Installation (and Upgrade Guide) for opReports 3.x

Upgrading from version 3.x

Upgrading from any version of opReports 3.x is trivial: simply download and start the self-extracting installer and follow the prompts.

Upgrading from version 2.x

Upgrading opReports from version 2.x is easy, as version 2 and 3 can be installed both on a single machine, at the same time:

  • opReports 2.x has all data in /usr/local/opmantek, and is accessible at http://<hostname>/cgi-omk/opReports.pl
  • opReports 3.x keeps all its data in /usr/local/omk, and is accessible at http://<hostname>/omk/opReports

Simply follow the instructions for a fresh installation (below), then create schedule definitions for any existing opReports 2.x report generation cron entries; once you are happy that opReports 3.x performs adequately you can disable the old opReports 2.x cron jobs, and eventually remove opReports 2.x altogether. Your existing opReports 2.x license will work with opReports 3.x.

Installation

Prerequisites

  • The individual performing this installation has a small bit of Linux experience.
  • Root access is available.
  • Internet access is required for installing any missing but required software packages.
  • NMIS (8.5.0 or newer) must already be installed on the same server that opReports is being installed on.
  • You will need a license for opReports (evaluation licenses are available here).
  • All licenses are added/updated at https://<hostname>/omk/opLicense .

Preparation

Installation Steps

As of February 2016, opReports is distributed in a self-extracting download format that simplifies the installation process quite a bit. More information on running the installer can be found HERE: The Opmantek Installer

Transfer the opReports installer onto the server in question, either by direct download from the Opmantek website, or from your desktop with scp or sftp or a similar file transfer tool.

Make a record of where you put the tarball (root's home directory or /tmp are good locations).

  • Start the interactive installer and follow its instructions. The installer now fully covers both initial installations as well as upgrades from earlier versions of opReports.


    sudo sh ./opReports-Linux-x86_64-3.0.7.run
    ...
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    opReports (3.0.7) Installation script
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    ...
    This installer will install opReports into /usr/local/omk.
    To select a different installation location please rerun the
    installer with the -t option.
    
    
  • The installer will interactively guide you through the steps of installing opReports. Please make sure to read the on-screen prompts carefully.
  • When the installer finishes, opReports is installed into /usr/local/omk, and the default configuration files are in /usr/local/omk/conf, ready for your initial config adjustments.
  • A detailed log of the installation process is saved as /usr/local/omk/install.log, and subsequent upgrades or installations of other Opmantek products will add to that logfile.
  • For detailed information about the interactive installer please check the Opmantek Installer page.

Initial Setup

opReports works almost  completely "out of the box" and requires just a very few configuration settings to be adjusted initially:

Linking to NMIS

Many reports contain clickable links to NMIS, which require that the setting for nmis_host_base is correct. It is also important that the configuration setting opreports_url_base is correct, or your report  will display badly. These are set in /usr/local/omk/conf/opCommon.nmis; see the next item for details on how to modify this file safely.
The nmis_host_base configuration is required to make sure that graphs and other linked things can find the server correctly from a report which has been emailed.

'nmis_host_base' => 'http://nmis.yourcompany.com',
'opreports_url_base' => 'http://nmis.yourcompany.com',

Emailing Reports

If you plan to email reports out (via the CLI tool or the GUI), then it's vital that the email configuration is adjusted to reflect your environment.
Open /usr/local/omk/conf/opCommon.nmis with an editor of your choice, look for the section labelled "email" and change the values as required.

When you're done making these adjustments, restart the Opmantek Web service with sudo service omkd restart.

Configuring the Scheduler for Frequent Reporting

If you want to run scheduled reports very frequently, then the default frequency for the opReports scheduler may be insufficient.
By default opReports installs a cron file (in /etc/cron.d/opreports) which runs opreports-scheduler.pl once per hour. Feel free to modify that cron file to your liking.