The first step obviously is to download the appropriate packages for the operating system release, version and processor platform that you intend to run it on. Where a package contains noarch that means that it is suitable for any processor architecture running that distribution of Linux. Initially RPM packaged versions are available for Fedora 8 (labeled fc8) and Fedora 9 (labeled fc9), with future versions expected to support Ubuntu (using deb packages) and CENTos (and thus RHEL).

For an initial WACS installation (in this example for release 0.8.1 on an x86_64 machine running Fedora 8), you will probably want the following packages:

If you plan on making use of the download toolset to connect to subscription sites for automatic downloads (although do be aware that only a very few sites are supported so far), you will also want to get the package called wacs-download-0.8.1-1.noarch.fc8.rpm. You may also wish to download one of the two versions of the documentation package: wacs-doc-pdf-0.8.1-1.noarch.fc8.rpm or wacs-doc-html-0.8.1-1.noarch.fc8.rpm - you can always access the same documentation direct from our sourceforge web site.

Once you've downloaded the right packages, you need to gain the appropriate privileges and install the packages. There are any number of ways to do this, and you can pretty much use any of them; the example below uses the command-line based yum package manager:

# yum install --nogpgcheck wacs*.rpm
[...]
#

It is also possible to do this with the file manager, right clicking on each package file and choosing Install Package. The order on this is a bit tricky, but if you start with wacs-core and wacs-hostauth, then do the other packages and finally do the main wacs package, this should work out OK.

Once the packages, and their dependencies, have been installed please confirm that both the Apache 2 Web Server (httpd) and the MySQL Database Server (mysqld) are enabled and running. In the GNOME desktop, the System -> Administration -> Services menu will take you to the Service Configuration screen where you need to both enable and start httpd and mysqld if these are not shown as currently running. If you prefer using the command line, the following steps will do the same task:

# /sbin/service httpd start
Starting httpd:                                    [ OK ]
# /sbin/service mysqld start
Starting MySQL:                                    [ OK ]
# /sbin/chkconfig --levels 345 httpd on
# /sbin/chkconfig --levels 345 mysqld on
#

The final system configuration step before starting work on getting WACS configured is to ensure that SELinux is running in a reduced mode that will not block the WACS components from working. This is only an issue on Fedora and other Red Hat based releases at present. We hope to have this resolved by the next release of WACS. You can determine the current mode of SELinux using the sestatus command:

% /usr/sbin/sestatus
SELinux status:                 disabled
% 

To change the normal operational mode, you need to edit the file called /etc/sysconfig/selinux and change the line which reads SELINUX=enabled to either SELINUX=permissive (generates big log files and slows machine but allows for SELinux to be turned back on later more easily) or SELINUX=disabled (which disables it completely but can cause problems in the future if you want to switch it back on). You will also probably want to disable it immediately rather than doing a reboot before you can continue working on WACS - to do this, become root and run the following:

# /usr/sbin/setenforce 0
setenforce: SELinux is disabled
#

You can check this change has taken effect by using the sestatus command again.

The normal action of the RPM packages is to create a user account to hold all the datafiles, typically called simply wacs. Unless you choose to do otherwise, the images and video clips loaded into the WACS system are normally stored in the home directory of this account. For obvious reasons, the security on this directory is locked down pretty hard, so you will need to pay attention to it. In order for the system to work at all, you will need to grant access to the accompanying wacs group. This can be done with:

# chgrp g+rwxs ~wacs
# 

In addition to this, you may wish to add your own personal account to the wacs group so that you can use tools like rungq, mencoder et al on the archive directly. To do this you use the usermod command, substituting the your_name with your user name:

# usermod -a -G wacs your_name
#

	Warning
	After you've added yourself to the wacs group, the change will almost certainly not take place within the current session. You will have to log out and log back in again for your membership to be recognised. The groups command lists the groups you are currently in; when this list includes wacs, things should be working - when it does not, they won't be!