Table of Contents
This document describes how to quickly install the BigWorld Server and Tools in order to see an operational environment up and running in the shortest possible time. This document assumes you have read the Server Overview and understand the basic interaction between BigWorld server processes.
As the majority of this installation procedure is automated, this mechanism of installation may not be suited for more advanced users who are experienced with BigWorld and wish to customise the installation process. For more advanced installation documentation, please refer to Appendix D, Creating a custom BigWorld server installation.
The BigWorld server will run on most mainstream PC desktop hardware providing it is 64 bit (x86_64). For a detailed description of hardware requirements and recommendations for the BigWorld server please refer to Appendix A, Hardware Requirements.
The BigWorld server tools have a recommended minimum hardware configuration as follows:
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1GHz CPU
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1GB RAM
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30GB Hard disk (for main OS install)
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120GB Hard disk (for logging)
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100Mbit NIC
If an external machine is hosting the MySQL server for use with WebConsole and StatLogger, we recommend that machine to have similar specifications. We also recommend that the network link between the machine hosting the WebConsole and/or StatLogger and the link to the MySQL server be low-latency and high capacity for best performance.
CentOS 5 64 bit is the recommended platform for development and production environments, however both RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 and CentOS 5 are supported. For instructions on installing CentOS 5, please refer to Appendix B, Installing CentOS 5.
Other software dependencies should automatically be met by the RPM dependency list when installing packages from an RPM
While reading this document there are some subtle conventions we use to distinguish between different situations. One of these conventions is the difference we use between commands that are intended to be run as the root user as opposed to a command to be run in a normal user account. This difference is signficant in the same way as requiring Administrator access on a Windows machine.
Commands to be run as root will be prefixed with a "#" symbol, while commands to be run as a regular user will be prefixed with a "$" symbol.
For example, if we wanted to run the command 'cat /proc/1/mem' as the root user we would express it as:
# cat /proc/1/mem
Whereas if it were to be run as a regular user it would look like:
$ cat /proc/1/mem
Where possible we try and be explicit with regard to how a command should be run, however this visual indication should assist you if there is any confusion.
IBM provides a useful Linux tutorial, which explains the root user and details the methods of switching between accounts. If you are new to Linux, you should read this tutorial before continuing. It is available at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/tutorials/l-basics/section5.html.
Another convention we use is to italicise parts of commands that you should substitute for the value relevant to your situation or needs.
For example, if we wanted to use the command 'useradd', which is followed by a new username, we would express it as:
$ useradd usernameThis can help to prevent ambiguity in some complex or unfamiliar commands that are used in this document.