
1.Installing

To install Simba you need:

    * perl 5.008 (or above)
    * perl modules
    * a database server

Perl modules

Simba also needs some perl modules from the RoPkg Perl Foundry 

    * RoPkg
    * RoPkg::DB
    * RoPkg::Rsync
    * RoPkg::Simba

 Each RoPkg module has his own dependencies. I tried to keep
the dependencies as small as posible.

First, you must install the RoPkg perl modules. Download
the perl modules and copy them to a temporary directory
(eg: ~/tmp). Install them in the order specified before:

cd ~/tmp/
tar xvfz RoPkg-<version>.tar.gz
cd RoPkg-<version>
perl Makefile.PL
make
sudo make install

cd ..
tar xvfz RoPkg-DB-<version>.tar.gz
cd RoPkg-DB-<version>
perl Makefile.PL
make
sudo make install

cd ..
tar xvfz RoPkg-Rsync-<version>.tar.gz
cd RoPkg-Rsync-<version>
perl Makefile.PL
make
sudo make install

cd ..
tar xvfz RoPkg-Simba-<version>.tar.gz
cd RoPkg-Simba-<version>
perl Makefile.PL
make
sudo make install

 At this time you should have all modules installed.
If you want to make sure that all the modules 
are installed (and usable) you can use the following
command to test them:

perl -MRoPkg::Utils -MRoPkg::DB -MRoPkg::Rsync -MRoPkg::Simba -e '1;'

Next, you need simba-<version>.tar.gz archive. Unpack it into a 
temporary directory and follow these steps:

 *) create the config directory: mkdir /etc/simba
 *) copy the configuration file: cp simba.cfg /etc/simba/
 *) edit the configuration file
 *) create the templates (according to enabled plugins)
 *) install the database
 *) install the web interface

2. Installing the database

 Simba uses DBI as database interface and SQL::Abstract
for query generation. So, Simba can use any DBMS that
DBI knows about. For a list of the supported database
servers, please see the DBI manual page. For this 
example will suppose that you have a MySQL server.
First let's create a database for simba, a user and
give that user full rights on the database:

 mysqladmin create mirrors_db
 mysql
 grant all on mirrors_db.* to simba@localhost identified by 'simbapassword'

 Now, when we have the database and the user with 
access to the database, let's import the tables layout.
Look into addons directory for a file called simba.mysql .

 mysql mirrors_db < addons/simba.mysql

At this point we have the database, the user and the 
tables created. Also, the required perl modules are installed.



3. Configuration file

 Simba configuration file is no more, and no less than a perl
source file. I used this approach because perl is a very 
flexible language and the complexity of the configuration 
file is not that trivial. Still this approach has some
drawbacks. You must be very careful when modifying the file.
Any mistakes, and you'll get some weird error messages.
Rather than creating your own configuration file from the scratch
I recommend that you modify the one provided by Simba.

After customizing the configuration file, you are ready to
run Simba. To take advantage of Simba's features you
should take a look at the default templates and customize
them to reflect your policy and custom reports.
More information about the templates can be found in
templates section of the web site.



4. Install the web interface

 Simba's web interface is CGI based (at this moment). The
CGI script expects the configuration file to be in 
/etc/simba/simba.cfg and the templates to be located
in /etc/simba/templates/cgi/ . If you don't have these
paths please modify the source to reflect the new
location of those files.
 Will assume than Simba's configuration directory is
/etc/simba/ . 
 The templates required by Simba can be found in 
addons/web/templates/. To install the CGI simply
copy all the files into your DocumentRoot. 

Resources:

 [1] - http://simba.packages.ro/
 [2] - http://www.packages.ro/
 [3] - http://ftp.iasi.roedu.net/mirrors-status/
        online archive using Simba
 [4] - http://ftp.roedu.net/mirrors-status/
        online archive using Simba

 More information can be found on the website or asking
on the mailing lists:

 simba-announce@packages.ro
 simba-users@packages.ro
 simba-devel@packages.ro
