Installation help

hi all-

we just set up a fresh CentOS 5.1 Apache web server to run Openfire (among other things), and we are trying to get Openfire set up. The directions are (for non-linux folks such as ourselves) not that clear. We have tried both the RPM and the tar packages to install, and we also installed Java from Sun, but when we untar or unpack the rpm file it goes into the right directory (/opt/openfire), and then the next part of the directions says to go to the web setup utility at http://localhost:9090. We have no web browser on the :localhost: machine so we are using its IP address from another workstation. We can see the Apache site but nothing other than no page can be displayed for the Openfire part. We can see the files in the directory, but cant get any further.

If someone could please post or send us detailed install instructions that would be really good!

thanks

Jon Hoffmann

You need a web browser on the server. You need to configure the server locally before it becomes available external to the server.

we did not install any of the X-Windows components; how can we do this without that? if we need all that, what do we need to do to install it?

jon

You don’t need any X-Server. Just open ports 9090 and 9091 in your firewall. Then you should able to connect from your workstation’s browser.

Edit: But be careful, everyone could connect to your webinterface. So choose a strong password and use HTTPS after initial configuration.

Message was edited by: Coolcat

even if we have only text based utilities on the server and not X-Windows? how do we open those ports? excuse the dumb questions we are new at this stuff!

jon

excuse the dumb questions we are new at this stuff!

Are you sure you are able to run a linux server? If you are not able to do some security settings on your server…

However, you can config your firewall using ‘system-config-securitylevel-tui’.

Coolcat-

yes we are “able to run a server” - apache is up and running correctly just not OpenFire. New to this stuff referred to the fact that we havent done much with a linux web server. We currently run configure maintain and support 14 Windows servers. our linux box is behind 2 heavy Nortel Contivity firewalls so we have disabled the SELinux firewall. Internally to our network all ports are open. We know basically what we should do because the directions say what to do…its the HOW to do it that is missing just about everywhere…so far any reply that suggests we shouldnt be running a server if we cant do basic security settings is not helpful. If someone can help us, still all we get from another machine when trying to access http://<ip>:9090 is the following:

Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at<ip>:9090.

again, If we need a browser on the local server then how do we add just that component without redoing the whole machine?

You need a browser on the server to do the initial config. After the server is configured you can access it fron an external machine. You may be able to rerun the OS install and add the additional files without damaging your current config.

thanks were trying that now…i will post an update in a bit…

jon

that didnt work - i guess we will rebuild the machine tomorrow - not too bad since all we did was configure apache so far…

We currently run configure maintain and support 14 Windows servers.

Ok, I couldn’t know

Some ideas of things you should check:

  • Openfire is running (check what you get with “ps aux | grep openfire”)

  • check Openfire logfiles for some errors: /opt/openfire/logs/

Just for notice:

SELinux is not a firewall. It prevents applications from doing things they shouldn’t do.

If you disable SELinux, this has no effect on the firewall settings. SELinux settings are just integrated into the Firewall TUI.

Sorry to hear that you could not just add the extra files. I usually always have a gui (gnome or kde) on my linux servers for easy hands on management. Another tool that may prove invaluable to you if you are new to linux is webmin.

If nothing helps, there are several textbased browsers out there. E.g. “w3m”.