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TMS XData REST Server on Linux - Step by Step - Part 3

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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

This is part 3 of the tutorial on how to create TMS XData and TMS Sparkle servers on Linux. On Part 2, we have installed PAServer and launched our first "Hello, World" console application on Linux.

Here is video for part 3: Create and deploy an Apache module to Linux.



We will use WebBroker to create an empty Apache module. But first we need to install Apache on Linux.

1. Install Apache on Linux

On Linux terminal, use the following command to install Apache:

sudo apt-get install apache2

This should be enough to get Apache up and running. You can open your browser on Windows and just try to open the root page (let's consider our host name is "ubuntu" from now on):

http://ubuntu/

And you should get a page from server telling you that Apache is running.

2. Create WebBroker Apache module in Delphi

Going back to Delphi, use menu option "File, New, Open...", then choose "Delphi Projects, WebBroker, Web Server Application".

Check "Linux" option, Next, and then select "Apache dynamic link module". When choosing the module name, type "xdata_module". Of course you can use any name you want, but we will use this name for further configuration in this tutorial. Finish the wizard and you will have the module created.

3. Build and deploy Apache module to Linux

Now build your Apache module (make sure to first select Linux64 platform in Project Manager, otherwise you would be building the module for Win32), and then click "Project, Deploy" menu option to deploy it to Linux. If you still have your PAServer running on Linux, it should send the module file to Linux.

The deployed file location should be something like this:

/home/user/PAServer/scratch-dir/User-Ubuntu/mod_xdata/libmod_xdata.so

I might be slightly different in your Linux computer, because you might have used a different user name for Linux user, and a different user name/profile in your Windows machine (the "User-Ubuntu" part). You can simply use WinSCP from Windows to browse your Linux files and discover where is the .so file deployed by PAServer. You should find it by navigating from the PAServer folder created in your home directory.

4. Create Apache configuration files

We must now configure Apache to use our new module. On Linux terminal, go to Apache module configuration folder:

cd /etc/apache2/mods-available

Create two new configuration files:

sudo touch xdata.conf
sudo touch xdata.load

Edit the first file to load module (we will use Nano editor here, if you don't have it installed in your Linux, you can use command "sudo apt-get install nano"):

sudo nano xdata.load

Use the following content for xdata.load file. Here we must use the location where our .so module file was deployed, as we saw in step 3.

LoadModule xdata_module /home/user/PAServer/scratch-dir/User-Ubuntu/mod_xdata/libmod_xdata.so

Press Ctrl+X to save and exit from nano editor, and then let's edit xdata.conf file:

sudo nano xdata.conf

This should be the content of this file:

<Location /tms>
    SetHandler libmod_xdata-handler
</Location>

Save that file as well, and Apache configuration is finished.

5. Enable Apache module

The configuration files we created are just a module that is "available". We should now enable the module using the following command:

sudo a2enmod xdata


6. Restart Apache

Now we should stop and restart Apache service. Use the following commands for that (we will use such commands very often further in next parts of this tutorial):

sudo apache2ctl stop
sudo apache2ctl start


7. Test Apache module

Now we can go back to Windows, use our browser and go to the following url (remember to change "ubuntu" to the hostname or IP address of your Linux machine, if it's different):

http://ubuntu/tms

And the browser should display "Web Server Application" as result.

In the next part we will learn how to add TMS Sparkle to the Apache module.

Wagner Landgraf


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This blog post has received 1 comment.


1. Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 2:00:47 AM

The whole idea of series of blog-posts is just BRILLIANT!
It cover all steps, and has all tiny details that sometimes difficult to find.
Thanks a lot!!! This is exactly - what we need to start using TMS WEB components.

- - -
I just do not see the rest of posts ???

Yuri Yolkin




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