check their documentation at http://www.mysql.com.

Creating a Data Source

Xobas-4GL uses gnome-db (libgda) technologies to connect to data providers as PostgreSQL and MySQL. To be able to connect to a database, a Data Source needs to be created that holds details as database name, user name, tcp port etc. The easiest way to create this is to run the gnome-db utility gnome-database-properties that comes as part of the libgnomedb package. Make sure you run this application as the user that will run the Xobas environment, or for Xobas Networked configurations, the user that started the xobasdatd daemon. Go to the command line and type:

$ gnome-database-properties

This brings up the gnomedb database properties tool. Click on the tab Providers and check that your data provider (PostgreSQL or/and MySQL) is in this list. If they are not in the list, go a bit back in this document and double check that you have installed all the libgda and libgnomedb packages as required.

Click on the tab Data Sources where you will see a list of configured data sources. If this is the first time you run this tool, this list is probably empty or contains just a Default entry.

Go to pulldown menu File and click New. This will start a druid that guides you through a series of screens to collect all the data needed. Click Forward. On the screen General Information, enter the following details to create a data source to run the Xobas-4GL demo application stock:

Click Forward. Fill out the fields on screen Provider Parameters as outlined below. Where no data is given, leave the field blank.

The values for PostgreSQL

The values for MySQL

Click Forward and then Apply to confirm all changes and to create the Data Source.

You can now test if the newly created data source works OK. In the main screen where all data sources are listed, select the new data source stock. Go to pulldown menu Edit and click Properties. You should see here all the details you just entered. Click on the tab Tables. A new screen comes up, titled Login for stock. Press the Connect button. All tables of the database are listed here. If your database does not contain any tables yet, you will see an empty screen. If you get any type of error, something went wrong while creating the data source. Go back in this document and try again.

Choosing the correct Xobas installation type

Xobas products can be setup and compiled in many different ways. For the binary (RPM) distribution, the following installation types are available:

  1. Stand-alone installation. Choose this type of installation if you want to install all products on a single machine for local development.

  2. Enterprise installation. Choose this type of intallation if you want to connect to the Xobas environment from more that one machine and/or if you want to use multiple servers as database server, application server etc.
Stand-alone installation

The stand-alone installation is very straight forward. Please download and install the packages (as root user) in this order:

  1. xobas-calc-1.0.4-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-repository-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  4. xobas-validate-1.0.6-2.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  5. xobas-data-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  6. xobas-run-1.0.6-2.sa.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  7. xobas-web-1.0.4-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm (only required if you want browser access to 4GL logic)
  8. xobas-doc-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm (only required if you want a local copy of the Xobas 4GL reference manual in /usr/share/xobas)

Double check that you pick the sa version of xobas-run and not the net version. Now you are ready to start Xobas-4GL. Make sure that the first time you run the product you are NOT a root user, since cache and log files will otherwise get wrong privileges. This will be fixed in further releases.

When installing the xobas-run component, you may get an libgda 1.3 dependency error. In that case, add the --nodeps flag to your rpm installation command. This will be fixed, once libgda ships as a proper RPM.

Go to your home directory and type:

$ xobasrun

If all went well, you will see the Xobas logon screen. You can enter the application on 3 different levels:

  1. end-user: type guest in the user name box and type stock in application name box the press OK.
  2. developer user: type developer in the user name box and press OK.
  3. administrator user: type "administrator" and press OK.

To build the database tables parts and groups of the demo application stock, open this application in developer. Then click on the button Table on the tool palette, open the table, click on the Data Manager tab and press the Build Database Table button. This will build an empty table in your database. After building the tables, you can now go back to the Xobas logon screen and run stock as end-user guest and you should be able now to enter data into the database.

Enjoy!

Enterprise installation

With an enterprise installation, the various Xobas components can be setup as Web Services on one or more machines.

Repository

Download and install the packages on the machine that you want to host the application repository in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-repository-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-repository-server-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobasrepcfg.xml

Validate

Download and install the packages on the machine that you want 4GL validation to take place (most likely application server) in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-validate-1.0.6-2.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-validate-server-1.0.6-2.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobasvalcfg.xml

Data

Download and install the packages on the machine that hosts your database or where your database client is installed in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-data-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-data-server-1.0.6-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobasdatcfg.xml

Run (Desktop)

Download and install the packages on all the machines that needs to connect to the Xobas environment (either developer user as end-user) in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-calc-1.0.4-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-run-1.0.6-2.net.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobasruncfg.xml

Run (Server)

Download and install the packages on the machine that you want being the application server to provide access to Web Server etc in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-calc-1.0.4-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  3. xobas-run-1.0.6-2.net.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  4. xobas-run-server-1.0.6-2.net.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobasruncfg.xml

Web

Download and install the packages on the machine that runs your Web Server (Apache for instance) to provide browser access to 4GL logic in this order (as root user):

  1. xobas-soap-1.0.5-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm
  2. xobas-web-1.0.4-1.fc5.xobas.i386.rpm

Check the values in configuration file /etc/xobaswebsvc.xml