Orbit on Linux

The Orbit engine is Java based and so can be installed on any Linux distribution that supports Java. Both desktop (client or standalone) and server (publisher) installations can run on Linux :

• Only desktop installations require a GUI. Small visual differences compared to a Windows installation are possible due to Linux graphical drivers.
• An server installation can serve clients running on any platform (Windows, OSX, etc..).
• There are no differences in capabilities between the Windows and Linux versions of Orbit software, except for functionality that requires platform-specific third-party libraries (like windows dll's).

The list of distributions is almost endless. All distributions have their own characteristics.
We tested and can recommend :

• Ubuntu 10.0 or higher
• Debian 5.0 or higher
• CentOS 5.0 or higher

The system administrator is required to have a firm knowledge of the Linux OS.
Depending on your Orbit product and configuration some third-party applications may need to be installed on the server by the system administrator :

• Samba
• SmbClient
• SSH Client (server must be accessible via Putty)
• MySQL (version 5.5 or higher) may be used but is not required.
• dos2unix
• PhpMyAdmin

A basic installation on a Linux platform is straightforward.
The Linux version of every Orbit product is available as a tarball. Unzip to a specific location to install. Please contact the Support team for the most recent version.

• File editing
  It is strongly recommended to use the Orbit EOS Console to alter all configurations.
  If configuration files need to be edited directly it is recommended to use Linux text editors only (vi, nano, gedit, etc…). Dos (Windows) manipulated text files can contain extra characters which induce malfunction of Orbit services. More about this ....
• Case Sensitive
  Linux interprets all configuration files case sensitive. Any file or path reference in these files must take this into account.
  We do advise to use lower case characters only for folders, files and configurations.
• Slash Character
  Linux doesn't recognize the backward slash (\) when addressing a location. Therefore, always use forward slashes if needed.

• Java Version
  The Orbit Client and Standalone come with a Java Run-time Environment (JRE).
  We do advice to hold on this structure although one can also use the JRE installed on the OS, see Orbit Desktop Client Installation.
• Launch script
  The Orbit client starts with a shell script from the (client/)program/bin directory.

• Java Version
  The Orbit Server comes with a Java Run-time Environment (JRE).
• Install Orbit Service
  The Orbit service will be installed as a Linux service. We use the “Java Service Wrapper” from Tanuki Software to do this.
  The service installation is done from the server/program/bin directory, see Orbit Enterprise Service.
  On starting the EOS service the “OrbitService.pid” file containing the process identification number, will be created in the server/program/bin folder.
• Service User
  In linux, a user must run a service. This user is defined in the “orbitservice” configuration file. Look for the parameter “RUN_AS_USER”.
  By default, the user “root” runs the Orbit service. It is strongly recommended to make the service user owner of all server files and directories.