README for the RIPE Whois Server (RIP) on Solaris

The RIPE Whois Server 3.1.1 has been tested on Solaris 8, using the default
installation parameters.


Required Software

The following software must installed to build the server, as it is not
default on Solaris and required (see the INSTALL file for more detailed
descriptions of each):

o gcc

o GNU Make
  If installed as "make", be sure that it is in your PATH before the
  system "make" executable, as this will not work with the RIP
  Makefiles.  Optionally, you can install it as "gmake", or create a
  link from the GNU "make" executable to "gmake".

o glib

o University of Washington IMAP distribution

o MySQL
  Be sure to specify "--enable-thread-safe-client" when you build the
  distribution.

o GNU Privacy Guard

o zlib

If you do not have Flex and Bison installed, you may get warning
messages, but these will not affect operation unless you attempt to
rebuild the source files from the Lex and Yacc definitions.

You need to insure that /usr/ccs/bin is in your PATH, as this is the
location of the "ar" executable used to build libraries.

If you are using Solaris package files to install software, be aware
that some put libraries required by GNU C++ in /usr/local/lib.  In this
case, you must have /usr/local/lib in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment
variable.


Building

The "build.sh" file has a section that works with the default Solaris
setup, and the software mentioned above installed in /usr/local.
Uncomment out the section titled Solaris to use this file when
installing.


General Notes

The Solaris distribution has no known problems.  Since this is the
server that RIPE NCC uses for its own Whois service, it is the best
tested platform.  We use the Sparc platform for the RIPE database, and
the Intel platform for the TEST database (which has much, much, less
load).


Performance Tips

o Use a RAM device for the MySQL temporary space.
  Solaris has a file system call "swap" which uses memory rather than
  secondary storage.  By default /tmp is swap.

  To take advantage of this, you should change the "tmpdir" variable of
  MySQL to this.  You can do this by adding:

    tmpdir = /tmp

  To the "/etc/my.cnf" file and restarting MySQL.

$Date: 2002/09/19 16:20:52 $
