Install Sun Java JDK

1. You should install a Sun/Oracle Java SDK. Use Oracle's installation instructions. Choose the appropriate 32-bit or 64-bit Linux installer, for example jdk-6u27-linux-x64-rpm.bin, and install it.

uname -p

Creating symbolic links as follows is useful (alternatively use the 'alternatives' command to manage JVMs):

ln -s /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_27 /usr/java/jdk1.6
ln -s /usr/java/jdk1.6/bin/java /usr/bin/java

and you need to change your path in your bash profile (_~/.bash_profile) to have this path :

PATH=$PATH:/usr/java/jdk1.6/bin:$HOME/bin

Optional: Install the WebObjects frameworks

2. Get the WebObjects installer from the wocommunity's Web site :

curl -C - -O http://wocommunity.org/documents/tools/WOInstaller.jar

     OR

wget http://wocommunity.org/documents/tools/WOInstaller.jar

and install it like this :

sudo /usr/java/latest/bin/java -jar WOInstaller.jar 5.4.3 /opt

WebObjects frameworks are now installed in /opt

[root@ ~]# ls -l /opt
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov  9 08:19 Developer
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Nov  9 08:19 Library
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov  9 08:20 Local

Creating the appserver user and starting wotaskd/JavaMonitor

To follow the conventions from Mac OS X, we will create two users to run wotaskd and Monitor under this user :

sudo groupadd appserveradm
sudo useradd -g appserveradm appserver

Edit the bash profile of the appserver

#sudo su - appserver
% vi .bash_profile

and add this line :

export NEXT_ROOT=/opt

and run it manually in your current shell :

[appserver@ ~]$ . .bash_profile

3. Next, we need to install the Wonder version wotaskd and JavaMonitor.

mkdir -p /opt/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications
cd /opt/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications

wget http://jenkins.wocommunity.org/job/Wonder6/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/Root/Roots/wotaskd.tar.gz
tar zpxf wotaskd.tar.gz
rm wotaskd.tar.gz
wget http://jenkins.wocommunity.org/job/Wonder6/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/Root/Roots/JavaMonitor.tar.gz
tar zpxf JavaMonitor.tar.gz
rm JavaMonitor.tar.gz

4. Now we need to change some permissions:

sudo chown -R appserver:appserveradm /opt/Local
sudo chown -R appserver:appserveradm /opt/Library

5. Now we can start wotask and Monitor

[root@ ~]# sudo su - appserver

You can start wotaskd and Monitor to make sure that they run without any problems :

[appserver@ ~]$ $NEXT_ROOT/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications/wotaskd.woa/wotaskd &
[appserver@ ~]$ $NEXT_ROOT/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications/JavaMonitor.woa/JavaMonitor -WOPort 56789 &

Apache

If your Linux installation don't already have Apache httpd running or installed, you need to install it:

For Ubuntu distributions :

sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2.2-common apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2-threaded-dev ssl-cert

On that system the relevant command names are apache2ctl and apxs2, and the document root is /var/www (not /usr/local/apache/htdocs as in the example below).

(you will need httpd-devel and gcc)

For CentOS, RedHat or Fedora distributions :

yum install httpd mod_ssl httpd-devel
chkconfig httpd on
/etc/init.d/httpd start

.. default install location is then /etc/httpd

HTTP Adaptor

First, check if a pre-built module already exists at wocommunity.org. If you are running CentOS 6.x, you can use the module for CentOS 5.5, it works fine.

Once you have downloaded the module, you can install it with:

sudo apxs -i -a -n WebObjects mod_WebObjects.so

If you can't find a adaptor for your Linux platform, you will have to build it

Apache Configuration

Instead of copying the WebObjects directory, you can use a alias to point to the folder inside NEXT_ROOT. In your Apache configuration, add something like :

Alias /WebObjects "/opt/Local/Library/WebServer/Documents/WebObjects"

and add a directive to allow fetching files in this directory:

<Directory "/opt/Local/Library/WebServer/Documents/WebObjects">
      AllowOverride All
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from all
</Directory>

Or (depending on your Apache configuration) you could use a symbolic link.

You also need, as explained by the adaptor's README file, to add this directive in httpd.conf :

<LocationMatch /apps/WebObjects/.*>
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</LocationMatch>

If you don't add it, you will get 403s (Forbidden) HTTP errors.

If you want to keep /cgi-bin/WebObjects as the base URL, you will need to remove a line in httpd.conf. Find the line that starts with ScriptAlias /cgi-bin and comment it out, or else Apache will try to find a WebObjects CGI in /cgi-bin instead of loading the adaptor from the Apache module.

And edit /usr/local/apache/conf/extra/webobjects.conf to comment the LoadModule WebObjects_module line. You can also change the WebObjectsAlias property, in my case I use /apps/WebObjects. Last step : add the following line in httpd.conf (near the end):

Include conf/extra/webobjects.conf

Check for any errors with apachectl configtest, and if everything's ok, you are good to go. You can install your first app, don't forget that your app must be accessible by the appserver user or the appserveradm group. If your app don't start or if Monitor complains about a path, it might be a permission problem.

Jerome Chan told me that you can check if the Apache module is loaded by doing this :

/usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl -M

On my installation on OpenSuse 11.1, I had to change the path to the lib64 directory where Apache contains the modules.

LoadModule WebObjects_module /usr/lib64/apache2/mod_WebObjects.so

Auto Start WOTaskd and WOMonitor

One last thing, you need a init script to start wotaskd and Monitor at boot time.

Systems using upstart (Ubuntu and maybe others)

If you are running Ubuntu that have support for upstart, you can grab the two startup scripts for upstart on GitHub. Grab the two files (womonitor.conf and wotaskd.conf) and copy them in /etc/init/. Once they are in this directory, run:

sudo service wotaskd start
sudo service womonitor start

chown root /etc/init/wotaskd.conf
chown root /etc/init/womonitor.conf
chmod 755 /etc/init/wotaskd.conf
chmod 755 /etc/init/womonitor.conf

Systems not using upstart (CentOS, RedHat, Fedora and others)

If you are running a system not capable of running upstart, like CentOS, RedHat or older versions of Ubuntu, you need to use the old-style init.d startup script. Again, the scripts are available on GitHub. Grab the two files (womonitor and wotaskd) and copy them in /etc/init.d/.

Once the scripts are in /etc/init.d/, you can start them:

sudo service wotaskd start
sudo service womonitor start

Last step: add the startup scripts under chkconfig control with:

sudo /sbin/chkconfig --add webobjects
sudo /sbin/chkconfig webobjects on

If you are using Ubuntu or Debian without upstart support, you need to use update-rc.d instead of chkconfig:

sudo update-rc.d wotaskd defaults 90 20
sudo update-rc.d womonitor defaults 90 20

chown root /etc/init.d/wotaskd
chown root /etc/init.d/womonitor
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/wotaskd
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/womonitor

Systems using systemd instead of upstart (like Ubuntu 16.04 LTS)

Here's a systemd unit to put into /lib/systemd/system/wotaskd.service (could someone please convert this to a code block? I seem to lack the permission (wtf?))

# systemd unit for wotaskd to run on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
# Maik Musall <maik@selbstdenker.ag>, Aug 2016

[Unit]
Description=WebObjects/Wonder wotaskd
Documentation=https://wiki.wocommunity.org/display/documentation/Wonder+JavaMonitor+and+wotaskd
AssertPathExists=/var/log/webobjects
AssertPathExists=/opt/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications/wotaskd.woa

[Service]
User=appserver
Group=appserveradm
Environment=NEXT_ROOT=/opt
Environment="JVM_OPTIONS=-Xms32m -Xmx64m -XX:NewSize=2m"
Environment=WOTASKD_LOG=/var/log/webobjects/wotaskd.log
ExecStart=/opt/Local/Library/WebObjects/JavaApplications/wotaskd.woa/wotaskd -WOPort 1085 -Xms32m -Xmx64m >> $WOTASKD_LOG 2>&1
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start it with systemctl start wotaskd.service

Start it at runtime by doing systemctl enable wotaskd.service

Problems with Application Responding to WOMonitor/WOTaskd

If your Linux server is a virtual machine or if it has multiple IP addresses, you may find that clicking 'Stop' in WOMonitor has no effect on instances, or that the applications never start (the level just go up and down non-stop). This can usually be solved for all Wonder-based applications running on hosts with such a problem by simply creating the following file (known as the 'Machine Properties' file in Wonder's ERXProperties):

/etc/WebObjects/Properties

And inside that file, add an array property that defines all the IP addresses assigned to your host, for example:

er.extensions.WOHostUtilities.localhostips=(192.168.3.168,192.168.1.168)

SELinux

If SELinux is enabled on your system, wotaskd won't be reachable due to its preventing Apache from opening TCP connections. If you're comfortable with allowing Apache to connect to any TCP ports (including external hosts), you can run the following:

sudo setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect=1

Alternatively, Steven Klassen has written a blog post (Custom SELinux Port Access) that outlines how to create and install a wotaskd SELinux module that specifically allows connections to port 1085.

Additional Resources

Jonathon Rentzsch WOPlat Project 'WOInstaller + Wonder Web Server Adaptor + OS Support Files'
http://vmadmin.nt.com.au/?p=47
http://www.watermarkstudios.com/blog/?p=48