Installing Shares

Before You Begin...

Shares includes an Nginx web server listening on ports 80 and 443. For best results, use a machine that does not run a web server. If you are using a web server, keep port 80 or 443 open, configure either that server or the Nginx server to use different ports. If you are installing an IBM Aspera High-Speed Transfer Server and Shares on the same host and configure a firewall, close all ports that are not required (see IBM Aspera High-Speed Transfer Server: Configuring the Firewall).
  1. Review the system requirements section of the release notes.
  2. Download the latest version of IBM Aspera Shares from Fix Central.
  3. Verify that the hosts file has an entry for 127.0.0.1 localhost/. You can find this file at /etc/hosts.
  4. Disable SELinux.
    SELinux must be set to "permissive" or "disabled", not "enforced". To check the status of SELinux, run the following:
    # sestatus

    If SELinux is set to "enforced", see Disabling SELinux.

Install Shares

  1. Unpack the installer.
    Run the following command as root, where version is the package version:
    [root] # rpm -Uvh aspera-shares-version.rpm

    The following is an example of the output generated during the unpacking:

    Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
       1:aspera-shares          ########################################### [100%]
    
    To use a remote MySQL server and disable the local MySQL server,
    add the connection information to this file:
    
        /opt/aspera/shares/etc/my.cnf.setup
    
    To complete the installation, please run this script as the root user:
    
        [root]$ /opt/aspera/shares/u/setup/bin/install
    
    For more information about using a remote MySQL server, see Using Another MySQL Server During Installation.
  2. Run the install script.
     # /opt/aspera/shares/u/setup/bin/install
    The following is an example of the output generated during installation:
    Starting aspera-shares ...
    Started
    Testing 20 times if MySQL is accepting connections ...
    Waiting for MySQL server to answer.
    mysqld is alive
    Writing /etc/init.d/aspera-shares ...
    Running chkconfig to add the service to the runlevels ...
    Generating a private key and self-signed certificate ...
    To install your own private key and certificate authority-signed certificate, replace these files
      /opt/aspera/shares/etc/nginx/cert.key
      /opt/aspera/shares/etc/nginx/cert.pem
    Creating the shares database ...
    Loading the shares database schema ...
    Initializing the shares database ...
    
    To create an admin user, run this command:
    
        /opt/aspera/shares/u/shares/bin/run rake aspera:admin NAME="admin" PASSWORD="jFOBTzkgoJBk836cVW3zFXTX7XvOJSg" EMAIL="aspera@example.com"
    
    Creating the stats collector database ...
    Generating stats collector keys ...
    Done
  3. Create an admin user.
    The admin user account on the Shares server is used to configure Shares, including configuring users, security settings, and shares. Shares randomly generates a password that you can copy and paste to create the admin user, or you can create your own password.
    $ /opt/aspera/shares/u/shares/bin/run rake aspera:admin NAME="username" PASSWORD="password" EMAIL="email_address"
    Note: Remove the quotation marks when adding the correct values (username, password, email_address).
  4. If Shares will be referenced as multiple IP addresses or hostnames (for example, as localhost or as shares.example.com), add those IP addresses or hostnames to the AcceptedHosts parameter in the Shares configuration file (/opt/aspera/shares/u/shares/config/shares.yml).

    The AcceptedHosts parameter lists the IP addresses or hostnames by which a user or client can reference the Shares server. Add multiple IP addresses and hostnames as a comma-separated list in the AcceptedHosts section in the shares.yml file. For example:

    AcceptedHosts: [localhost, shares.example.com, 10.0.1.128]  # 10.0.1.128 is the server IP address
  5. Restart all Shares services.
    # service aspera-shares restart
Shares is now running and accessible from the IP address or domain name configured during installation. For more information about accessing Shares and logging in for the first time, see First Log In and Licensing.