Installing Avis

Avis install packages are available from the sourceforge download area. See the relevant section below for more information.

Requirements

Before installing Avis, you will need a Java 5 (or later) runtime or development kit installed. Windows and Unix users can get Java from Sun's Java download site. Mac OS X users can get Java 5 from Apple's download site (Mac OS X 10.4 or later).

You can run Avis with a minimal Java Runtime Environment (JRE) but if you wish to get optimal performance it is recommended you install the full JDK to gain access to the "server" optimizing VM.

Configuration

The Avis router will install and run with no configuration required. If you do wish to change any of the router's default parameters, these are specified in a file called avisd.config. See the installation instructions for your platform below for information on where this file can be found. Documentation and templates for the config options can be found in the file itself.

Windows

To install, run the self-installer package. By default this will install Avis in C:\Program Files\Avis.

You may also elect to add Avis as a system service, which will run Avis in the background as a startup service. If you don't wish to add Avis as a service at install time, you can add it later by running bin\install_avis_service.cmd.

Once installed, Avis will either already be running (if you installed it as a service), or you may start it from the command line using bin\start_avis_service.cmd.

Configuration options for Avis can be found in the config\avisd.config file.

Fedora

The Avis RPM is targeted and tested on Fedora Core 2 and later. However the RPM is architecture-independent and not particularly dependent on Fedora, so it may work on other RPM-based Linux distributions.

NOTE: Avis will not run under GNU gcj, which is the default version of Java shipped with Fedora. You'll need to download the Java SE 1.6 JDK from java.sun.com, and then use these instructions at jpackage.org to install Sun Java and make it the default runtime.

To install:

> sudo rpm -ivh avis-1.2.2.rpm

Configuration options are in the file /etc/avis/avisd.config.

To run from the command line as a test:

> /usr/sbin/avisd -c /etc/avis/avisd.config

To install as a startup service:

> sudo /sbin/chkconfig --add avisd
> sudo /sbin/chkconfig avisd on
> sudo /sbin/service avisd start

To uninstall as a system service:

> sudo /sbin/service avisd stop
> sudo /sbin/chkconfig avisd --del

To uninstall:

> sudo rpm -e avis

Mac OS X

To install, open the Avis .tbz archive in Finder. This will extract the Avis installation package which you can open and install.

To configure: The Avis configuration is in /usr/local/etc/avis/avisd.config.

To start Avis, open a Terminal window and, as an admin user, run the command to instruct launchd to load and start it as a system daemon:

> sudo launchctl load \
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.avis.avisd.plist

To stop Avis:

> sudo launchctl unload \
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.avis.avisd.plist

To uninstall: Mac OS X unfortunately does not have a standard way to uninstall installer package (.pkg) files. You can however use a third party utility called DesInstaller to selectively delete installed packages.

Other

The Avis source distribution comes with precompiled binaries ready to run on any platform. Simply unzip the source distribution and run Avis from a bash command shell:

 > cd avis-1.2.2/server
 > ./bin/avisd

See etc/avisd.config for configuration options.

There is also a smaller binary distribution intended for Unix systems: look for a download like avis-1.2.2.tar.bz2. This distribution can be installed using the included install.sh script or via GNU stow. See the included README for more information.

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