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Novell Portal Services Overview and Gadget Development

April 2003

DeveloperNet University Course

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Installation of Novell Portal Services (NPS)

At this point we are finally ready to install Novell Portal Services. We will be using version 1.5 for this course, however the current version is 2.0. This assumes that you have downloaded the NPS files from http://www.novell.com. Follow these steps to install NPS. You will need to do steps 1 and 2 OR step 3 depending on your system configuration:

1. Open a Command prompt window and browse to where you downloaded the NPS files.
   
   
2. Type the following: java -jar NPS_Setup.jar
   
   

Note that case does matter. Also, do not close the Command prompt window during the install.

3. Win32 Note: If your Java environment (JRE) is set properly, simply double-click on the "NPS_Setup.jar" file. It will be automatically executed using javaw.exe.
   
   
4. The Novell Portal Services 1.5 Software License Agreement comes up. Select "I accept the terms of the license agreement" and click the Next button.
   
   
5. Enter the destination server address, which is 127.0.0.1.
   
   
6. On the Platform Selection Window, select the following:
   
   
   • Operating System: Windows 2000
     
     
   • Web Server: Apache Web Server
     
     
   • Web App Server: Tomcat Web App Server 3.3
     
     
   • Click the Next button.
     
     
7. For the Web App Server Information screen, enter the following:
   
   
   • Protocol for Portal Inter-server communications: http
     
     
   • Post for Portal Inter-server communication: 80
     
     
   • Path to where Web Apps are to be installed: c:\tomcat\webapps
     
     

   Note:

   If you path is different, make appropriate changes.
   
   

Click the next button.

8. The next page is the LDAP Schema Update page. The Schema will be extended and objects will be created in the next few steps. You will need to input data for creating the Portal Object in the Directory. In order to extend the eDirectory Schema, you will need to enter the following for NPS:
   
   
   • Distinguished Name: cn=Portal,o=novell
     
     
   • Password: <whatever you entered for password>, "novell" in my case.
     
     

Click the Next button.

9. The next step is PCO creation. The PCO is the main NPS object in the eDirectory tree. It will be used to store configuration and access information. All the NPS servers for this portal will be using this object:
   
   
   • Distinguished Name: cn=Portal,o=novell
     
     
   • Password: <whatever you entered for password>, "novell" in my case.
     
     

Click the Next button.

10. Public User. The Public User is a user in the eDirectory tree that is the user that the default login pages are built with. Everyone views the public user content prior to login.
    
    
    • Distinguished Name (DN): cn-PublicUser, o=novell
      
      
    • Password: < whatever you entered for password>, "novell" in my case.
      
      

Click the Next button.

11. Select User Contexts. Any context that you want to have a context less login, must be added on this screen. The screen actually states, "Please select the contexts where Directory user objects are. NOTE: all sub-contexts of the contexts added will inherit the necessary changes." Click the Next button.
    
    
12. System Gadgets. This screen requests that you enter the Object Names and Context in the Directory for the system gadget objects, as shown in Figure 10.
    
    

Figure 10: System Gadget Configuration Window.

Enter the context. You can leave all the Gadget names as presented, or change if you desire. For the course lab, it is recommended that you leave them at their default values. Click the Next button.

13. The next screen asks you if you want to enable community support. You can check a box that will do this. Also on this screen you can enter the directory context for the communities. Click the Next button.
    
    
14. Now you are presented with a screen for selecting optional Gadgets for your Portal. Check the ones you want and leave the ones you don't want unchecked. Click the Next button to continue.
    
    
15. Now you are presented with the Install Summary screen. This will detail your chosen install options. It shows you the directory where NPS will be installed, what features will be included, and the total size of the product and features that will be installed. Also it will detail the optional gadgets and contexts that you have chosen. Click the Next button to continue.
    
    
16. Now the Installation Progress Screen will be displayed. There is a bar graph that indicates the progress of copying NPS files and creating NPS directory objects. There is a cancel button that will cancel the installation, if you so desire.
    
    
17. Lastly, in this NPS installation, the Installation Summary screen is displayed.
    
    

Verifying the Installation of NPS

You can verify you installation of NPS by going to http://127.0.1/nps on your browser. This will bring up the Novell Portal Services login screen.

Now that you have completed installing the myriad of products needed to run NPS, we will turn our attention to a brief discussion of the components that make up a NPS Web page.