Cornell University Library's CommonSpot installation is scaled to meet the needs of over 21 unit libraries that publish more than 70 web sites. This talk, given at a Commonspot Show and Tell, describes our system, based on Solaris and Oracle, that serves many virtual hosts while providing for separate test and production environments.

1. Commonspot Installation at
Cornell University Library
Paul Houle
Library Systems
Thanks: James Reidy, Surinder Ghangas, Ken Friedman, Chris Manly, David DeMello
and Oya Reiger

2. Training
Strategy
Contributors
Developers
Designers
Commonspot
Oracle
Apache
Solaris
HW
The Big Picture
CFMX

3. Context
• Support 21 unit libraries and many projects
• Current web server, copia, has
• > 40 virtual hosts
• > 170 toplevel directories
• 500,000+ hits/day
• Availability, Maintainability
• Separate production and test
• Isolate essential from inessential
• Tight control

4. Hardware
Sun Fire V440
Solaris 9
fibre channel
StorEdge 6130 Array

5. Software
• Solaris 9
• Oracle 9.2.0.6
• Cold Fusion MX 6.1 Enterprise Edition (Jrun 4)
• 2x license for 4 CPU machine
• install service pack 1
• upgrade Oracle drivers from Macromedia
• Apache 2.0.54
• mod_cuwebauth
• mod_jrun20
• CommonSpot 4.5sp1
• CornellCustomAuthZ

6. Two Instances
SPOT
SPOTTEST
http port 80
http port X
/spot/ apache
/spottest/ apache
spot jrun
spottest jrun
SPOT oracle
SPOTTEST oracle

7. CFMX Installation
• Multiple instances of Coldfusion:
• Used J2EE installation mode w/ Jrun 4 (/opt/coldfusion/jrun4)
• Install CFMX twice (/opt/coldfusion2/jrun4)
• mv /opt/coldfusion2/jrun4/servers/cfusion ->
/opt/coldfusion/jrun4/servers/spottest
•JRUN Management console is nice, but..
• all servers must run as same UNIX user
• no per-server jvm.config
• /etc/init.d/{spot,spottest}-jrun
• Use –config option to specify correct jvm.config

8. Namespace
• Two to four letter code per site:
• commonspot.library.cornell.edu -> cs
• dlit.library.cornell.edu -> dl
• insidecul.library.cornell.edu -> ins
• Commonspot gets own root directory
• can install other apps
• good for migration: add redirects to new site
• Avoids namespace collisions inside Cold Fusion
• Short names can be used to compose Solaris usernames:
• cs -> smb_cs

9. Apache Directory Layout
/spot/
apache2/
bin/
conf/
httpd.conf
vhosts.conf
…
commonspot/
commonspot-data/
sites/
commonspot.library.cornell.edu/
dlit.library.cornell.edu/

10. httpd.conf and vhost.conf
httpd.conf:
…
Include conf/vhosts.conf
vhosts.conf:
…
<VirtualHost commonspot.library.cornell.edu>
Include/spot/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/conf/host
.conf
</VirtualHost>
…

11. Virtual host directory
/spottest/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/
conf/
host.conf
designer/
…
htdocs/
cs/
logs/
access_log
error_log

12. host.conf
ServerAdmin ph18@cornell.edu
ServerName commonspot.library.cornell.edu
DocumentRoot
/spottest/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/htdocs
ErrorLog
/spottest/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/logs/error_l
og
CustomLog
/spottest/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/logs/access_
log combined
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/$ /cs/ [R]

13. Remote Access
• Designers and programmers use SAMBA to access selected
files in test instance.
• Files belong to smb_{site name}
• Symbolic links provide controlled view:
• spot.library.cornell.edu{site_name}
/spottest/sites/commonspot.library.cornell.edu/designer/
customcf -> ../htdocs/cs/customcf
renderhandlers -> ../htdocs/cs/renderhandlers
style -> ../htdocs/cs/style
templates -> ../htdocs/cs/templates

14. Backups
• System Backup
• Weekly backup with mksysdb – keep 3 weeks back
• Filesystem backup
• ASDM incremental backup nightly – keep 3 version
• Oracle Backup
• incremental backup – every 8 hours
• flush redo logs to archive
• backup archive with ASDM
• full backup – weekly, 5 am Saturday
• shutdown oracle, take snapshot, restart oracle
• mount snapshot, backup with ASDM
-- Surinder Ghangas

15. CUWebAuth authentication
• Developed by David Demello (ddd1@
cornell.edu)
• Installation on server:
• Install CornellCustomAuthZ in Commonspot Directory
• Edit config.xml
• (optional) put hooks in commonspot/newsite
• Installation per site:
• Hook files: login.cfm, after—login.cfm, custom-authentication.cfm,
force-login.cfm
• Edit config.xml
• Key icon is glitchy, go to login.cfm instead
- David DeMello

16. Creating a new site
New Database, UNIX and SAMBA users
Surinder Ghangas
Create Directories and Virtual Host, configure CUWebAuth
Paul Houle
Create Site in Commonspot
James Reidy

17. Copy Test to Production
• User db must be synchronized
• Export site db from Test Oracle
• Create Production Site in Commonspot
• Import site db into Production Oracle
• Copy site directory
• Check site ids in Application.cfm
• Run migration tool

18. Gotchas
• Oracle User Permissions (see sg14)
• Be careful about installing at server root
• WebDAV and ColdFusion don’t mix
• Windows -> UNIX: Case sensitivity
• Verity indexing of PDF files doesn’t work yet

19. Commonspot Software Configuration:
James Reidy (jgr25@
cornell.edu)
Apache, Jrun, CFMX, SAMBA:
Paul Houle (ph18@
cornell.edu)
Oracle, Backups, Unix admin:
Surinder Ghangas (sg14@
cornell.edu)
Authentication:
David DeMello (ddd1@
cornell.edu)
General Questions:
Oya Rieger (oyr1@
cornell.edu)
http://commonspot.library.cornell.edu/