Thursday 18 June 2009

Step By Step Installing Greenstone 2.82 on Ubuntu 8.10 (Quickstart)

These instructions are designed for those that are completely new to Greenstone (as I was) and would to try it out. This will guide you from blank to having a library that will be accessible through your Apache HTTP server.

1.

I read elsewhere that the sun-java6 package version of java was not going to work. I think this was only for compilation on Ubuntu - I have tested it with the package version and it worked fine.

apt-get install sun-java6-jdk apache2
2.

First Download Greenstone from: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/greenstone/Greenstone-2.82-linux – Select For Linux under 'Latest Distribution'
3.

Make the file executable and start the installer:

chmod a+x Greenstone-2.82-linux
./Greenstone-2.82-linux

4.

Most of what's in the installer is pretty self explanatory and one can happily go clicking next through the installer...

5.

You will need to edit your apache configuration to be able to access the new digital library. I made a virtual host called greenstone by adding a line to /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 greenstone

Then make a new virtual host in apache by creating a file /etc/apache2/sites-available/greenstone for example:


ServerName greenstone

#Greenstone 2 script:

ScriptAlias /greenstone/cgi-bin "/usr/local/Greenstone2b/cgi-bin"

Options None

AllowOverride None

Alias /greenstone "/usr/local/Greenstone2b/"

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride None

Order allow,deny

Allow from all



6

a2ensite greenstone && /etc/init.d/apache2 restart



7

Go with your web browser to: http://greenstone/greenstone/cgi-bin/library.cgi



8

Now it's time to try and add a content – go to this page with your browser. It should provide some info about the java version installed and at the bottom Installation OK - http://greenstone/greenstone/cgi-bin/gliserver.pl?cmd=check-installation


9

A message will come after a little while like Could not connect to local library server after 20 seconds – click no . Then it will prompt for a URL. Enter http://greenstone/greenstone/cgi-bin/gliserver.pl . I found that if you use the library.cgi address as it suggests then the collections do not build.

10. You can now make your collection by simply adding files, going through the tabs and then going to build collection. When you refresh your browser on the library page, your new collection should appear.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, thank`s a lot for this. It worked for debian lenny.

Unknown said...

i have installed greenstone 2.83 but not able to bind it with my IP. I did some changes in httpd.conf but still not working on my ip. Its working fine on localhost and 127.0.0.1 .

Unknown said...

Hello! I am interested in GSDL and I reached upto the 4th step. Would be thankful if anyone can guide me to the rest.

Unknown said...

i Cant seem to get through the First step... how so i get to install sun-java6-jdk apache2??

It keeps returning that there is no installation candidate for sun-java6-jdk.

I tried downloading jdk from the oracle site and installed but when i attempt step 2, it returns that it failed to extract the bundled java archive to the temp directory. You need the tar program on your PATH"

Dont know what to do to get Greenstone installed on my ubuntu server.