PhixFlow Server Installation

Download and Unpack the Release Package

Copy the PhixFlow release package with a name matching phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd.zip to the release area $RELEASE on the server. By default $RELEASE is at [c:]/opt/phixflow/release.

Unix

Change the owner and group of the release package to tomcat:phixflow:

chown phixflow-x.y.z-yyymmdd.zip tomcat:phixflow

Switch to the tomcat user (makes sure that login scripts are run. The syntax for this may vary between operating systems:

sudo -i -u tomcat

Change back to the release directory and unzip / unpack the release:

unzip phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd.zip

Windows

Unzip the release package using WINZIP or similar.

Release contents

On both linux and windows this will create a release with the following contents:

phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd
phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd/install
phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd/webapps
phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd/README.txt

Setting up the PhixFlow Database

The schema installation has 4 main steps, regardless of platform:

1. Create the database user
2. Create the tables required
3. Populate them with initial configuration data
4. Set the customer name

All of the commands below should be run from an operating system command window e.g. bash (Linux) or cmd (Windows), and the current directory should be set to that containing the installation instructions for the target platform.

E.g.

cd $RELEASE/phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd/install

Create the database user

Creating the database user is heavily dependent on the database platform, and will often have to be varied to meet local requirements regarding naming and security. These example commands will be adequate for basic installations.

sqlplus SYS/SYSPassword@SID as SYSDBA @schema/oracle/install/create_user

sqlcmd -S localhost\myservice -i schema/sql_server/install/create_database_and_user.sql -v dbName="phixflow" dbLogin="phixflow" dbUser="phixflow" dbPassword="mypass"

mysql --user=<myrootuser> --password

create database phixflow CHARACTER SET = 'utf8' COLLATE = 'utf8_bin';
grant all privileges on phixflow.* to '<myuser>'@'%' identified by '<mypass>';
exit

Populate the Database

Once you have created the database and/or database user, run the Installer to create the database tables and initial data.

The customer name in the commands below must exactly match the customer name used by PhixFlow Support to generate licence files. This argument (–customer="Your Customer Name") is optional, but without a valid customer name and matching licence key you will not be able to run any tasks in PhixFlow.

cd $RELEASE/phixflow-x.y.z-yyyymmdd/install

Oracle:

java -jar bin/installer.jar -url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:phixflow" -user=myuser -pass=mypass -install -customer="Your Customer Name"

SQL Server:

java -jar bin/installer.jar -url="jdbc:sqlserver://myhost\myserver;database=phixflow" -user=myuser -pass=mypass -install -customer="Your Customer Name"

MySQL:

java -jar bin/installer.jar -url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/phixflow" -user=<myuser> -pass=<mypass> -install -customer="Your Customer Name"

Further information on the installer

The database installation is now complete. For further information on the installer:

• See the appendices for how to specify URLs for the database platforms supported by PhixFlow
  
  
• To see all available options for the installer:

java -jar bin/installer.jar -help

Install the Webapp in the Tomcat application server

Copy or Move the PhixFlow web application into Tomcat

To install the PhixFlow web application into Tomcat:

Copy $RELEASE/webapps/phixflow to $TOMCAT/webapps/phixflow

Configure phixflow-datasource.xml

The PhixFlow webapp must be configured to give access to the database user that has been created to hold the PhixFlow data.

In $TOMCAT/webapps/phixflow/WEB-INF/classes, copy phixflow-datasource.xml.<database>.example to phixflow-datasource.xml and edit the properties for <bean id="dataSource"...., e.g.:

<property name="url">
	<value>[CONNECTION STRING]</value>
</property>
<property name="username">
	<value>[USERNAME]</value>
</property>
<property name="password">
	<value>[PASSWORD]</value>
</property>

Connection Strings

See also Database URLs for how to specify connection string URLs for the various database platforms supported by PhixFlow.

The platform-specific [CONNECTION STRING]s are:

Oracle:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@hostname:1521:phixflow

Oracle (for containerised instances):

jdbc:oracle:thin:@hostname:1521/phixflow

SQL Server:

jdbc:sqlserver://hostname\myservice;databaseName=phixflow

MySQL:

jdbc:mysql://hostname/phixflow

Configure phixflow-instance.xml

The PhixFlow webapp instance must be configured to identify the instance and set whether the instance is active on startup.

For a single instance, non-resilient configuration, simply copy the example file phixflow-instance.xml.example to phixflow-instance.xml.

Resilient Configuration

A resilient PhixFlow configuration consists of 2 or more web applications all connected to a common database and configured such that at any one time, only one is active; the other instances will monitor the first and one will take over if they detect that the first has failed.

In such a configuration, set the instance name and id for each PhixFlow webapp instance to unique values and set leaderOnStartup to “true” for an instance if it should become active immediately on startup.

 e.g.:

<!-- The instance name must be different for each member of the cluster -->
<bean id="clusterInstance"
	class="com.accipia.phixflow.service.cluster.main.ClusterInstance"
	p:name="MAIN"
	p:id=”1”
	p:leaderOnStartup="true"
/>

See Configuring for Resilience for more information.

Configure phixflow-domains.xml

The PhixFlow webapp can be configured to authenticate users’ usernames and passwords against an external Domain / Active Directory server.

If you don’t want want to enable domain logins, simply copy the example file provided.

For more information on how to configure for domain logins, see the PhixFlow Active Directory Guide.

Configure log4j.properties

The log4j.properties file controls detailed event/error logging on the server.

To configure for default logging:

1. Open or cd to $TOMCAT/webapps/phixflow/WEB-INF/classes
2. Copy log4j.properties.example to log4j.properties

It is not necessary to make any changes to this file unless so instructed by PhixFlow Support.

Multiple PhixFlow instances

To install multiple instances of PhixFlow on a single server, complete the installation steps above to create a first PhixFlow instance. Then install a further instance:

• Create a second database user to hold the data for the new instance.
• Copy the PhixFlow web application into the Tomcat again:

cp $RELEASE/webapps/phixflow to $TOMCAT/webapps/alternative_name

where “alternative_name” is the name of your test system.

• Be sure to set up a separate user and schema in the database for the new PhixFlow instance and to set phixflow-datasource.xml as needed
• To ensure log messages are sent to a separate file, change the following line in log4j.properties

log4j.appender.myAppender.file=logs/ alternative_name.log

• To allow a user to view this instance of PhixFlow at the same time as the default instance, edit $TOMCAT/webapps/alternative_name/index.html:

Find the line containing the call to window.open and change the 2^nd parameter from ‘PhixFlow’ to ‘alternative_name’