Beeper: Installation

Beeper is a complete application, built on top of the Keel Meta-Framework which is in turn built on top of Avalon. Familiarity with either of these IOC frameworks should make installing & configuring Beeper much easier, but if you haven't had the opportunity to work with either, this step by step should put you on the right path. Beeper is actually a small extension to the Spider datafeed service, and as such, uses Spider's runtime environment. If you already have Spider installed, you may simply add the Beeper jar and Beeper specific configuration files to your Spider runtime installation to utilize Beeper.

Download

Download the source distribution with runtime environment here: Beeper 0.1.0 distribution. Unzip this archive into the directory where you would like Beeper installed.

Setup Environment

Create an environment variable SPIDER_HOME pointing to your chosen installation directory (ex: SPIDER_HOME=/home/jdoe/tse-beeper ). Alternatively, hardcode this variable value in the startup script in (./bin/spider.sh or ./bin/spider.bat). Refer to the scripts themselves for more details.

Build

From SPIDER_HOME, execute two maven tasks:

• maven copy-dependencies - copies runtime libraries into SPIDER_HOME/lib
• maven jar - builds Beeper source and places jar into SPIDER_HOME/lib

Beeper's dependencies are detailed in the maven project descriptor (project.xml). If maven is unable to download any of the required dependencies, you will need to obtain them manually. This is sometimes the case for libraries that can not be freely redistributed, and are not included in your JDK. Manually installed jars should be placed in the maven repository, and SPIDER_HOME/lib.

Install JMS Support (Optional)

If you would like to use Beeper in Daemon/Client mode, you need to install JMS support. Daemon/Client mode will allow a single instance of Beeper to run as a Daemon (Server) communicating with multiple clients via JMS. This is ideal for integration with other systems like Nagios where we want to repeatedly query Beeper without incurring the overhead of a full system startup.

Download openjms-0.7.5.zip and unzip it in the SPIDER_HOME/jms directory.

Configure Spider Installation

Copy Beeper's default configuration files from $SPIDER_HOME/src/app-beeper/config to your runtime Spider configuration directory: $SPIDER_HOME/config. Modify the defaults as appropriate.

Configure JDBC Support (Optional)

By default, Beeper uses the HSQL Database Engine, which will allow it to persist data locally (for its own use) in the ./db directory. If you would like to leverage another JDBC enabled RDMBS, you need to modify the ./config/jdbc-system.xconf file with the appropriate JDBC properties.

Configure Beeper Tasks

You next need to define the tasks you would like Beeper to perform in the ./config/tasks.xml file. Beeper's flexible nature makes the tasks.xsd almost meaningless...tasks.xml does not validate against it. The best way to define your own tasks is to use the examples or take a look at the RuleSets used within your installation.

As a side, the tasks.xml file is actively monitored by the Avalon/Excalibur monitor service, and any changes to it will be actively parsed/digested by Beeper.

Launch Application

• View Beeper's runtime options by executing: ./bin/beeper.sh -?
• Optionally launch Beeper's JMS server (for JMS Daemon/Client mode) with: ./bin/startjms.sh
• Launch Beeper with your chosen options!