Introduction

This Server Administration Guide is intended to be read by the system administrator responsible for managing the server or servers on which an Escenic Content Engine and its supporting SW components are installed. It covers the periodic administration tasks a system administrator needs to carry out once the Content Engine is installed and in operation. It does not describe how to install and deploy the Content Engine: for installation and deployment instructions, see the Escenic Content Engine Installation Guide.

Both this manual and the Escenic Content Engine Installation Guide make the following assumptions about the Escenic installation and you, the reader:

  • The Content Engine and the supporting software stack (database, web server, application server and so on) are installed on one or more Linux servers.

  • You are a suitably qualified system administrator with a working knowledge of both the operating system on which the Content Engine is installed and of the components in the supporting software stack.

All shell command examples given in the manual are tested on Debian Linux servers: they may need minor modifications to be used on other Linux platforms, and it is assumed that you are able to make the necessary "conversions" to your own platform. Some of the commands should be executed as the owner of the Escenic installation. This is signalled by use of the $ command prompt. For example:

$ ls

Other commands must be executed as root. This is signalled by the use of the # command prompt:

# /etc/init.d/slapd restart

Two different kinds of installation are discussed in this manual:

  • Single server installations, in which the Content Engine and the entire supporting SW stack are installed on a single machine.

  • Multi-server installations. There are many possible multi-server configurations, but only one is described here. It is assumed that you are competent to extrapolate from the description of this configuration to your particular variant.

All file paths and URLs shown in the manual are based on the following standard folder structure:

Standard location Component

/opt/escenic

Escenic

/opt/escenic/engine

Escenic Content Engine

/opt/escenic/assemblytool

Escenic assembly tool

/etc/escenic

Escenic configuration

/etc/escenic/engine

Escenic Content Engine configuration

/opt/java/jdk

Java

/opt/java/ant

Ant

/opt/tomcat

Tomcat

If your system is organized differently, then adjust the paths you use accordingly.