10.7. Setup of the ComPact Resource Service

If you have a network with several local ComPact installations, you will want to install the central ComPact configuration resource service to distribute standard and default configuration resources throughout the network.

The installation of this service is very easy; it consists of the following steps:

1. Run the service agent netobjd on your server machine by running it from the command line in the background and/or inserting its startup into the local system startup scripts. This service agent listens for requests from server and client programs on the well-known TCP port 9786. Only one instance of this server may be running at any time. Its purpose can be compared with that of the SUN RPC portmapper, only that object method instead of procedures can be invoked remotely in a transparent way.

2. Define where the ComPact resource service looks for your resources. Either use the compactrsrcdrc file bundled with the server, or create your own. The bundled version contains the following definitions:

   # Default configuration for the Elego ComPact configuration resource service
   default         "/usr/contrib/lib/compact;/usr/local/lib/compact;/lib/compact;/opt/compact;/usr/contrib/compact;/usr/local/compact;c:/compact;d:/compact"
   compactrc       "{?HOME}/compact;/usr/contrib/lib/compact;/usr/local/lib/compact;/lib/compact;/opt/compact;/usr/contrib/compact;/usr/local/compact;c:/compact;d:/compact"
   

   
   
   

3. Copy the desired resource files from the CDROM and adapt them to your needs. Put them into one of the locations defined in the compactrsrcdrc resource paths.

4. If you use the bundled configuration, start the server with

   compactrsrcd &
   

   If you've customized the service configuration, use

   compactrsrcd -config my-compactrsrcd-config &
   

   
   
   

5. To make the ComPact programs contact the service and obtain their resources from it, the environment variable COMPACTSERVER must be set on the machines the programs run on. It contains the hostname (resolved by the domain name service) or the internet address of the machine running the server. To check if the remote resources are actually used, start the client programs with the verbose option -v, and they will output all resource accesses.

That's it. You should also have a look at the manual pages of the ComPact resource server and the netobj service agent. Use the commands

   man netobjd
    compactrsrcd -man

to list the online manuals.