Omnis Technical Note TNWE0011
Deploying Omnis Web Client Server on Linux Server Appliances.
For Omnis Studio 3.0+
By Joe Frost and Bob Whiting
Due to its publication date, this technote contains information which may no longer be accurate or applicable on one or more of the platforms it refers to. Please refer to the index page which may contain updated information.
How do I use the Omnis Web Client
Server without X-Windows? This technical note explains the configuration
changes that must be made to Linux based server appliances to facilitate
the use of the Omnis Web Client Server. Server appliances typically do
not have a display device capable of supporting X-Windows.
As Omnis is an X based application it requires X-Windows to run however
it doesn't require that it's output actually be visible.
The current release of Xfree86 includes a device called Xvfb - the X Virtual
Frame Buffer that effectively simulates the X display in an area of memory.
Running this will enable you to run Omnis on Linux machines that do not
have a graphic display.
First of all check to see if your system has the Xvfb driver installed,
if not get the latest version of Xfree86 from http://www.xfree.org.
Install Omnis Web Client Server and run the omset script. Place your library
in the Startup folder so that it is launched automatically. Datafiles
and so on must be placed in the appropriate locations.
Change directory to /root and create .xinitrc as follows:
[path where omnis is installed]/omnisI386
This will cause omnisI386 to be run when root starts X-Windows.
Make a file called omnisd with the following content:
xinit -- /usr/X11R6/bin/Xvfb :0 -screen 0 1024x768x16 &
This runs X-Windows specifying Xvfb as the driver to use and requests
a screen resolution of 1024x768 with 16bit color (the minimum that Omnis
requires).
You could also execute omnisd at startup via whichever mechanism your
system performs this (e.g. /etc/rc.d/init.d....)
If you wish to debug your Omnis libraries while they are running on your
server appliance then it is possible to make it use another machine as
the display device for X.
Type:
xhost +n.n.n.n
On the machine that you will use as the display where n.n.n.n is the IP
address of the appliance.
Type:
export DISPLAY=n.n.n.n :0.0
On the appliance where n.n.n.n is the IP address of your display machine.
Now when you execute omnisI386 on the appliance you should see Omnis appear
on the display machine after a few seconds.
This assumes that there are no security devices such as firewalls between
the appliance and the display machine.