Frontier Project Notes

NOTE: most of the rest of this page is badly out of date. Contact Dave Dykstra if you need current procedures.

Required Products

• Java
  • Note that I've used Java 1.5 for my tomcat installation and for building frontier servlet code. Recent CMS tests were done using Java 1.4.2.
• Ant
  • Version: 1.6.5 (binary distribution can be downloaded here .
  • This is needed for building frontier servlet code.
• Tomcat
  • Version: 5.5.x series
  • Installation: Fairly straightforward and described here. Note, however, that there are several external jars required:
    • Xerces XML Java Parser (download). Even though we've used one of the older (2.6.x) releases, the latest version (2.7.1) should be fine. Download the binary release and install xml-apis.jar and xercesImpl.jar into tomcat's common/endorsed directory.
    • Oracle JDBC Drivers. The required library is ojdbc14_g.jar, and needs to be installed into tomcat's common/lib directory.
• Squid
  • Version: 2.6.x series
  • Get it through instructions on the CMS twiki.
  • Frontier code can be tested/used without squid installation.
• Frontier
  • The CVS package is frontier in cdcvs (CVSROOT="CVSROOT cvsuser@cdcvs.fnal.gov:/cvs/cd"), and anyone should be able to check it out.
  • Client code requires the Expat XML Parser. A fairly recent version (2.0.1) is in the frontier CVS package in case it can't be found externally. Set EXPAT_DIR on the makefile command line to use an external package.

Building/Deploying Servlet

1. Install Java, Tomcat, and Ant
2. Check out frontier CVS package
3. Make sure ant/java are in your path
4. Modify file build.local: set value for property catalina.home to point to the root directory of your tomcat installation. For example, un my build.local file I've got <property name="catalina.home" value="/scratch/veseli/devel/tomcat"/>
5. To build the servlet code: ant -f build.local
6. To build the servlet code and prepare war distribution file: ant -f build.local dist
7. Here is an example of a servlet configuration file which is working on Tomcat 5.5.x:

   $ pwd
   /scratch/veseli/devel/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost
   $ cat FrontierCMS.xml
   <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
   <Context debug="99" displayName="froNtier CMS Database Web Application" docBase="FrontierCMS" path="/FrontierCMS" reloadable="true">
    <Resource auth="Container" name="jdbc/frontiercms" type="javax.sql.DataSource" 
     url="jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(PORT=1521)(HOST=uscmsdb03.fnal.gov))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=cmscald)))" 
     driverClassName="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver" validationQuery="select * from dual" maxIdle="1" 
     maxActive="2" maxWait="-1" username="cms_reader" password="reader" logAbandoned="true" />
   
   </Context>
   
   

8. The other two configuration files one has to worry about is the servlet deployment file web.xml (deployed in the webapps/FrontierCMS/WEB-INF ), as well as the configuration file config.properties (deployed in webapps/FrontierCMS/WEB-INF/classes).
   • Working example for Frontier web.xml file:

     $ pwd
     /scratch/veseli/devel/tomcat/webapps/FrontierCMS/WEB-INF
     $ cat web.xml
     <!DOCTYPE web-app
         PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN"
         "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">
     
     <web-app>
        <display-name>Frontier 3</display-name>
        <description>Frontier 3 - XSD v2, writing, finders, etc.</description>
        <session-config>
         <session-timeout>300</session-timeout>   <!-- 300 minutes -->
        </session-config>
     
        <servlet>
          <servlet-name>FrontierCMS</servlet-name>
          <servlet-class>gov.fnal.frontier.FrontierServlet</servlet-class>
          <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
        </servlet>
     
        <servlet-mapping>
          <servlet-name>FrontierCMS</servlet-name>
          <url-pattern>/Frontier</url-pattern>
        </servlet-mapping>
     
        <resource-ref>
            <description>
                 This is the refererence to the Oracle data source we
                 use to talk to the database configured in server.xml.
            </description>
            <res-ref-name>jdbc/frontiercms</res-ref-name>
            <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
            <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
        </resource-ref>
     </web-app>
     

   • Working example for Frontier config.properties file:

     $ pwd
     /scratch/veseli/devel/tomcat/webapps/FrontierCMS/WEB-INF/classes
     $ cat config.properties
     ServerName=FrontierCMS
     DataSourceName=jdbc/frontiercms
     XsdTableName=frontier_descriptors
     #MonitorNode=MonAlisa_server_node_name
     #MonitorMillisDelay=300000
     UseFdoCache=no
     #CacheExpireHourOfDay=5
     #CacheExpireSeconds=86400
     
     

Building and Testing Frontier Access Plugin

1. Copy/unpack the client distribution file in your work area on lxplus cluster:

   
   $ tar zxvf frontier_client__2.7.0__src.tar.gz
   frontier_client__2.7.0__src/
   ...
   
   

2. Build client libraries

   $ cd frontier_client__2.7.0__src
   $ make dist
   ...
   
   

3. Build frontier access plugin; example which prepares build area, checks out necessary code, prepares environment, etc. is shown below.

   $ cat ~/bin/coralscram
   #!/bin/bash
   case $SCRAM_ARCH in
           *_dbg);;
           *) export SCRAM_ARCH=${SCRAM_ARCH}_dbg;;
   esac
   exec /afs/cern.ch/sw/lcg/app/spi/scram/scram "$@"
   $ coralscram project CORAL CORAL_1_6_2
   ...
   $ cd CORAL_1_6_2/src
   $ eval `coralscram runtime -sh`
   $ export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@coral.cvs.cern.ch:/cvs/coral
   $ cvs co -r CORAL_1_6_2 FrontierAccess
   ...
   $ cd FrontierAccess
   $ coralscram build
   Configuring Local Area
   ...
   $ cd tests/CmsNewFrontier
   $ unitTest_FrontierAccess_CmsNewFrontier
   ...
   
   

4. Once the above is done, one has built frontier access plugin using frontier libraries provided in the release. However, in order to test the plugin with the frontier_client headers and libraries built in your work area, one has to modify the scram setup:

   $ cd ../.. # if still in tests/CmsNewFrontier
   $ coralscram setup -i frontier_client
   ...
   (copy and paste the full path to your frontier_client__2.7.0__src/dist
    directory as the FRONTIER_CLIENT_BASE, and for all others copy and paste
    the value it does an "existence check" just before prompting.)
   ...
   $ eval `coralscram runtime -sh`
   $ coralscram build clean
   $ coralscram build
   Configuring Local Area
   ...
   $ cd tests/CmsNewFrontier
   $ unitTest_FrontierAccess_CmsNewFrontier
   ...