Axis C++ Linux Installation Guide

Contents

• Introduction
• What You Need
• Installing Axis C++
• 
  

This guide will help you to start with Axis C++. This guide will explain the minimum steps needed to build and run Axis C++, and warn you about the common pitfalls.

You need a few helper libraries for parsing XML, WSDL processing and introspection. You need to have the following in order to run Axis C++ engine.

      Apache web server (2.0.x or 1.3.x)  - You need to have Apache built with module so support, hence you need to have the source of Apache web server.

Axis C++ uses Apache web server to host services.

      Expat (1.95.7) and/or Xerces C++ (2.2.0) XML parser(s)

Axis C++ needs an XML parser to parse SOAP messages and WSDD files. It has a parser abstraction layer that helps users to select/switch between parsers. However only one parser library could be used at a time. Currently Expat and Xerces parsers are supported by Axis C++.

In case you have already installed Apache , make sure that 'so modules' are enabled.
This is because Axis C++ server engine is implemented as a 'so module'. (For Apache 1.3.x use --enable-module=so; for Apache 2.0.x use --enable-so when configuring. See Apache web server documentation for more details)

Select an XML parser depending on your parser preferences. See the respective parser's documentation for installation instructions.

Download Axis C++ source or binary distribution and extract the package.

AXISCPP_HOME="Path to Axis C++ source or binary extracted folder"
e.g. AXISCPP_HOME="/my/home/axiscpp"

AXISCPP_DEPLOY="Path to the folder where you want to install Axis C++"
e.g. AXISCPP_DEPLOY="/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy"
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="<path to parser library you use>/lib:$AXISCPP_DEPLOY/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
export AXISCPP_HOME AXISCPP_DEPLOY LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Note: If you have downloaded Axis C++ binaries, you can skip this step

cd $AXISCPP_HOME

./configure --prefix=$AXISCPP_DEPLOY --with-apache2=/path/to/Apache2 \    --with-xercesc=/path/to/xerces-c
make
make install

The above set of instructions assume you have Apache 2.0.x web server and Xerces C++ parser.
For more information on build options run ./configure --help.

The libs created in build process are placed in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/lib. (Provided that you used $AXISCPP_DEPLOY as --prefix option for configuring). Note that you need permission to install to the specified directory given in prefix option.
 
You need global access rights to the Axis C++ deploy folder to make sure that Axis C++ works properly.

chmod -R 777 $AXISCPP_DEPLOY

Note: to execute the following steps, you may need to have super user rights on your machine.

Now you need to edit httpd.conf file in <path to Apache web server installation>/conf and add the following lines at the bottom of that file (assuming you are using Apache 2.0.x):

LoadModule axis_module modules/libaxiscpp_mod2.so
<Location /axis>
SetHandler axis
</Location>

For Apache1.3.x LoadModule line should read as:
LoadModule axis_module libexec/libaxiscpp_mod.so

Now you need the server deployment descriptor (server.wsdd) to deploy server samples you built.
There is a sample deployment descriptor called server.wsdd_linux in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/etc to help to deploy samples.
Edit this file to match your system settings (because the server.wsdd_linux file assumes that you have installed the binaries in /usr/local/axiscpp_deploy, you may need to change the folder names) and copy it to server.wsdd.
server.wsdd file is an XML file, and the contents are self descriptive.

Axis C++ uses a configuration file to let the user specify preferences such as log file locations, transport and parser libs to be used and location of deployment descriptor files.
A sample configuration file named axiscpp.conf_linux is installed in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/etc folder. Edit this file to match your systems settings (because the axiscpp.conf_linux file assumes that you have installed the binaries in /usr/local/axiscpp_deploy, you may need to change the folder names) and copy it to axiscpp.conf

Configuration file has the following Syntax:

The comment character is '#'
WSDDFilePath - Path to the server wsdd file
ClientWSDDFilePath - Path to the client wsdd
LogPath - Path to the Axis C++ server log
ClientLogPath - Path to the Axis C++ client log
Transport_http - HTTP transport library
XMLParser - XML parser library

A sample axiscpp.conf file:

LogPath:/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy/log/AxisLog
WSDDFilePath:/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy/etc/server.wsdd
ClientLogPath:/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy/log/AxisClientLog
XMLParser:/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy/lib/libaxis_xercesc.so
Transport_http:/usr/local/axiscpp_deploy/lib/libaxis2_transport.so

Now we need to copy Apache module (libaxiscpp_mod2.so for Apache 2.0.x and libaxiscpp_mod.so for Apache 1.3.x) to the correct places and start Apache web server. The steps to follow are:

1. Copy libaxiscpp_mod2.so to /<your Apache 2.0.x home>/modules (or copy libaxiscpp_mod.so to /<your Apache 1.3.x home>/libexec)
2. Start Apache /<path to Apache installation>/bin/apachectl start

To do the same you can you can use scripts in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin.

To deploy with Apache 2.0.x

To deploy with Apache 1.3.x

Note that these scripts rename libaxis_xercesc.so (the default parser library) to libaxis_xmlparser.so.

if you need to use a different parser or want to switch parsers time to time, you need to edit the script and comment out the line:
cp -f ${AXISCPP_DEPLOY}/lib/libaxis_xercesc.so ${AXISCPP_DEPLOY}/lib/libaxis_xmlparser.so

and make sure that you have specified the name of the parser lib correctly in your config file ${AXISCPP_DEPLOY}/etc/axiscpp.conf.

Now the installation is complete. You can verify that the server side is working by accessing the URL http://localhost/axis using your web browser. You should get the Axis C++ welcome page and this page will show you a list of deployed services as specified by the $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/conf/server.wsdd file.

Now you can run a client sample and see if it works.

To help you run several samples at once there is a script named run_interoptests.sh in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin folder. You can try running that as well.

1. Build the source distribution as mentioned above.

2. Make sure that you have set the AXISCPP_DEPLOY environment variable to point to your deployment folder as mentioned above

3.Copy $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/etc/axiscpp.conf_linux to $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/etc/axiscpp.conf

and make sure that the contents of that file match your system settings

4. Run simple axis server in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin
Synopsis: simple_axis_server server-port Where server-port is the port on which you would like the server to listen for client requests.

For Example

cd $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin

./simple_axis_server 9090

5. Run clients in $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin

On a different shell:

cd $AXISCPP_DEPLOY/bin

./base http://localhost:9090/axis/base

Similarly you could run the other samples.

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