Installing software needed to work from home in CSEP 544

Summary

These notes will walk you through installing the programs you need to work from home in CSEP 544:

• Java
• PostgreSQL
• JDBC drivers for:
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQL Server

We assume here that you're using Windows. If you're using Mac OS X or Linux, please help us out by contributing notes for your OS.

Please remember that we only support CSE Instructional Lab-supported computers. If you are having trouble getting your assignment running at home, please try running it on a Lab machine.

General notes

• You will need to access both a local PostgreSQL install and SQL Server on IISQLSRV for project 2. Please see how to tunnel SQL Server using SSH.
• Make sure to download the updated CSEP544 shell launcher script. It will work better with a home-install configuration than the old one did; however, it is still liable to break on non-Lab machines. Check the paths in the script carefully to make sure they match up with your system. As version numbers change, the script is likely to become seriously out of date.
• You have to be running as admin to install these programs. In Vista you may need to choose the "Run as Administrator" option (right-click program executable, "Run as Adminstrator").
• If you're running a 64-bit version of Windows, you need to change C:\Program Files to C:\Program Files (x86) in the "Installing PostgreSQL" section, and download the updated shell launcher script to set the classpath correctly on your system.

Installing Java

Download the Java SDK 6, update 7 from Sun. This is a slightly older version of the Java SDK, so the updater may nag you unless you turn it off. However, it is consistent with the current Java SDK on the Lab machines.

Installing PostgreSQL and its JDBC driver

Follow these steps:

1. Download PostgreSQL 8.4.5 for windows from here.
2. Install it with the default options. The installer should prompt you to create two different passwords, but you only need to fill in the one for the "database superuser"; the installer will auto-generate a value for the other password if you don't supply one. Remember the password you entered; you'll need it later.
3. Now you need to install the JDBC driver. To do so, start by running the Stack Builder program from Start->Programs->PostgreSQL 8.4->Application Stack Builder.
4. Select "PostgreSQL Database Server 8.4 on port 5432", then choose Next.
5. Open the "Database Drivers" category, check tne box for "psqlJDBC 8.4.701", then choose Next.
6. Choose any mirror, then choose Next.
7. Choose Next at the confirmation window.
8. Wait until you see "All the installation files have now been successfully downloaded", then choose Next.
9. Choose Finish when done.
10. Verify that the files C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.4\bin\psql.exe and C:\Program Files\psqlJDBC\postgresql-8.4-701.jdbc4.jar exist.

Installing the JDBC driver for SQL Server

Follow these steps:

1. Download the JDBC driver from Microsoft. You'll end up "downloading" the license agreement; scroll to the bottom, then choose Accept to download the actual file. (The two "Accept" links point to different archives storing the same data; the "Windows version" is a self-extracting EXE, while the "UNIX version" is a gzipped tarball (.tar.gz file).)
2. Unpack the archive to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver
3. Verify that the file C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver\sqljdbc_2.0\enu\sqljdbc4.jar exists.

Adapting the PostgreSQL instructions

With two major exceptions, the PostgreSQL instructions for Lab machines still apply to working from home.

The first major exception is that you can completely skip the sections titled "Creating a data folder" and "Starting and stopping PostgreSQL". The installer already created a data folder, so you don't need to create one yourself, and it set up PostgreSQL to start on system startup, so you don't need to worry about that either.

The second major exception is the username and password you use to access the database. On Lab machines (when following the suggested procedure for creating a data folder), your PostgreSQL username is the same as your CSE login name, and you are not asked for a password because PostgreSQL automatically trusts all connections from the local computer. Neither is true on a home installation. Specifically, you must use as your PostgreSQL username the database superuser's name, which (unless you changed it in the installer) is postgres. Your password is thus the database superuser's password. This has two consequences:

• You will have to enter your PostgreSQL password in plaintext in Java or other application code. Remember, this is the database superuser password you previously created.
• You need to explicitly specify a username when running PostgreSQL commands from the 544 shell. You can do this by giving the -U option to most commands, before other arguments; hence

  > createdb customer

  becomes

  > createdb -U postgres customer

  You will then be prompted for the password for user postgres; use the database superuser password you established earlier. Alternatively, for psql only, you can specify the username after the database name and omit -U:

  > psql customer postgres