Alias install notes by alexp 11/5/96 ***************** Studio Installation instructions are confusing- use only server install, not client as the latter doesn't really install the software. Choose option 1) (Alias/Wavefront Studio) to get everything installed- options 2-7 are irrelevant. Local installation was done as follows- ran vendor install script off CD with installation on large local hard drive, using /CDROM/Install -g Various packages were reconfigured but there was no option to control it or find out exactly what was being done. Most of the software installs below two trees, rooted at alias9609 and aw respectively; aw has one subdirectory, COM2.0. Vendor install notes say that there should be the following tree structure: /usr/aw/COM->COM2.0 COM2.0 alias->alias9609 (release date) userconfig The directory /usr/aw was created, with 2 links COM2.0->/u1/aw/COM2.0 and alias->/u1/alias9609. (/u1 is a local disk partition with a lot of free space). userconfig is a small directory created by the installation that can stay in place during the install. Trees were copied appropriately to network installation dir and links were made. The network install tree is under /mit/imagery5/install/aw; vendor says a link from /usr/aw to there is necessary, but this may be optional if appropriate environment variables are set. Some files were installed locally, in /usr/etc and /etc/init.d but these don't seem essential. FlexLM is in software, but vendor won't allow floating licenses- FlexLM node locking is used. To get keys, you must run Licenser, in COM/bin- this must be suid root and you must run as root, on each machine; then send info supplied to vendor on their license request form. They can send back encrypted license strings by Email. These can be decrypted into ascii FlexLM license keys by running the awcompress utility in COM/bin; put encrypted string in file junk, then do: awcompress -d aw.dat and cat on for succeeding machines (i.e. next time do awcompress -d >aw.dat). Default location for this is /var/flexlm/aw.dat, but this can be overridden by setting LM_LICENSE_FILE to wherever you want to put it. The actual location was set to be /mit/imagery5/install/aw/alias. The FlexLM files are installed in multiple, different locations: /usr/etc/lmgrd ..aw/COM/etc/sgiawd (vendor daemon) ..aw/alias/bin/lmutil /var/flexlm/aw.dat (license file) These should really be put together in one common location, on the local drive of the server host. A script .cshrc located in aw/alias contains the most important startup settings and should be sourced by users. The most important values are AW_LOCATION, which should point to the aw directory and ALIAS_LOCATION, which should point to the alias directory. These should be customized for the local installation. Setting AW_LOCATION seems to get around the need for a /usr/aw link on each client machine, but this should be tested out more fully. The alias startup itself is via the Alias script, which is on the user's path if the vendor .cshrc script is sourced. The online help and sample files are on a separate CD called 3DCD. The help files were copied directly off the CD with: cd /CDROM/Products/Alias3D cp -r Help .../aw/alias The samples were installed with the install script, first locally on /u1 and then tarred into the final place ..../aw/alias/3DCD Note added 3/3/97 Some of the helper apps do not work because the system can't find some required dynamic libraries that are supplied with the distribution. A small wrapper script was written to fix this in a case of a user request for AliasToRenderman; this script uses the LD_LIBRARY_PATH to locate the required libraries (identified by running elfdump -Dl on the binary) before launching the binary. A global fix for all such binaries could probably be made by manually correcting all paths starting with /usr/aw... linked to in the /mit/imagery5/install/aw/alias9609/lib directory, to point to /mit/imagery5/install/aw/COM2.0/lib for the respective library, then by using LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to all local lib directories. **************** VizPaint2D This was installed manually using inst- put it initially in some temporary directory (say /u1/alexp/vizpaint); it may be necessary to force a conflict override with "set rules override true" with the inst admin command; it will install a couple of directories but what is needed is below TVP3.2; once the latter is installed it can be copied to the main Alias directory (/mit/imagery5/install); it requires the FlexLM license file to authorize so LM_LICENSE_FILE must be set to point to its location. The variable WF_VP_DIR should point to the location of TVP3.2; the main binary is ${WF_VP_DIR}/bin/VizPaint2D3.2 and it can be launched from a startup script. **************** StudioPaint The same strategy was tried with StudioPaint- the vendor says that there is a library incompatibility between some libraries under COM2.0 between Studio and StudioPaint (current versions), so that 2 distinct such directories are needed, not a single common one. But also both products should "see" a common tree structure: ...../aw/COM2.0 /studiopaint -> ./alias_sp9604 /alias_sp9604 /alias -> ./alias9609 /alias9609 so the following was implemented: ....../install/aw /alias -> alias9609 /alias9609 /COM -> COM2.0 /COM2.0 /sp/aw /studiopaint -> alias_sp9604 /alias_sp9604 /alias -> ../../aw/alias /alias9609 -> ../../aw/alias9609 /COM -> COM2.0 /COM2.0 The StudioPaint install failed to install the files in the COM2.0 directory- this is because it tries to use inst which won't work properly because our systems have been altered. inst was used manually, starting from directory /CDROM/Products/Support (look for files ending in .idb and .sw); then did something like: inst -f /CDROM/Products/Support -r /var/local/alexp/COM2.0 to install COM2.0 under /var/local/alexp. This was later moved manually. The licensing system is different and does not use FlexLM. License keys go in file .../alias_sp9604/sys/install/en and can be copied manually, in form: N4KFzsX2Miq4jzXxV4vJ7hsbMuic andrew with one machine per line. Printing seems to use lp-style printing and won't work. ****************** Composer Composer has a shell install program that runs inst. It supposedly allows a choice of where the installation is rooted but it crashes partway through. inst was used by hand (in a way similar to the above), and pieces of the distribution were moved into place by hand. It is compatible with the top level /aw/alias9609 structure /COM2.0 /TVC4.0 and installs below the TVC4.0 directory. To run from a user-chosen file system, several important system environemt variables must be set- these include WF_VC_DIR, which must point to the TVC4.0 directory, and WF_DEVICES, which must point to the userconfig/devices directory. These were not documented, but were identifed by reading the startup script. It uses SGi's insight book reader, and the path to the library files is hard-coded in the binary (in spite of the fact that there seems to be an insight option setting that allows it to be relocated). To get around this a binary patch was made (to the vc binary in mit/imagery5/install/aw/TVC4.0/bin): the string: /usr/share/Insight/library/SGI_bookshelves/AliasWavefront was replaced by /tmp/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/AliasWavefront where the latter is a symbolic link, made by the local startup script, pointing to the real location of the AliasWavefront book directory. The vendor will allow FlexLM floating licenses with this product, but requires a lot of irrelevant machine information (which can be obtained by running the getid binary on the server host). They supply encrypted license files which can be decrypted by using the awcompress utility.