
REQUIREMENTS

You need perl to run the database software. Probably make sure you
have Perl version 4.0. We have run with patchlevel 36, but I guess it
will run with any Perl version 4.0. 

The software also runs with perl5 now, but is untested and therefore not
recommended (yet). However, we are interested in your success in doing so.

See RELEASE-NOTES for systems that are tested with the software.


INSTALLATION

The best thing to do is make a special tree for this database package.
Make a directory somewhere, cd into that directory, and unpack the
distribution.

If you unpacked, you should be left with the following:

Makefile        - makefile for this distribution
INSTALL         - this INSTALL
README		- a README
SECONDARIES	- a description on how to run a mirror/secondary RIPE database
RELEASE-NOTES   - notes on this release
src/            - source directory containing necessary sources
man/            - directory containing manual pages for executables and
                  configuration file (beware: most are quite old)
lib/            - empty directory for database library perl routines
bin/            - empty directory for the executables
doc/            - directory containing some documentation (more coming)
etc/            - directory for help and sample config file 'ripedb.config'
data/           - empty directory typically used for database files
locks/          - directory where the software stores lock files
tmp/		- empty directory for temporary files
                  This directory should be owned (and be writable) by the
                  user that owns the whole database software. 
                  Don't use /tmp for temporary files!
serials/        - directories for storing the serial files                  

(make sure that you edit the config file for the logfile directories and
 create the directories if they don't exist yet and/or are different form
 the defaults, see more below)

Then, edit the file Makefile to set the right directories and some other
variables. All variables are documented inside the Makefile itself. Also
don't forget to change the SOCK_STREAMVALUE if you are running Solaris.
The best choice is to have the bin and lib directories right below your
top level directory for the database software (that is, below this
directory, automatically included in the archive). Most directory
settings will have been set correctly if you have set TOPDIR to
this directory.

Done this, then you can try:

        make

This will make the perl library routines and programs. They will not be
installed and are located in the SRCDIR. 

If this succeeded, try:

        make install

It will then put the executables in your defined BINDIR, TOOLSDIR and LIBDIR.

Next, have a look at the configuration file for these programs
'ripedb.config' usually located in TOPDIR/etc.

There is quite a lot to configure. If you do not want to go through the
bother of changing everything because you just want to test the stuff,
make sure you change EVERYTHING that has path information in it and to
actually make the paths if not existing already. All options are
documented (and set to a reasonable default) in the sample config file
located in the TOPDIR/etc directory. Unfortunately the config reader does
not yet check for syntax errors in the config, so please be a bit
careful.

See the file SECONDARIES for more information on how to run your own RIPE
database mirror and the possibility for a nearly real-time mirror!

If you also need the possibility for E-mail updates put a .forward file
in the home directory of the database user with the following contents:

"|bin/doupdate"

and make the small shellscript:

bin/doupdate
----
#!/bin/sh

TOPDIR="yourtopdir";

RIPEDBCNF=$TOPDIR/etc/ripedb.config ; export RIPEDBCNF
cat | $TOPDIR/bin/dbupdate -M

# end of script 
----

