2009-08-28T03:36:01Z

Spatialguru: more to come.. saving interim notes

== Intro ==
MapServer is a web-based mapping platform, power many large enterprise mapping requirements. It runs as a CGI or through its various API hooks in Python, PHP, Ruby and more. A simple configuration file defines how your spatial data will be accessed and rendered. A basic web templating system is also included for easy testing through basic HTML.

Learn more about MapServer at [http://www.mapserver.org mapserver.org]. MapServer is an [http://www.osgeo.org OSGeo] project.

== Installing ==
These are the long form notes for getting MapServer running in Amahi. Soon this will become a one-click installer package from the HDA interface.

=== Packages ===
Install MapServer package using the ''yum'' installer, also include the proj library support files (epsg):
yum install mapserver epsg

The process discovers about 12 other packages that fulfill its dependencies. Overall install takes about 16MB of space. Here's a list of the other packages it installs.

cfitsio.i386 0:3.130-3.fc9 fftw2.i386 0:2.1.5-16.fc9
gdal.i386 0:1.5.3-1.fc9 geos.i386 0:2.2.3-1.fc7
grass-libs.i386 0:6.3.0-6.fc9 hdf5.i386 0:1.8.1-1.fc9
libdap.i386 0:3.7.10-2.fc9 libgeotiff.i386 0:1.2.5-2.fc9
librx.i386 0:1.5-10.fc9 netcdf.i386 0:3.6.3-1.fc9
ogdi.i386 0:3.2.0-0.11.beta2.fc9 proj.i386 0:4.5.0-4.fc9

=== Files ===
The ''rpm -ql mapserver'' command will list all the installed files from the MapServer package. The main executable is located at:
/usr/sbin/mapserv

And test files from:
/usr/share/doc/mapserver-5.2.2/tests

Are set up automatically by the HDA installer, into the MapServer Amahi web app:
/var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/html/test

These don't do anything with the web interface at all yet, though from the command line you can test that MapServer is installed okay by doing the following:
cd /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/html/tests
shp2img -m test.map -o testoutput.png

Then you should be able to view the output through your Amahi MapServer service at: http://mapserver/tests/testoutput.png

It ain't pretty, but is a simple test the developers use.

== Server Setup ==
As part of the installation the mapserv CGI file will get put in its own folder for Amahi and the httpd conf.d file is edited to allow the CGI to be executed.

mkdir /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/cgi-bin
cp /usr/sbin/mapserv /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/cgi-bin
chown -r apache.apache /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/cgi-bin

This section is added to the middle of the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/1026-mapserver.conf:
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/cgi-bin
Alias /tmp /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/tmp
<Directory "/var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/cgi-bin">
Options +ExecCGI
</Directory>

After this, running ''/etc/init.d/httpd reload'' may be necessary if you are doing it manually.

Now you should be able to test that the mapserv CGI executes by going to:
http://mapserver/cgi-bin/mapserver. The response should be:
No query information to decode. QUERY_STRING is set, but empty.

Also we create a temporary folder for holding our map images:
cd /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver
mkdir tmp
chown -r apache.apache tmp

Now, onto more useful stuff, building a sample application.

== A Sample Application ==
The package will install a demo application based on the Global Mapping project mentioned in [http://webmappingillustrated.com Web Mapping Illustrated] by Tyler Mitchell. :-)

cd /var/hda/web-apps/mapserver/html
wget http://spatialguru.com/maps/apps/global.tar.gz

MapServer

2009-08-28T02:57:50Z

Spatialguru: interim save.. more to come

Pro Version Requirements

2009-08-16T07:09:36Z

Spatialguru: added a few more app types and example apps

== What Is The Pro Version? ==
It's an imaginary concept, answering the question of:

''"How can Amahi help those who want to use it in a small/medium business environment?"''

Quite often this also means:

''"What additional features should it have before we can say Amahi is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium_enterprises SME] friendly?'''

Maybe, one day, the features required will be enough for the Amahi project to advance beyond the '''home''' market. This page is to help capture those requirements.

== Primary Philosophy ==

Rather than start with a list of technical features, a brief discussion of the philosophy of a '''"pro version"''' is necessary. In a nutshell, it would have to address a few broad areas including:
* group/user level security options for managing enterprise access
* network management and monitoring tools to keep things running
* supporting core business applications suited for the Amahi environment
* window dressing - making it look as sharp as possible

=== Security Requirements ===
Additional features in the Amahi platform would need to deal with more diverse user and group level permissions. These would limit access to Amahi dashboard in general, but would also manage access to specific installed applications and services.

=== Network Management ===
SME requirements for network administration tools vary, though several fundamental tasks can be considered, with the goal of addressing them through Amahi. Particularly needed are network monitoring tools (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNMP SNMP-related]) as well as tools for administering Amahi or other servers on the network. Other tasks such as creating shares and managing file system level tasks are also important.
* Monitor network bandwidth use
* Manage subnets
* Administer network settings, DHCP, DNS
* Virus protection

=== Core Business Applications ===
SME business needs are often quite simple. A handful of well integrated applications can meet the needs of most organisational or small corporate environments. Core applications would range from communications through to media management tools and services.
* Email server and related administration tools (e.g. user management, editing settings, managing services)
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management CRM] (Customer relationship management) tools
* Additional [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN VPN] options
* Groupware tools - integrated email, contacts, calendar, document management, project management, etc.
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOIP VOIP] server

=== Specific Applications ===
Here are a few of the apps considered to meet the above requirements:
* CRM: SugarCRM
* VPN: Cisco VPN
* Groupware: Zimbra, Scalix, eGroupWare
* ... what else?

[[Category:Pro Version]]
__notoc__

2009-08-16T01:08:31Z

Spatialguru:

Pro Version Requirements

2009-08-16T01:04:06Z

Spatialguru: starting page..

== What Is The Pro Version ==
It's an imaginary concept, answering the question of ''"How can Amahi help those who want to use it in a small/medium business environment?"'''. Quite often this also means "What additional features should it have before we can say Amahi is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium_enterprises SME] friendly?''' Maybe, one day, the features required will be enough for the Amahi project to advance beyond the '''home''' market. This page is to help capture those requirements.

== Primary Philosophy ==

Rather than start with a list of technical features, a brief discussion of the philosophy of a '''"pro version"''' is necessary. In a nutshell, it would have to address a few broad areas including:
* group/user level security options for managing enterprise access
* network management and monitoring tools to keep things running
* supporting core business applications
* window dressing - making it look as sharp as possible

=== Security Requirements ===
Additional features in the Amahi platform would need to deal with more diverse user and group level permissions. These would limit access to Amahi dashboard in general, but would also limit access to specific installed applications and services.

... more to come as I try to clean up [[SOHO Features]]

File:Egroupware-screen.png

2009-05-01T06:23:59Z

Spatialguru:

File:Egroupware logo.png

2009-05-01T06:23:27Z

Spatialguru:

Talk:FreeNX

2009-04-24T23:25:01Z

Spatialguru: New page: This app is also known as NX or Nomachine. Just adding this note so searching folks will find it. Goto FreeNX

This app is also known as NX or Nomachine. Just adding this note so searching folks will find it. Goto [[FreeNX]]

FreeNX

2009-04-24T23:24:37Z

Spatialguru: minor update to syntax: Package freenx is obsoleted by freenx-server, trying to install freenx-server...

Okay, I have successfully installed FreeNX server on the Amahi HDA. Here are the steps to get it up and running. It is fairly straight forward and easy, although there is one point that can be a little confusing but that is during the client setup, not the server.

First, log into your hda and open a terminal window.

Second, run this command to install FreeNX:

[root@localhost ~]# yum install freenx-server

That's it. FreeNX should now be installed and running on your HDA. In order to use FreeNX, you will need a client to connect with. Go to http://www.nomachine.com/download.php and select the one for your appropriate operating system.

After downloading and installing the client, you will need to copy the client.id_dsa.key into the client. What I did was to scp the key from my server (/etc/nxserver/client.id_dsa.key) to my local system, open the file in a text editor, copy everything in it and paste it into the client. In my client this was under "Configure" then on the "General" tab, there is a button labeled "Key". This is where I pasted the client key information.

*NOTE* If you miss or overlook the step for the client key configuration, the client will attempt to use a default key for the HDA, and this does not work.

Finally, save the configuration, and then run the client to log into the HDA.

[[Category:Apps]]

TorrentFlux-b4rt

2009-04-14T01:47:10Z

Spatialguru: start page

[[Category:Apps]]

Tor

2009-03-11T23:21:30Z

Spatialguru:

Having HDA use Tor as an option would be very interesting to many. I'll write up the instructions as I worked through them, starting with here:
http://fedorasolved.org/Members/uselesslogic/anonymous-browsing-with-tor

== Rough Notes ==
* yum install tor privoxy (will include tor-core tor-lsb packages)
* to be continued...

User:Spatialguru

2008-11-17T18:16:50Z

Spatialguru: add email gateway idea and IRC proxy

'''What to talk? Meet me in IRC or leave a note on my [[User_talk:Spatialguru | discussion page]]'''. You can also read my personal (non-Amahi) blog at [http://spatialguru.com spatialguru.com].
------
I started using and testing Amahi in Sept. 09 - starting with helping to test Fedora 9. Enough about that.. I'm using this page to keep bookmarks for related technology I'm looking at trying to use with Amahi. Or just fun looking stuff that would be cool to do with it.

== Branding ==
* Setting '''Firefox''' default home page URL to amahi.org.
** Would be cool to set the live bookmarks and other defaults as well
** See [[FirefoxDefaults]] for my progress.
* Set desktop icon for '''Amahi Setup''' to point to app launcher Firefox -> HDA address.

== Applications ==
* What will be done for installing new web apps? Will there be a common online repository location? Any sort of validation/certification of the app? This could be where HDA really takes off, so I'm thrilled to see the web-app setup tab working well.
** A '''gallery''' is already underway at: [http://amahi.org/apps amahi.org/apps] which provides overviews and links to web-apps.
* '''Remote applications''' - in some cases it may be worth investigating an easy solution for running X Window apps from the HDA remotely on client machines. The best cross-platform solution I can think of is having HDA host a pre-configured copy of [http://bellard.org/qemu/ QEMU] that has a mini distribution of Linux, like [http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/index.html DSL] with an X server included. Then it would connect to HDA automatically and do ''something''. Thereby reducing the complexity of having to use X or VNC manually. Of course, the VNC approach may be okay too.
* '''IRC Support Chat''' - include a basic IRC proxy server that automatically connects to the #amahi channel for real time web-based chatting with project support team! '''Currently testing [http://cgiirc.org/ CGI IRC Perl approach]'''
* '''RSS Feed Reader''' - e.g. FOSS [http://gregarius.net/ Gregarius]. Need simple way to run Python apps without installing to primary system Python libs.
* '''Email reader''' - e.g. [http://posterity.edgewall.org/ Posterity]. Need simple way to run Python apps without installing to primary system Python libs.
* Surveying and polling
* [http://egroupware.org eGroupware] - group ware document management, email and more.
* [http://webmin.com webmin] - unix configuration web interface
* [[Mediawiki]] - the default wik platform on Amahi is the MoinMoin wiki. It's easy to install [http://mediawiki.org Mediawiki] as well, using the new web-apps functionality of Amahi. There is still a bit of manual configuration - a couple command line steps, but this will be improved in the near future. See the [[Mediawiki | Amahi Mediawiki]] app page.
* Email gateway for receiving transfers from you@yourhda.com
** with imap and pop support
* IRC proxy server for maintaining persistent connections to IRC channels and logs.
** Preconfigure kopete (or whatever a default IRC app is) to use this proxy

== Backups ==
* '''PBA backups''' don't seem possible with default Mac OS X 10.x BIOS, so maybe running Netboot server on HDA would help somehow. Probably not helpful with backups, but at least letting, say, a Macbook network boot would be really cool.
** [https://www.math.ohio-state.edu/wiki/administration/macosx/netboot/bsdp_with_isc_dhcp Mac OS X BSDP Service using a GNU/Linux Server]
** [http://etherboot.org/wiki/howtos Etherboot howtos]
**[http://www.sysresccd.org/ system rescue cd] might be able to boot it, then let PBA take over. '''tried but didn't get too far'''
* I also wonder if some sort of VM could be run on any client and that would help run some more complex rsync incrementals.. hmm

== Networking ==
* I don't know where it's at already, but '''Printer Sharing''' must be high on some lists. I know I'm sick of having to have a printer tethered to my computer :)
* I'd like some sort of name resolution redundancy so that when HDA goes down, my PCs can at least still surf the 'net. Does that mean having a secondary DNS setup in DHCP?
* '''volume management''' need easy tools for adding new volumes, e.g external drives and setting user parameters, etc. Also do an automated sharepoint mapping samba/nfs for them. Idea being that a user can plug it in and not do anything on the desktop itself.
** NFS shares are defined in ''/etc/exports''. Would be good to have exports that mirror the samba shares - to give more options. I know on Mac it ''seems'' to handle NFS quicker.
* '''Squid''' proxy server can reduce external bandwidth and improve local performance for web browsing. It is installed by default in FC9. It would be good to have for home networks.
** '''Update:''' Some simple configuration worked well for basic browsing. However the various HDA-specific names in the DNS failed. Read more on the [[SquidConfiguration]] page.

== Mapping Applications ==
* I put together this simple web-mapping application demo: HDA [[Maps]]
** Using [http://openlayers.org OpenLayers] and a few simple web mapping services for data. All open source and open data.
* Future ideas, allow data upload to home folder, then run my custom indexing scripts, add them to the map
* Set up a basic WFS (and WMS) that allows users to edit vectors on the map and save them to the HDA.

=== Wireless ===
* Boy, what could be done if HDA supports wireless??

== VPN & Security ==
* Some systems don't support OpenVPN but rather want '''IPSec'''-based VPN.
** It might be worth investigating the use of [http://www.freeswan.org/freeswan_trees/CURRENT-TREE/doc/quickstart.html FreeS/WAN] VPN architecture. Wouldn't it be cool to support '''BOTH with Amahi'''! Then I assume a large swath of potential enterprise software would connect to it (including my phone!).

== Built-Ins ==
* '''Contacts''' / Address book would be very useful, especially for home networks. Icing on the cake: I've seen some really neat integration with PDF output too, to print address labels. (that was through [http://civicrm.org CivicRM] stuff)
* Alarms - perhaps in combination with the calendar app, there is some way to "inject" calendar alarms into web pages! E.g. maybe adding a frame or something to a page your request, or throwing out a pop-up, etc. I have no clue if this is possible but it would be similar to captive portal wifi node idea used (annoyingly) in hotels.
* Web bookmark system for sharing with other in your network.

=== Key Management ===
It would nice for the user management web tools to make it easy to access users public ssh keys, especially if there can be some good instructions for installing them. Perhaps this could be used to mount drives easier without having to log in.

== Databases & Code ==
* Sometime people like to have their own little databases - e.g. for a small workgroup. So, like the file sharing capabilities I would like to see some phpMysql sort of apps that allow simple creation of tables and GUIs for running basic reports. I haven't done this in a long time, so I'm unaware of what is available, but keeping it listed here for a rainy day. I think it would be a cool app for small biz examples.
** preferably using '''sqlite''' so that the app & db could be portable or ''shared''
* '''SVN server''' - I think the server is already installed just needs configurating?