Most of the task of installing an OPeNDAP server consists of getting the required Web server installed and running. The intricacies of this task, and the variety of available Web servers make this task beyond the scope of this guide. Proceed with the following steps only after the Web server itself is operational.
Installing the OPeNDAP CGI programs and the data to be served is a
relatively simple operation. After
installing the OPeNDAP source tree and building the software, (See
Appendix A), the user need only copy the CGI program from the
etc directory in the OPeNDAP source tree ($(DODS_ROOT)/etc)
to one of the directories where the Web server expects to find its CGI
programs. The exact name of this directory is an implementation detail
of the Web server itself.
The service programs used by the CGI are generally kept in the same directory as the CGI itself, although this can be changed by modifying the OPeNDAP CGI dispatch script.
NOTE: The server programs come with release notes and installation
notes, in files README and INSTALL, among others. These
will be found in the distribution directories for the particular
server. For example, the documentation for the JGOFS server will be
found in $DODS_ROOT/src/http/jg-dods. See The DODS Toolkit Programmer's Guide for
additional information about server documentation.
After installing the CGI program and the services, the data to be
provided must be put in some location where it may be served to
clients. Again, the location of the data depends on the configuration
of the Web server and the API used by the CGI services. Most often,
data that is served by a Web server is kept in the htdocs
directory, the exact pathname of which is specified in the
httpd.configuration file. A server may also be enabled to search
a user's home directory tree or may follow links from the htdocs
directory (if the server is enabled to follow symbolic links). There
may be yet other options provided by the specific server used in a
particular installation, so there is really no way to avoid consulting
the configuration instructions of the Web server.
As noted, the location of the data depends not only on the
configuration of the Web server, but also on the API used to access
the data requested. For example, the netCDF server simply
stores data in a path relative to the working directory of the CGI
program, htdocs, while the JGOFS server uses its data
dictionary to specify the location of its data. Refer to the specific
installation notes for each API for more information about the
location of the data.