Configuration Information

There are about a dozen files on the LON-CAPA server systems which the system administrator may need to adjust.

The two most important configuration files are:

• loncapa.conf - typically located in the directory /etc/httpd/conf/;
  contains machine-specific and institution-specific variables and modifications necessary for the effective running of the Apache web server; note that there is also a loncapa_apache.conf which should be installed, but not modified
   
• hosts.tab - typically located in the directory /home/httpd/lonTabs/;
  is a listing of all other internet machines that a server system considers to be valid server systems on the LON-CAPA network
   

Current Reconfiguration Procedure

After making any configuration change, you will need to restart system services. The two most important system services on a LON-CAPA system are loncapa and httpd. Here are the commands for restarting the system services:

We recommend that a knowledgeable system administrator should perform any adjustments on a LON-CAPA server machine. Locations of these files are by default. Depending on your Linux distribution--RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, etc, the file paths may be elsewhere.

Configuration files that will have to be altered

LON-CAPA currently depends on the following list of configuration files. Note that loncapa.conf is automatically altered by the installation/upgrade scripts associated with the tarball-distribution (see the INSTALL and UPGRADE sections of this web-site). (Thus, the system administrator should not have to further adjust loncapa.conf from the terminal.)

• [EXAMPLE] /etc/httpd/conf/loncapa.conf
• [EXAMPLE] /home/httpd/lonTabs/hosts.tab
• [EXAMPLE] /home/httpd/lonTabs/domain.tab
• [EXAMPLE] /home/httpd/lonTabs/spare.tab
• [EXAMPLE] /etc/krb.conf
• [EXAMPLE] /home/httpd/lonTabs/htpasswd
• [EXAMPLE] /etc/ntp.conf
• [EXAMPLE] /etc/ntp/step-tickers
• [EXAMPLE] /etc/pam.d/pwauth

Configuration files that do not have to be altered

The following configuration files are critical for the correct performance of a LON-CAPA server machine. Typically, these configuration files do not need to be adjusted by the system administrator.

• [EXAMPLE] /etc/httpd/conf/loncapa_apache.conf
• [EXAMPLE] /home/httpd/html/res/adm/includes/un_keyword.tab

Configuring Secondary Services

LON-CAPA does not provide integrated support for secondary services. The expectation is that knowledgeable system administrators will customize these secondary services for their institution.

We do, however, provide example configurations of services that you may want to deliver with LON-CAPA (i.e. Samba and AppleChooser).

• [EXAMPLE] /etc/smb.conf
• [EXAMPLE] /etc/atalk/config

Contact Us: lon-capa@lon-capa.org

Supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF-ITR 0085921, NSF-CCLI-ASA 0243126, and NSF-CCLI 0717790. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Initial funding for CAPA has been provided by the Alfred. P. Sloan Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.