UNC Linux Users Group

["David B. Rankin" <david.rankin AT unc.edu>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Red Hat Application Server *Beta 1* Availability Announcement
Resent-Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 13:53:14 -0500
Resent-From: notting AT redhat.com
Resent-To: redhat-watch-list AT redhat.com
Date: 16 Dec 2003 11:41:59 -0500
From: taroon-beta-list-admin AT redhat.com
Reply-To: taroon-beta-list AT redhat.com
To: taroon-beta-list AT redhat.com

[Note: this message contains an attached text file.]

Red Hat is pleased to announce the general availability of Red Hat
Application Server v1.0 Beta 1.

This is a public beta.  Please feel free to forward this announcement
to anyone within or outside your organization who may be interested
in testing this beta release.

Red Hat Application Server is a key component of Red Hat's
Open Source Architecture, a road map for the open source
technologies and capabilities Red Hat and its partners will be
building in the future -- spanning the operating system, middleware,
applications, and management tools.

Red Hat Application Server includes:
 - Tomcat 4.1.27, the official Reference Implementation of
   the Java Servlet 2.3 and JavaServer Pages 1.2 technologies.
 - Struts 1.0.2, a framework for building web applications with Java.
 - JOnAS 3.3, ObjectWeb's J2EE implementation, with web-based
   administration.
 - Sample JOnAS and Struts web applications.
 - Supporting modules for file uploads, AJP and WARP protocols, and
   JDBC drivers for MySQL.

You can find a complete package list for Red Hat Application Server
v1.0 Beta 1 at:

http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/taroon/en/RHAPS/i386/RedHat/RPMS/

This announcement includes details on obtaining the beta software,
reporting bugs, and communicating with Red Hat and other testers
via mailing lists during the beta period.

Red Hat Application Server v1.0 Beta 1 is available for testing on
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 for the following architectures:
 - x86 (i686/Athlon)
 - ia64 (Intel Itanium2)
 - x86_64 (AMD64)
 - ppc (IBM iSeries and pSeries)

A copy of the release notes for this beta software is attached to this
message.

Current features, packages, and naming are subject to change before
the final release.

The Red Hat Application Server development team would like to encourage
you to test this release in non-production environments and provide
feedback via the mechanisms described below.  This is pre-release
quality code, and Red Hat makes no guarantees as to performance,
stability, or compatibility across beta releases.  Please run
this in non-production environments only.   Red Hat will not support
upgrades from one beta release to another, nor from beta to
official released products.

Red Hat Application Server v1.0 Beta 1 is available for download via
FTP and Red Hat Network.  PostgreSQL server, recommended for use with
JOnAS in this beta release, is available in the 'Extras' channel
for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 on Red Hat Network.

FTP Availability
----------------

Installable binary ISO images for use with Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 3 (RHEL3-RHAPS-beta1-*.iso), are available for each
architecture at:

  http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/taroon/en/iso/

Binary and source RPM packages are available at:

  http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/taroon/en/RHAPS/

They may also be available from Red Hat FTP mirror sites.

Red Hat Network Availability and Updates
----------------------------------------

Binary and source RPM packages, and installable binary and source
ISO images for Red Hat Application Server v1.0 Beta 1 are
available via Red Hat Network to all Red Hat Enterprise Linux
customers with current subscriptions at:

  https://rhn.redhat.com/network/software/all_channels.pxt

During the beta period, we may also supply updated packages
on Red Hat Network.  While these updates are not subjected to as much
system testing as our release milestones, they enable you to
immediately test against more recent package builds that may resolve
bugs and issues, rather than requiring you to wait until the next full
milestone release.

Help on installing packages using Red Hat Network is available at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/RHNetwork/ref-guide/2.8/sm-channels-packages.html

Help on using the up2date tool is available at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/RHNetwork/ref-guide/2.8/up2date-setup.html

General help on using Red Hat Network is available at:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/RHNetwork/ref-guide/

Bug Reporting
-------------

To ensure accurate tracking and follow-up, all bugs should be reported
using Bugzilla at:

  http://bugzilla.redhat.com

We have created a public release category 'Red Hat Application Server
Public Beta' for this early access program.  Please use version
"1.0-beta1" as the version for all bugs filed against this milestone
release.

Mailing Lists
-------------

Red Hat has created a public mailing list for general discussion
of the Red Hat Application Server v1.0 Beta releases.

To subscribe to rhaps-beta-list, send mail to:

  rhaps-beta-list-request AT redhat.com

with

  subscribe

in the subject line. You can leave the body empty. Or see:

  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhaps-beta-list/

Thanks for your interest in testing Red Hat Application Server v1.0
Beta 1!

Sincerely,

The Red Hat Application Server Team





--

===========================================
David B. Rankin, CCNA, MCSE, CNE
Associate Director of Distributed Computing
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Administrative Information Services
440 W. Franklin Street CB 1150
Chapel Hill, NC  27599-1150
Office Phone = 919.962.2435
FAX Phone = 919.962.0900
Internet Mail Address = david.rankin AT unc.edu
============================================
Red Hat Application Server - notes for the beta release

This beta release includes several software packages intended for
installation on top of a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 U1 system.
These packages include Tomcat, for running Servlet/JSP web
applications, and JoNAS, for running J2EE-based web applications.
These are discussed separately below.

* Tomcat

This version of Tomcat and its dependencies have been compiled to
native code using the GNU gcj compiler, specifically the gcj-ssa
technology preview package included in RHEL3.  This means that no JVM
is required to run the programs.

Tomcat can be started, stopped, and configured to start
automatically, either from the command line (using the commands
'service tomcat [start|stop|restart]' and 'chkconfig tomcat [on|off]')
or from within the Red Hat Service Configuration Tool (from the main
menu, select System Settings -> Server Settings -> Services).  It is
possible to run multiple Tomcat servers on the same machine, as
detailed in /usr/share/doc/tomcat-4.1.27/README.multiple.

Tomcat is configured to use the AJP 1.3 connector module mod_jk2 by
default.  After installing and starting the Tomcat server, you may need
to restart httpd in order for it to load mod_jk2.  Once this is done,
you should be able to browse the example web application by pointing
your browser at the http://localhost/examples/ page.

Tomcat uses the following files and directories:

   /etc/tomcat/server.xml -- Main configuration file.  Edit this if you
     need to add or modify connectors and realms.

   /etc/tomcat/tomcat-users.xml -- User database file.  Edit this to
     add or modify users and roles if you are using the UserDatabase
     realm (the default).

   /etc/sysconfig/tomcat -- Red Hat specific configuration settings.

   /var/lib/tomcat/ -- Directory from which web applications are loaded.

   /etc/logrotate.d/tomcat -- Log rotation configuration settings.  You
     will not normally need to edit this.

   /var/log/tomcat/ -- Directory in which logfiles are written.

   /usr/share/tomcat/common/
   /usr/share/tomcat/server/
   /usr/share/tomcat/shared/ -- Directories into which classfiles and
     jars can be placed to make them available either to all webapps
     (shared), to the server only (server), or to both the server and
     all webapps (common).

mod_jk2 uses the following file:

   /etc/httpd/conf/workers2.properties -- Main configuration file.
     Edit this to add or modify mappings from the webserver to the
     servlet container.

Most server configuration and webapp management tasks can be performed
with the admin and manager web applications respectively.  To enable
them, you must do the following:

   1) Add either or both of the following mappings to mod_jk2's
      configuration file /etc/httpd/conf/workers2.properties and
      restart httpd.

        [uri:/admin/*]
        info=Map the Administration web application

        [uri:/manager/*]
        info=Map the Manager web application

   2) Add a user with the admin and/or manager roles (as required) to
      Tomcat's user database file /etc/tomcat/tomcat-users.xml and
      restart tomcat.

        <user name="whatever" password="PaSsW0Rd" roles="admin,manager"/>

   3) Point your browser at either http://localhost/admin/ (for the
      admin webapp) or http://localhost/manager/html (for the manager
      webapp).

Note that the Tomcat server runs under the tomcat user, which by
default cannot write to either the configuration or the webapps
directories (this limits the damage that a compromised web application
could do).  If you wish to use the manager web application fully or
the admin web application at all, you must either set the ownership and
permissions of the relevant directories yourself or set the relevant
options in /etc/sysconfig/tomcat and restart tomcat.


* Jonas

This version of ObjectWeb JOnAS relies on an installed JVM, such as
those by Sun, IBM, or BEA. (Unlike tomcat which is gcj-compiled, jonas
runs in JVM-interpreted mode.)

Being a typical J2EE application server, jonas relies on a relational
database backend.  This package requires that the rh-postgresql server
be installed, but creates a separate database instance to serve only
jonas.  This new database instance is configured to start and stop
automatically with jonas, puts its data files under
/var/lib/jonas/pgsql, and listens to localhost on TCP port 5433.  This
way it does not interfere with any existing postgresql databases on the
server.  In jonas, it is already configured as the "jdbc_1" datasource
in JNDI.

The entire jonas suite runs under a new "jonas" system user.  You can
activate the server using "/sbin/service jonas start" as is typical of a
network service.  It is configured with its internal servlet engine to
listen for HTTP traffic on port 8080.  Visit
http://localhost:8080/ after installation and jonas startup to
administer and interact with jonas.

The jonas-examples package includes some sample web applications.  A
few of these are compiled and ready for deployment (to make them
accessible to remote web users).  You can use the jonas administrative
web interface (http://.../jonasAdmin/, "Deployments" frames).  After
deployment, you can interact with these samples using the appropriate
web URL prefix.  Other examples require you to download some source
code from the internet.  See /var/lib/jonas/examples.

To build or manage jonas applications using the command line, you need
to set a variety of environment variables:
         JAVA_HOME=`cat /etc/sysconfig/java`
         JONAS_ROOT=/var/lib/jonas
         PATH=${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${JONAS_ROOT}/bin/unix

If necessary, use "classic-ant" as the compilation driver instead of
"ant", because the latter is gcj-compiled on RHEL3 and is not suitable
for jonas.  It may be necessary to use the "su jonas" system command
to deposit .ear/.war/.jar files under jonas installation tree, due to
file system permissions.

More general documentation on use of, and programming with, jonas is
available under /usr/share/doc/jonas-3.3, including a printable PDF.