Twe Serious Questions Serverbeach NEEDS TO ACUTALLY ANSWER

[jsbthree]

I am trying to install Tomcat and Cocoon which bottom line (end of the story etc ) needs to have x11 or better installed and running. There are a few workarounds that amount to a huge coglomeration of bs delievered by whomever devised the ServerBeach standard kickstart of Redhat 7-9.

See below for a response from apache regarding.

BEGIN QUOTE

How can I run Cocoon without X11. Why is a Display needed ?
An Xserver is needed because of the batik library fop uses. batik uses java's graphics code, which in turn requires the Xserver. If you don't have an xserver on your system and can't set the DISPLAY variable to one, then try out xvfb. xvfb gives you an 'in-memory' xserver, which doesn't require any display hardware to run.


How can I run Cocoon without X11. Why is a Display needed ?
An Xserver is needed because of the batik library fop uses. batik uses java's graphics code, which in turn requires the Xserver. If you don't have an xserver on your system and can't set the DISPLAY variable to one, then try out xvfb. xvfb gives you an 'in-memory' xserver, which doesn't require any display hardware to run.

END QUOTE.

Now here are my questions: I've given up on getting an answer from SB other than grumlbes and interegations as to my need. (SEE ABOVE please regarding why...


Question one: What are the exact ingredients of the SB RedHat installation kickstarts and moreover how does it differ from the standard (7,8 or nine) While I know I can print out the tree a little directions and interprestion would save alot useless hours tring to make sense of WHY AND HOW SB comes to the intallation and EXACTLY how it is different from a standard RH dist.
If this has been supplied I would love a pointer or a url as I missed it....

I offer up my futile journey toward x11 knowlege as a case in point. It sure seems simple to me to anser my quesion with a little expansive overview of the state of the install and what I can do ect....


QUESTION TWO:

In simple baby talk desinged for less er mortals such as myself what is the actualy serverbeach philosopy or guiding principaly here. Do they make the distributions to be sure to make things lie tomcat and cocoon extra hard to install ?? is this to becasue we may think we are paying ro out own server so we can actally do some things like the above or is it so that we can install waht SB thinks we SHOULD BE doing... Simply put another way .... what is the point of the server if you are limited to the uses presribed by sb. Its the classic case of all paoin for no gain. WE are left to fend for outsleves in everything yet cannot actauuy exectue 05b$ 192.168.1.87


Im really disapointed in the whole SB thing right now. Either they don't want us to do things that could get oursefles in trobel or thy dont nios that are nto or they don t now wthe snert themsemes

[knightfoo]

originally posted by jsbthree
Question one: What are the exact ingredients of the SB RedHat installation kickstarts and moreover how does it differ from the standard (7,8 or nine) While I know I can print out the tree a little directions and interprestion would save alot useless hours tring to make sense of WHY AND HOW SB comes to the intallation and EXACTLY how it is different from a standard RH dist.
If this has been supplied I would love a pointer or a url as I missed it....

The RedHat kickstart is essentially the same thing you would get if you put a RedHat CD in your home computer and chose "Server Installation" from the menu. The only difference is that we add a few packages (such as perl and apache modules) that are in high demand. Servers rarely need any kind of graphical interface, as they normally run without a display adapter attached. The only exception I have seen to this in the last 5 years is the Oracle installer which requires an X Server to run, but the X Server doesn't have to be located on the machine you are installing Oracle on. All of the packages in the RedHat kickstart are official RedHat RPMs, downloaded directly from one of their mirrors. The only exception to this rule is openssh, since RedHat tends to lag behind on openssh updates.

In simple baby talk desinged for less er mortals such as myself what is the actualy serverbeach philosopy or guiding principaly here. Do they make the distributions to be sure to make things lie tomcat and cocoon extra hard to install ?? is this to becasue we may think we are paying ro out own server so we can actally do some things like the above or is it so that we can install waht SB thinks we SHOULD BE doing... Simply put another way .... what is the point of the server if you are limited to the uses presribed by sb. Its the classic case of all paoin for no gain. WE are left to fend for outsleves in everything yet cannot actauuy exectue 05b$ 192.168.1.87

The RedHat kickstart installation we use is based off of what people commonly need in a hosting environment. In the last year and a half, I have only had 2 customers ask why X11 was not installed on their server. I think what you are looking for is a server that was installed with the kickstart option "Install Everything", which gives you a 3GB base system and is a nightmare to upgrade. This would basically lock you into a RedHat Network subscription, since any human would probably be driven insane trying to keep such a system updated.

You are not limited to what ServerBeach decides to install on your RedHat server. Heck, the Debian servers come with only SSH and Webmin installed and on one complains about that :) We install the most commonly used packages, but there will always be someone who needs something different. This is why you have full root access to your server .. you can install anything you want, configure anything you want, break anything you want, etc. All of the RedHat RPMs are freely available from dozens of RedHat mirror sites, the same RPMs that we install on all ServerBeach RedHat servers. When I have the unfortunate privilege of having to admin a RedHat server, I normally keep a local mirror sync'ed up on a nightly basis so I can install new packages and updates easier.

If there is enough demand from our customer base to warrant adding the entire X11 package base to our kickstart, we would surely do it.

-knightfoo

[Tino Didriksen]

On another note, your own quote helps you..."xvfb gives you an 'in-memory' xserver, which doesn't require any display hardware to run"...

[jsbthree]

sorry for the long post and frustrated tone but I really thought I was going to get away clean without haveing to mess around with x11 (with Tino's help) untill that Apache thing came up. I also see the point about trying to install everything (below).

BEGIN QUOTE
In the last year and a half, I have only had 2 customers ask why X11 was not installed on their server. I think what you are looking for is a server that was installed with the kickstart option "Install Everything", which gives you a 3GB base system and is a nightmare to upgrade. This would basically lock you into a RedHat Network subscription, since any human would probably be driven insane trying to keep such a system updated.
END QUOTE

I am not against intalling these things myself I just needed to have a clearer understanding of exactly what is there and the answer is both clear and makes me feel stupid for I have installed Red Hat 100 times and NEVER even wondered what was in the "server" package group as opposed to the "workstation". It pays to be a littel curious I suppose. Thank you btw.

But as to the task of preparing a server for Jakarta type development I have a last question.

So here is my last question I hope. I believe while you've only had two customers who need x11 so far the Jakarta stuff is going to require some rethinking on the part of Red Hat as to exactly what is best for a minimal or optimal server installation. While they do their rethinking the rest of us will have to be figuring that out on our own. So the question for everyone is WHAT would be the best and least costly (man hours and hair pulling) way to prepare the enviroment in advance for things like the Batik Library and Cocoon. Tino correctly pointed out that Apache serverd me an asnwer that I actually didn't see but is in the orriginal post. Is that a good move?? The ansers are getting in the realm of personal opinion here but any thoughts are good.

Maybe we can come up the the special SB install for J2EE/Jakarta development. Hell even get Sourceforge to sponsor.. I am sort of kidding but the idea is the same. So if anyone esle feels that this could be a good thing -- i.e. comming up with our own standard SB package for Coccon/Jakarta devel/deploy -- let it be known. I don't even know at this point if JDK1.4SE or EE is necessary but will begin to find out. I hope neither..

[jsbthree]

I was about to take Tino's suggestion when I came on this which seems to suggest that their prior answer as a workaround isn't sufficient.

MORE FROM APACHE:
START QUOTE
UNIX with X server
Cocoon is bundled with the Batik (SVG rasterization toolkit) to deliver SVG imaging capabilities. Batik uses Java java.awt library, which (at least in Sun JDK before 1.4) requires graphics display. This means that X server must be running and Cocoon should have permission to connect to it

END QUOTE

okay whatever. I think even the Jakarta guys should think about statardizing the server enviroment.

[Tino Didriksen]

xvfb emulates a display, thus 'fooling' programs into thinking they have a fully functional display. You do not need a physical monitor.

A bit old but informative PDF of how to do it: https://www.netikus.net/documents/Linux-Cocoon.pdf
(found through Google http://google.com/search?q=xvfb+cocoon)

[jsbthree]

The only smart thing I've done in all this is NOT jumping in and installing a bunch of things before asking.. I'm glad of that and will read.. thanks again

[Striker]

How about installing a VNC server and having a REAL X server that you can even connect to (without a monitor on the server) and use?

Check it out: www.realvnc.com

Then you could easily tell it to use the display (even from an SSH session) by doing 'export DISPLAY=:<vnc display>' whereas <vnc display> is most likely 1 unless you have more servers running.

(by the way, dont forget the colon before the display number :D)

[jsbthree]

This thred seems to suggest that there are some missing elements (http://www.serverbeach.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=386)


take a look at that thread:

http://www.serverbeach.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=386

Is there something Im not getting. It seems to be the same kind of problem..

[knightfoo]

The X11 client/server model tends to confuse people. If you have a single machine, the X server and client runs on the same machine. The X server is the actual graphical interface and the client is any application which connects to the server so it can be "seen". What gets confusing is when the X server and client are on different machines. The X server runs on your local computer (the one you are sitting in front of) and the client can run from any machine that is accessible over the network. All you have to do is tell the client where the server is located by using the DISPLAY variable ( DISPLAY=server_ip:0 )

Xvnc makes this operate a little differently. When the Xvnc server runs, it starts an X server that does not display on any monitor .. a virtual display. The only way to view this virtual display is to connect to the Xvnc server using a VNC client. This allows you to run X applications without a physical display (don't even need a video card) and lowers the risk of crashing your machine because of flaky video hardware (if a virtual display crashes, it just goes away).

Xvfb does pretty much the same thing, but I don't believe there is a way to see what is actually on the virtual display without doing a memory dump of the framebuffer device :) Xvfb will make your applications belive they are talking to a real live X server though.

Xvnc and Xvfb will probably both work for you, but you'll most likely still have to install a ton of X libraries for the client applications. I can't think of any easy way to do this on a RedHat system unless you have some pretty good scripting skills.

-knightfoo

[jsbthree]

I can't find the exact refernce but it is in cpanels own lit that they lockdown and prevent the libs you are talking aobut from being installed. Its the central problem really. I thank you for your response and would like to hear what your thoughts are. I dont much care about installing alot of libs provided THERE ISNT SOME OVERIDE that keeps it from taking. I tried for instance to install kdebase and a few other harmless packages through cpanel and it was rejected saying that it wasn't installed which of course I know and that was why i was installing it to begin with . No matter it would mean going around cpanel .. This in my mind equates with an endless serioues of errors and other dependancy issues from cpanel down the line. Am I wrong?? I really don't know and am still questing for the end answer.. Is it that I have to ditch cpanel?? thanks again

ps. I think tino was correct about sticking with webmin.. but don't know..

[jsbthree]

maybe xvfb would work alone??? any guesses..

[jsbthree]

How can I run Cocoon without X11. Why is
a Display needed ?

An Xserver is needed because of the batik&nbs
p;library fop uses. batik uses java's graphics&nbs
p;code, which in turn requires the Xserver. I
f you don't have an xserver on your syst
em and can't set the DISPLAY variable to
;one, then try out xvfb. xvfb gives you
an 'in-memory' xserver, which doesn't require any&
nbsp;display hardware to run.



How can I run Cocoon without X11. Why is
a Display needed ?

An Xserver is needed because of the batik&nbs
p;library fop uses. batik uses java's graphics&nbs
p;code, which in turn requires the Xserver. I
f you don't have an xserver on your syst
em and can't set the DISPLAY variable to
;one, then try out xvfb. xvfb gives you
an 'in-memory' xserver, which doesn't require any&
nbsp;display hardware to run.



END QUOTE
I don't want to go throught he ordeal of
configuring around cpanel so Im going to&nbs
p;either have it uninstalled or do what you&n
bsp;suggest to get an enviroment in which&nb
sp;we can operate cocoone et al


Eric G." eric@cpanel.net wrote at 2003-08-27 09:01:02 :

Sorry, Xwindows is always disabled on cPanel
installations for security reasons.

--
Eric Gregory
cPanel Support Staff
Berwick, PA Office

cPanel, Inc.


END QUOTE


I guess one either ditches cpanel or does the workaround stuff and lears to live with endless error messages

[dfrye]

What version of Cocoon are you using? The older versions needed X support but the new 2.1 doesn't. I've installed 2.1m2 with Tomcat 4.1.24 with no problems and no need for X windows. 2.1 has been released as GA (generally available). (Yeah, I need to upgrade.)

http://www.midamericaequipment.com is currently hosted on the above.

If you still want to use an older version and if you don't need SVG support you can recompile without the SVG stuff and then will no longer need X.

[brent]

Go with Xvfb. Its light, and is exactly what you need. Anything else would be far too much bother to get the same effect. As a note: I run tomcat 4 with Xvfb to do image processing as well. Just download the RPM for it, and try to install. It will complain about needing a few packages. Do a search on the redhat site to grab those specific RPMs. It only takes a few minutes to get installed. After that, you just add the display line to the script that starts tomcat and you are done. If you need any help with this, feel free to scream at me. I've been doing the java/tomcat/linux thing for a long time.

[traced]

Maybe this could help:

http://server.bluestudio.it/webmin/

I found that link by looking at the possibilities of webmin...

Could be a solution that doesn't need X11,

Traced

[Tino Didriksen]

traced, "Since version 4.1, Jakarta-Tomcat has a web manager, so this module will *not* be developed to work with Jakarta-Tomcat 4.x"

And Tomcat is already at 4.1.27 with 5.0.9 Beta getting stabilized.

The Webmin module is unfortunately outdated. Xvfb is the way to do it.

[traced]

I was just surfing the webmin website when I saw that ...

I also read the Tomcat 4.x staff ...

I agree, my post was useless ...

Xvfb is the way to do it!