Installation

Administration interface

To install a Roxen server you first install the software, then connect to the web based administration interface and create the actual web or FTP sites. For each site you enable and configure the modules that are going to handle it. A basic web site only needs a small set of modules while a highly customized site that makes full usage of scripting and database needs more.

To make it simpler to get started there are predefined server templates that contain the necessary modules to get a certain type of web or ftp site up and running. By choosing a server template you do not have to manually enable those modules and you get a set of modules that gives you a working site.

If you already have a web site that you want to move to Roxen this should not pose much of a problem. The toughest part is usually to get all scripts to run, since there may be slight differences between different implementations of standards such as CGI, SSI or .htaccess.

Some features of Roxen relies on code outside of Roxen to work. The Java support requires a Java 2.0 compliant virtual machine to be installed on the server. The database supports requires database connectivity libraries. Therefore it is harder to get these functions to work and it might be necessary to install software other than the Roxen server itself.

Installing the Software

The Roxen server consists of a Pike interpreter and the Roxen server itself. The software is installed either from a binary or a source package. Binary packages are precompiled for each operating system while the user has to compile the server herself when installing from a source package. Source packages are avaiable for Unix but not for Windows.

Usually the binary packages are a lot faster and easier to install. But some libraries might differ from your system in which case you are left with compiling a source distribution.

The last step of the software installation is setting a username and password and then starting the server so the administration interface becomes available.

Administration Interface

The bulk of the installation process is done through the web based administration interface. Here you create your sites and enable the modules you need. You can download additional software directly from the administration interface with the update client.

The administration interface is described in the Administration interface chapter.

Sites

A Roxen server can handle any number of web or FTP sites with their own modules. A typical Roxen installation uses at least two sites, one for the administration interface itself and another for the actual web site.

Each site is bound to at least one URL, through which it is possible to access the site. The URL is handled by a port within Roxen. The ports are created automatically and can be further configured on the Ports tab. Several sites may share the same port. This is always done for IP-less HTTP, when several sites share the same IP number. But it is also possible for one web site to consist of several Roxen sites. The administration interface could be given the URL http://www.my-site/admin/ and appear as part of the web site http://www.my-site.com/.

How sites work is described in the Sites chapter while ports and URLs are described in the Ports chapter.

Upgrading

Upgrading from Roxen 2.0 or 2.1 to Roxen 2.2 should pose no major problems. Upgrading from Roxen Challenger 1.3 or older to Roxen 2.2 is less transparent, since there were major changes introduced in the 2.0 release. Best recommended practice for migrating from a live 1.3 site to 2.2 is to keep the old site running in the old server and use a relaying 2.2 server as a frontend to the old site until all content has been moved and tested to work in the 2.2 environment. For a detailed description of how this is accomplished, see the article "Transparent Roxen Migration" at http://community.roxen.com/articles/008_migration/.

There are also modules available that make Roxen 2.2 somewhat backwards compatible with Roxen Challenger 1.3, and this compatibility has improved much from the 2.0 and 2.1 releases, but there may be outstanding unknown problems, and if the relaying solution is an option, it may prove the safest upgrade method.

If you decide to use the compatibility mode, old sites are supported with no changes to the site content. The way the configurations are stored has changed, though, so you have to reconfigure your sites manually rather than only upgrading the new software.

Migrating

Moving an existing web site to a Roxen server should pose no major problems, if Roxen supports all scripts that are used on the site. Usually you only have to tell Roxen where the web site is located. If scripts are used you also need to enable modules to handle the scripts. If your previous installation was using some special custom modules or similar that you for some reason can not run straight away under Roxen, the same relaying solution suggested for upgrading from Roxen 1.3 works just as well for this purpose.