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Create Offline caGrid 1.4 Installer

If you have trouble installing caGrid due to firewall configuration or because you need to use a proxy, you can create your own caGrid installer that will retrieve files from the local file system. The installer typically connects to the Internet to retrieve installation packages (e.g. Ant) to download and install. In the case of an offline installer, the installer will instead retrieve these packages from a local directory. This will allow you to install caGrid using the graphical installer.

This article will guide you through the process of creating an offline installer. It is assumed that you have installed all caGrid prerequisites. When downloading the prerequisites, be sure to have all the files listed in the manual install section. You do not need to set your environment variables because the installer will do that for you. Simply download Java, Ant, etc. to your local file system. In order to proceed, you must have the following software distributions on your file system:

  • Java
  • Apache Ant
  • Apache Tomcat
  • JBoss
  • Globus (caGrid-modified Globus distribution)

The rest of this article will detail how to create an installer that uses these prerequisites during installation.

Table of Contents

Download and unzip the caGrid 1.4 Installer

Download the latest caGrid installer. After the download is complete, decompress the installer archive. Unzipping the file will create a new directory: "caGrid-installer-1.4". This documentation refers to this directory as ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER.

Download and unzip caGrid installer
In the new directory, locate the file cagrid-installer-1.4.jar. Unzip this file to a separate folder. This documentation refers to this new directory as TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER.

You may need to use an unzipping utility to do this (e.g. Winzip, Winrar). You cannot simply open the file as this will start the installer.

Save the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file

Locate the file download.properties in the TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory. When you open this file, you will see that download.url= is pointing to a cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file from a web address. The download.url property specifies the location of the installer properties file that the installer will use to retrieve caGrid dependencies. You must download the installer properties file before you can continue. To do this, copy and paste the address specified as the value of the download.url= property to a browser location field. Once the page is loaded, right-click in the screen and select Save page as. Save the file in the ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory.

The cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file

Update the download.properties file

You can now change the download.properties file to point to the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file you just downloaded.

In a text editor, open the download.properties file. Change the download.url= pathname to point to the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file. It should be located in the ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory. When complete, the download.url should look something like the following:

Edit the download.properties file
Notice, that the pathname uses "/" and not "\". Also, be sure to have "file:///" before the pathname. This makes the download.properties file point to the local installer file on your machine and not the file on the Internet. Once you have finished editing, SAVE the file.

Wordpad should not be used to edit the file because it can cause complications. Notepad is acceptable to use.

Update the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file

Next, you will update the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file to point to your local files just as you did with the download.properties file. As mentioned previously, ensure that you have downloaded the prerequisites for a manual installation. In addition, you will need the caGrid distribution that is referenced in the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file (located on the line with the cagrid.download.url property).

Locate the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file in the ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory. Open the file and find the lines for ant.download.url=, tomcat.download.url=, jboss.download.url=, globus.download.url=, and cagrid.download.url=. These lines are currently pointing to a web address. Change the pathname to the location where the corresponding zip files are located on your local drive.

Edit the cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file
Once again, notice the "file:///" and the use of "/" in all of the pathnames. As noted earlier, Wordpad should not be used for editing.

Create a new installer

Now that the files have been updated, create a new jar file for the installer. Verify that the updated download.properties file is located in the TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory. The following commands will create a new jar file that includes the updated download.properties file that points to your local cagrid-1.4.installer.properties file.

In a command prompt, type the following command:

 > cd TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER > jar cmf META-INF/MANIFEST.MF caGrid-installer-1.4.jar *
Make sure that you are creating the jar from the TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER location. The new caGrid-installer-1.4.jar will both use the files in that directory and be created there.

Once the jar file is created, you must use it to replace the originally downloaded installer. To do this, open the TEMP_CAGRID_INSTALLER directory. Copy the caGrid-installer-1.4.jar that you created. Then paste it into the ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER ("caGrid-installer-1.4") directory. Select Yes to overwrite the existing file.

Overwrite caGrid-installer-1.4

Run the Installer and Verify

You can now run the installer with a command prompt:

  > cd ORIG_CAGRID_INSTALLER   > java -jar caGrid-installer-1.4.jar
For walk-through steps using the installer, refer to Install caGrid Using the caGrid 1.4 Installer. To verify that the installer is using your local download.properties file, read the first line of output in the command prompt. If it is downloading the default properties from the cagrid14.installer.properties file on your hard drive, then you have successfully created an offline caGrid 1.4 installer!

Verify that the installer is running locally
Last edited by
Clayton Clark (1001 days ago)
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