Preparations

Preparations
Prev	Chapter 1. Generic Installation Process	Next

Setting the Hostname and DNS Record

Setting the Hostname is not required. You can just use localhost as the hostname to access Ambience, if you are accessing Ambience from the same system as where Ambience is installed.

However, if you want the Ambience server to be available to other machines across the network, you cannot use the localhost default, and need to use the fully qualified domain name of the server system to access it. To facilitate access, ensure that the server's Fully Qualified Domain Name (hostname) is set to the server's IP address in /etc/hosts (on Unix/Linux/Mac), or in \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (on Windows).

To determine the system's hostname, open a command prompt or terminal, and type the command:

hostname

Open the hosts file and associate the hostname with the system's IP address. For example,

192.168.1.6 ambience-server.example.com

Next, contact your IT department and ask them to set up the appropriate DNS record for the Ambience server.

Enabling Symbolic Links

You have to enable symbolic links on your system as Ambience needs to create symbolic links during its course of operation.

On Unix and Linux, symbolic links are automatically enabled. Perform the following steps to enable symbolic links on Windows.

Launch secpol.msc using Start or Start -> Run.
Open Security Settings -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment.
In the list, find the Create symbolic links item, which represents SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege.
Double-click on the item and add the user that is running the Ambience service, to the list.
Logout and login to apply the changes.

Obtaining Elixir Ambience

For advice on obtaining the latest release of Elixir Ambience, contact sales@elixirtech.com. For technical support on how to use Elixir Ambience effectively, contact support@elixirtech.com.

Generic Installation Instructions

Verify the SHA1 sum of the file that you received when you purchased Ambience, or when you downloaded a trial version, to ensure its integrity.
Extract the file that you received when you purchased Ambience, or when you downloaded a trial version. For example, tar -xvzf elx-ambience-4.0.0.tgz. This extracts all the files into a directory called ElixirAmbience.
If you downloaded a zip file, extract it with the extractor installed on your system. Linux users can run the command:
```
unzip zip-file-name.zip
```
to unzip the file. Substitute the correct zip file in the unzip command. For example, unzip elx-ambience-4.0.0.zip. This extracts all the files into a directory called ElixirAmbience.
Windows users should NOT extract the files into the \Program Files\ folder, as Microsoft controls the permissions of this subtree to prevent programs writing there. As the generic installation writes into the ElixirAmbience\data folder by default, this can cause access denied problems when working with regular user accounts. Use any other folder (For example: C:\) to extract the files.
Open a command prompt or terminal and navigate to the bin directory inside the ElixirAmbience directory. For example: cd ElixirAmbience/bin
Start the server. On Unix run: sh run-server.sh. On windows run run-server.bat
Open your browser and navigate to http://<hostname>:8080 to access the Ambience page.
Once you enter your domain to login, the licence page appears as follows:
Figure 1.1. Licence Page
Enter your licence and click Deploy to deploy your licence.

The etc directory inside the ElixirAmbience directory contains the configuration files for Ambience.

The log files are stored in the log directory inside the ElixirAmbience directory.