Installation Guide

1. Standard Install
2. General Instructions
3. Using Karma with a webserver
4. Installing Perl
5. Installing DBI
6. Installing DBD-Oracle
7. Installing Oracle


1. Standard Install

At this time, unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to build an install script. Partly this is because I haven't completely thought out how it should be installed. Eventually karma will include a standard perl install script.

2. General Instructions

Currently, following the directions in the Quickstart Guideshould explain to you how to get started. See the Configuration Guide for more information on how to create a read-only user for karma in your database, to edit the karma.conf file, or to use the karmagentd to monitor the alertlog and uptime statistics on your remote database.

3. Using Karma with a webserver

Yes, you can use karma with a webserver, but there isn't too much you need to do on the karma end of things. Basically karma generates a set of html pages. These by default go into "doc_root" in the karma software directory, but this path can be changed via the "-k" option to karmad when you start it. Specify a valid path, and it will write the files there. Be sure to move the existing karma documents from doc_root to that location, and create directories named "docs", "help", "images", and "info" there as well.

4. Installing Perl

Installing perl has become *MUCH* easier over the years, so don't be so afraid of installing it on your own system. You can install it from source or binaries.

Installing on linux systems (most of which come with perl anyway) is often as simple as:

$ gunzip < stable.tar.gz | tar xvf -
$ cd perl5.005_03
$ ./configure
$ make

and as root

$ make install

5. Installing DBI

It's pretty straightforward on most machines where Perl is already installed. Download the latest DBD-Oracle from your favorite CPAN Site, then follow these steps:

$ gunzip < DBI-1.13.tar.gz | tar xvf -
$ cd DBI-1.13
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make test

then as root:

$ make install

6. Installing DBD-Oracle

It's pretty straightforward on most machines where Perl is already installed. Download the latest DBD-Oracle from your favorite CPAN Site, set your environment variables ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID, be sure $ORACLE_HOME/bin is in your path, and that $ORACLE_HOME/lib is in your library path then follow these steps:

$ gunzip < DBD-Oracle-1.03.tar.gz | tar xvf -
$ cd DBD-Oracle-1.03
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make
$ make test

then as root:

$ make install

7. Installing Oracle

Of course, none of this would be complete without an Oracle database to connect to. Installing Oracle, however, is really beyond the scope of this document. You can find useful documentation at technet, though you'll need to register first. It's free. In addition, you can find linux specific installation instructions here.