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Misc. notes from installing OpenMeetings and the OpenMeetings plugin for Moodle:
1) Go to the Google Code page for OpenMeetings
2) Download the following and put them in a work folder:
- openmeetings051.zip - openmeetings_moodle_plugin_v02.zip - openmeetingsaudience_moodle_plugin_v02.zip
3) Go to the installation page and read the requirements.
Note: the above installation was performed on top of Unbuntu 8.04, running MySQL 5.0.51a. Contrary to the install docs, MySQL on Ubuntu does listen on TCP/IP port. It's only listening on IP address 127.0.0.1 though. You may need to change this if your OpenMeetings server is going to be on a different box than your MySQL server.
4) Stop your MySQL server and add the following lines to /etc/mysql/my.conf
[mysqld] default-character-set=utf8 character-set-server=utf8 [client] default-character-set=utf8
Note: I added them right before the lines that look like (near the end):
# # * IMPORTANT: Additional settings that can override those from this file! # The files must end with '.cnf', otherwise they'll be ignored. #
5) Restart your MySQL service
6) Fire off your Synaptic Package Manager and make sure the following packages are installed.
- GhostScript - ImageMagick - libpaper-utils - msttcorefonts - openoffice.org-base - openoffice.org-calc - openoffice.org-draw - openoffice.org-filter-binfilter - openoffice.org-filter-mobiledev - openoffice.org-headless, - openoffice.org-impress - openoffice.org-math - openoffice.org-writer - pstoedit - SWFTools - ttf-dejavu - netbeans
Note: you may have to run "System - Administration - Software Sources" and enable the extra repositories (do not add the repository as suggested in the OpenOfficeConverter docs, it'll break your stuff!).
Note: If you care to, the test script on the OpenOfficeConverter Install page should work now. However, only for the first step (you don't have the RED5 server installed yet).
Update: If you haven't already done it, be sure to install netbeans. (I missed this during the previous version of this howto.) Red5 will not run without it.
7) Download and install Adobe's Flash Player 10 beta
8) Go to the RED5 Open Source Flash Server web page and download version 0.7.0 of the software (Hint: if you right click on "Red5_0.7.0_all.deb", choose the "GDebi Package Installer" instead of saving it as a file. This will cause the installer to also grab the Java packages.)
Note: If you properly installed Adobe Flash Player 10 beta (in step 7), the bee at the top of the RED5 page should be moving.
9) Move the openmeetings051.zip file (that you downloaded earlier) into /usr/lib/red5/webapps/ and unzip it.
10) cd into /usr/lib/red5/webapps/openmeetings/conf
11) mv any_hibernate.xml old.any_hibernate.xml.old
12) cp mysql_hibernate.cfg.xml hibernate.cfg.xml
13) Log into MySQL and create a database called "openmeetings". Grant permissions on it via:
grant all on openmeetings.* to SamFrank@localhost identified by "disco";
Be sure to change "SamFrank" to whatever you want the username to be, and "disco" to whatever you want the password to be. (Apologies for the reference to the ancient Sinatra joke.)
14) Open hibernate.xml in your favorite text editor and look for the following three lines. Change them to appropriate values (what you used in step 13).
<property name="connection.username">SamFrank</property> <property name="connection.password">disco</property> <property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://YOUR_HOSTNAME/YOUR_DATABASE</property>
Most will leave the username as "root". The connection URL may already be different that the below. If it is, leave it alone (for now). Here's what my "connection.url" line looks like:
<property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost/openmeetings?useUnicode=true &createDatabaseIfNotExist=true&characterEncoding=utf-8</property>
Note: The above should all be on one line. You'll run into trouble if you cut and paste it without editing.
15) Edit /usr/lib/red5/webapps/openmeetings/WEB-INF/web.xml. Look for the following:
<!-- This will only work for Red5-0.6.3 !!
in 0.7 this throws an Error and the App will not start -->
<context-param>
<param-name>log4jConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/log4j.properties</param-value>
</context-param>
and make it look like:
<!-- This will only work for Red5-0.6.3 !!
in 0.7 this throws an Error and the App will not start
<context-param>
<param-name>log4jConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/log4j.properties</param-value>
</context-param>
-->
Basically, you're commenting out this section. Notice that the "close comment" code moves from the second line to after the close tag for the section. For anything other than Red5 v0.6.3, this funciton throws an error and keeps the RED5 server from starting.
16) Stop and start the RED5 server
service red5 stop service red5 start
Note: I forgot to mention that I also installed the SYSV service management package. This is just a convenience for me. You don't need this, just use whatever method with which you're comfortable.
17) point a Windows browser at http://localhost:5080/openmeetings/install and follow the prompts. You should see something like the following:
18) Click on "Continue with Step 1"
19) Fill in "Username", "Userpass", "Email", and "Name" (I used "admin", "password", "joat@757.org", and "Openmeetings 0.5.1 (r1406)". This last entry is the title for your site. You can ignore the other settings for now.
20) Click on "Install" (at the bottom of the screen). The service then goes off and does a lot of stuff, such as building databases tables and the like. Give it a few minutes to do its job. If everything went well, you should see:
21) Click on "Enter the Application". The browswer should redirect to http://localhost:5080/openmeetings and you should be presented with the login page.
22) Log in with the username and userpass you created in Step 19. To test the video, click on "Goto Conference".
Contents |
Status
13 Sep 2008: The issue with the web cam appears to have been caused by another app seizing the cam as soon as it was available. It works now. Now to attack the desktop-sharing issue. 5 July 2008: I now have the install to the point where I can connect from a Windows XP box and pass video into the conference room. I have an issue with the Linux web cam which I will work on over the next few days. In the screen capture below, the video on the left is from an XP box in the same network as the Linux-based server. The video on the right is supposed to be from the Linux web cam but I'm having issues in getting Java to talk to it. (Note: I'm using the same make/model of crappy web cam on both ends.)
Troubleshooting
1) The following error is caused by following my earlier direction to call the hibernate config file "hibernate.xml" vice "hibernate.cfg.xml". (Hint: use "hibernate.cfg.xml")
NetConnection.Call.Failed rtmpt://localhost:8088/openmeetings/hibernate
Sources