Orca
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Orca can be executed from the command line or deployed inside a Tomcat server as a web application. In this guide we describe the steps necessary to run Orca as a web application. For instructions about running Orca from the command line, please refer to the Command Line Guide .
To run Orca as a web application you need the following:
The Orca web portal files are located under $ORCA_HOME/portal/webapp. We will refer to this directory as $ORCA_WEB. The directory has the following structure:
Before using this project you need to customize it. There are several levels of customization:
This level of customization involves overriding properties set in ant/build.properties and ant/tests.properties . To override a property defined in build.properties, create ant/user.properties and put your values. Do not edit build.properties unless you want those edits to be committed to the repository. user.properties should not be added to version control.
Similarly, to override a property defined in tests.properties, create ant/user.tests.properties and put your values in it.
This level customization involves modifying Orca configuration files so that they reflect the properties of your installation.
To begin customizing the Orca configuration files, type the following in your terminal (all commands are executed inside $ORCA_HOME/run):
ant copy.local
This command will create a directory called local , which will contain a copy of the template configuration files. The build process will always fetch the latest version of the Standard Management package, the Standard Image Manager package, and the core and standard handler packages. If you require other packages to be added to the web application, you can do so by copying their archives to the startup folder.
The next step you must perform is to create the admin security configuration. This step is described here . Once you have created the admin security configuration copy the resulting runtime folder so that it resides under $ORCA_HOME/run.
If you did not change the database defaults during the database configuration steps , you are now ready to create the web application. If you, however, modified the defaults, you will need to make some changes to the configuration files
FIXME: Rebalance with container config guide.
The Orca web application configuration files are stored under $ORCA_WEB/local. There are four groups of configuration files. All files marked in bold require some customization.
This is the container XML configuration file to use when the system boots. This file describes some essential parameters of the Orca system, e.g, timing and database information. In addition, the file can be used to instruct Orca to create one or more actors. The supplied file contains only database and timing information and does not describe any actors. For more information about the format of this file and how to use it please refer to the Container XML Configuration Guide . If you modified the default database parameters you must edit this file.
Orca supplies two sample container XML configuration files. These files can be used only when running the portal under emulation.
Note : The supplied config.xml has contents equivalent to $ORCA_WEB/local/config.full.xml.
This is the container properties file. This file is used to supply configuration information to be accessible by Orca during boot time. Unlike the container XML file, the container properties file provides information, essential for the early initialization stages of the system. This file can also be used to expose any (name,value) pair to code running within Orca. If you are running under emulation, container.properties requires no customization. More information about this file can be found here .
This is the web application context file. The file is used to configure the authentication method used by the Orca web application. The Orca web portal supports form-based and WebAuth-based authentication. If you plan to use form-based authentication and you did not change the database default parameters, there is no need to modify this file. You can find information about customizing context.xml in the Configuring Portal Authentication Guide .
This is the Axis server-side configuration file. This file requires no modifications.
This is the main portal configuration file. It is used to specify the database connection used by the portal. The file also contains some security-related parameters. You can find more details about this configuration file here .
This is the Vservlet configuration file. This file requires no modifications.
This is the web application configuration file. It is used to configure the application-specific context inside the web server. This file requires no modifications.
| Configuration File Name | Module Name |
| imagemanager.properties | Standard Image Manager |
Please consult the Inventory Guide for information about configuring and registering inventory.
Please consult the Images Guide for information about installing and registering virtual and physical machine images.
Once all customization phases are complete, you are ready to build the Orca web application. To do this type the following in your terminal
cd $ORCA_HOME/portal/webapp mvn package
The above command will create the Orca web application archive (orca.war). The archive will be located at: $ORCA_HOME/portal/webapp/target/orca.war
Before deploying the web application, make sure you have a running Tomcat web server and that the web application has been built. There are two ways to deploy the web application:
Copy $ORCA_HOME/portal/webapp/target/orca.war to your web server's webapps directory. If your web server's address is http://orcawebserver, you can access the Orca Web Portal at http://orcawebserver/orca.
You can deploy the web application using Tomcat's Admin servlet. This method requires that you configure Tomcat with a user authorized to deploy web applications. You can find more details about installing and configuring Tomcat here .
Once you have configured Tomcat, you must customize ant/build.properties to match your setup. Interaction with the Tomcat server is controlled by the following properties:
These properties are define in ant/build.properties. If you wish to override them, please define your values in ant/user.properties.
If you have completed the web server and build configuration, start the web server and type the following in your terminal:
cd $ORCA_HOME/portal/webapp ant deploy
If the web portal has been successfully deployed to Tomcat, you are ready to use the system. To access the web portal, one must have a property authorized user account. The first login to the system must be done by the administrative user. The container XML configuration files supplied with the web portal installation define the administrative user's credentials to be: