Meldware Installation Guide v 1.0M8
From Buni.org
Contents |
Introduction
Meldware is installed/initially configured via a graphical installer. The installer can be downloaded and launched or clicked on from the Downloads section of our homepage.
Requirements
Meldware Communication Suite requires the Java Runtime Environment 5.0 (aka 1.5) or later for its server-side components. You can download the Java Runtime for your platform or if you're installing via webstart and your browser, often the browser will find it as a plugin. We recommend Java 6.0 (aka 1.6) update 2 or higher for maximum performance.
The Meldware Web Client and Meldware Secure Administrator require Adobe Flash Player 9 which you can download from Adobe's site. The Flash player must exist on the client and need not exist on the server. From a server-side perspective the Flash Player and browser simply download a SWF file hosted by Meldware's built in HTTP component.
Walkthrough
Starting
Either download Meldware 1.0-M8 by clicking on the webstart install or by downloading the jar and running "java -jar buni-meldware-1.0-M8.jar" from a command prompt. Skip the next section if you have launched from the command prompt.
Web Start
When you click on the webstart link from above or the downloads page, you should see a dialog similar to the below (the screenshot is from Mozilla Firefox) asking what you want to do with buni-meldware-1.0-M8.jnlp. You should select to open it with Java 5.0 or later (per the Requirements above).
If everything works out you should see a Java splash screen followed by a downloading dialog similar to the one below. The download can take some time as the actual binary jar file is > 55mb in size. After the download completes a Meldware splash screen appears.
General
After you start the installation process via the above webstart or command-line process you should see a Meldware splash screen similar to the one above. The installer provides translations in English as well as Japanese (however the readme has not yet been translated). Select your language and click Next.
This brings you to the credits, listing the main contributors to the software. Admire them and click next.
The next screen provides a readme. Ignore it and click Next :-).
Following this you'll find the license. Meldware is distributed under the LGPL 2.0 License. NOT LEGAL ADVICE: This means in essence it is okay to embed it but if you edit our code and distribute those changes then you must donate those changes back and they remain free software. You must agree to the license and click next.
This brings you to a screen asking where you'd like to install MCS 1.0-M8. You must have rights to this directory. Select one and click next.
You should receive a warning that the directory will be created. If the directory already exists, you should rethink this and cancel as the install process wasn't really meant to install over an older version. Uninstall that one first or install this in a different location. If you're happy with the location click OK.
You're asked to select what packs you want to install. Presently the webmail depends on the calendar server. The admin depends on the mail and calendar server. The only thing that doesn't depend on anything else really is the calendar server itself and the mail server, but having a GUI is really helpful when creating users. So in essence: don't deselect anything. If you are using postgresql or mysql you can select to install the drivers for those databases. If you are using Oracle or a proprietary database you'll need to install the driver for it after the install (we cannot distribute it due to its license). Meldware 1.0-M8 embeds a copy of JBoss Application Server 4.0.4 which provides it with http, security and datasources (among other things). You can potentially use a later version of JBAS, but most likely you'll need to compile MCS against that version. The installer presently is not capable of installing MCS into an existing version of JBAS so just leave that checked. When you have selected what packs you wanted (primarily DB) click next.
The next screen you will see is for configuring the SMTP service. This is the SMTP-SERVER protocol. Many UNIX users would call this combined with the SMTP-CLIENT that send the mails to other SMTP servers -- the "MTA". You will need to enable this (default) if you want to receive mail from the internet. The default port is port 25. This is the IANA "well-known" port for SMTP. On many unix systems operating on this port will require running Meldware as root (which we do not recommend). Consider setting this to 9025 and using iptables port forwarding to forward port 25 to port 9025.
TLS in this context means that the port is not encrypted when it answers the connection but at some point the client requests encryption. Not all end-user clients support this encryption and almost no MTAs do for transmitting mail over the internet. If you are willing to restrict your users to mail clients that support TLS, then select "TLS required for authentication". If not, we recommend providing TLS support. TLS requires generally cannot be used unless you're going to only permit users to receive mail from other users of the system.
MCS cannot be configured for open mail relay. Un-checking "Authentication Allowed" (enabled by default) means that the server will not accept mail except for mail destined for a local mailbox. You might uncheck this and require all local users to use SMTP/SSL (configured next).
Most SMTP servers allow anything in the "From:" header of an email, allowing mail to appear to have come from anyone (santa@northpole.com) provided the user is authenticated. If "verify identity" is checked then users can only send mail "From" one of their aliases configured on the server. Attempting to send mail "From:" another user than you are authenticated will result in an error.
If you are happy with your SMTP service configuration click next.
