Installing the Tallis Web Enactment Suite
Rory Steele (July 2003)
Contents
Prerequisites for Tallis Web Enactment Suite
Installing the Tallis Web Enactment Suite
Appendix A: Installing the Java 2 SDK platform
Appendix B: Installing the Tomcat web server
Introduction
This document tells you how to install and run the Tallis Web Enactment Suite, which allows PROforma process descriptions to be published and enacted over the web. This process involves sending process descriptions to a server and “enacting” (stepping through) them using a browser.
This document also briefly explains how to install two other software components that you will need, namely the Java 2 platform and the Tomcat web server.
Prerequisites for Tallis Web Enactment Suite
To install and run the Tallis Web Enactment Suite the following steps must have been completed:
- Installed the Java 2 SDK platform (version 1.4 or greater) on your machine (see Appendix A for details)
- Installed the Tomcat web server (version 4.1.18 or greater) on your machine (see Appendix B for details)
Please note that throughout this document a number of aliases are used to refer to URLs or file paths:
- TOMCAT_HOME is a file path and points to the folder of your Apache Tomcat installation (see Appendix B for further details)
- TOMCAT_URL is the URL to your Tomcat server (see Appendix B for further details)
- ENACTMENT_URL is the URL to your web application (see Appendix B for further details)
Installing the Tallis Web Enactment Suite
Before installing the Tallis Web Enactment Suite, check in the folder TOMCAT_HOME/webapps and see whether it contains a directory called enactment. If it does, rename or copy the directory to prevent your previous content being overwritten.
Installation is achieved by downloading the tallis.war file via ACL website (http://acl.icnet.uk/TallisTraining/Downloads.htm) and saving it in the TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory.
Checking the installation
To check that the installation has completed successfully, complete the following steps:
- Ensure Tomcat is running (see Appendix B for details)
- Restart Tomcat if necessary
- Open a web browser and browse to ENACTMENT_URL/Sanity.page. You should now be looking at a valid HTML page indicating there were no problems with the installation
Running the Tallis Enactor
To run the Tallis Enactor, complete the following steps:
- Ensure Tomcat is running (see Appendix B for details)
- Open a web browser and browse to ENACTMENT_URL/. You should now be looking at the root page of the Enactment application. If this doesn’t work, try restarting Apache Tomcat
- On the left hand side of the page is the Protocol Repository. The list of available folders and protocols should be displayed. If they are not displayed, try restarting Tomcat
Appendix A: Installing the Java 2 SDK platform
The Tallis software has been tested with version 1.4.0 of the Java SDK platform.
The Java 2 SDK platform may be downloaded from the following URL http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/download.html.
Appendix B: Installing the Tomcat web server
You will also need to install the Tomcat web server on your machine to enable you to use the Tallis Web Enactment Suite to test protocols locally. The Tallis Web Enactment Suite requires at least version 4.1.18 of Tomcat. It might work with earlier versions but will not be supported.
The steps to install Tomcat are:
- Download the latest Jakarta-Tomcat release executable from http://jakarta.apache.org/site/downloads/downloads_tomcat-5.cgi (download version 5.0.28)
- Install Tomcat by running the file you just downloaded. Note that Tomcat will act as a standalone web server, so you don’t need to install Apache as well. Note also that standalone tomcat will run on port 8080
- If Tomcat has been installed in ‘C:\Program Files\Apache Tomcat 4.1’ (the default directory), the TOMCAT_HOME variable would correspond to the path ‘C:\Program Files\Apache Tomcat 4.1’
- If the installation is for a Win32 machine, the self-extracting installation will prompt you for an admin password. REMEMBER THIS PASSWORD
- If the installation is for a (l)unix machine, you may need to add an admin role to the TOMCAT_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml (for further details see http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-4.1-doc/realm-howto.html)
- If Tomcat is running locally on your machine, the TOMCAT_URL would correspond to the URL http://localhost:8080/.
To check that the installation has completed successfully:
- Click on the Start button and select Programs->Apache Tomcat 4.1.x->Start Tomcat
- Open a web browser and browse to TOMCAT_URL. You should then see the Tomcat home page
To install a web application within Tomcat, it is simply a matter of copying the relevant directory or .war file into the TOMCAT_HOME/webapps directory. The URL of the installed application (ENACTMENT_URL) would then be TOMCAT_URL/WEB_APP. For an installed directory this would be TOMCAT_URL/DIRECTORY_NAME and for an installation via a .war file, TOMCAT_URL/WAR_NAME.
For example, if the tallis.war file was installed, the ENACTMENT_URL would be http://localhost:8080/tallis.