Table of Contents
With the Linux Operating System, there are three basic options available to you for installing WACS onto your system:
Each option above is progressively more complex than the previous one, but in the process affords more flexibility and configurability. The choice is yours.... but if you are not an experienced Linux system admin, we would strongly commend that you use the packages appropriate for your distribution. On other platforms, you probably want to follow the manual install proceedure which is documented in some depth. The older easyinstall script is now depricated and is likely to be removed in a future release. If you're on a supported distribution, use the packages - if not, follow the manual installation steps - it's honestly easier than trying to use a script that may easily make wrong decisions on your particular platform and leave you having to figure out where this went wrong.
If you are using a web hosting provider, unless they're offering pre-installed WACS, you will need to follow the manual installation steps. In order to do so, you will need to have SSH access to the server hosting your site, which may have an additional charge and setup delay associated with it. We've added additional commentary in the manual install section of the installation proceedure covering the steps you need to take when working on a web hosting provider.
![[Tip]](images/tip.png) | Tip |
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This is the prefered way to install WACS. It is currently available for Fedora 27 or 29 based systems using the RPM package manager and for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and 18.04 LTS systems using the DEB packaging system. It is our hope to extend the packaged software approach to include other platforms in a future release, CentOS 8.x being our next anticipated platform to be added. |
![[Note]](images/note.png) | Note |
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While we do not prepare packaged versions for older releases of
Fedora and Ubuntu, we do not remove support from them from the packaging
build files ( |
![[Warning]](images/warning.png) | Warning |
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We attempt to support the current and previous releases of both Fedora and Ubuntu when we make each new WACS release. Packaged support for previous releases is then dropped. |
Where available for a given distribution and release, there are a number of WACS RPM or .deb packages you can make use of to install the WACS system. If you are using one of the more sophisticated package managers (dnf, gdebi etc), you need only ask it to install the main wacs package and that tells the package manager what other components it needs to complete the install. This will bring in both the system packages needed - web server, database, perl libraries, etc - and the other parts of the WACS system needed for a working installation. If you are using one of the simpler package managers (rpm, dpkg etc), it will complain about absense of the required packages until all the dependencies have been installed manually.
Since sourceforge.net doesn't yet seem to support rpm or debian repos properly you will have to download the requisite WACS packages manually in order for the install to proceed. We are working on a Personal Package Archive (PPA) area on launchpad.net for Ubuntu .DEB packages which we hope to launch shortly. Please watch the WACS web sites for more details.
| Note |
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In order to conform to the the Fedora packaging guidelines, quite a few of the file locations are different on the packaged version of WACS, from that created by the easyinstall script or manual process. We are gradually migrating to the layout preferred by the packaging and it shouldn't cause problems, but you do need to be aware of it, particularly if moving a configuration file between releases. |
| Warning |
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It is our intention to discontinue support for the easyinstall script in a release in the near future. You are strongly encouraged to use the other two methods, package install or manual install in preference. |
The easyinstall script was our pre-packaging approach to installing WACS and we would advise against using it on Fedora and Ubuntu distributions, although it might prove useful for installing on older versions of Linux that are not supported directly by the packages we create. If attempting an install on RHEL or CentOS, try the Fedora packages first. For Debian, try the Ubuntu pacakages. As of WACS 1.0.0, the packages are quite mature and should be the best option. The easyinstall command may or may not still work. Additionally installations done with the easyinstall will prove harder to upgrade than those done with the packaged solutions.
All versions of WACS include the wacssetup configuration tool to provide an easy web-based setup interface replacing what easyinstall used to do.
This the only option available for any kind of unsupported operating system platform and on a web site hosting provider where you have no root system administrator access and no control over the filesystem layout. The instructions later in this guide take you through all of the tasks needed step by step. This does assume some basic familiarity with command line operation of the Linux/Unix environment and a reasonable knowledge of the software installation policies of the operating system in question. In the case of a web hosting provider, you will need some familiarity with their setup tools and utilities.