Installation

Compatibility

TopCAT will work with ICATs with version of 4.3 or greater.

Prerequisites

Summary of steps

  1. Please follow the generic installation instructions
  2. Use the admin interface to configure access to one or more ICATs
  3. See if it works.

The topcat-setup.properties file

driver
is the name of the jdbc driver and must match the jar file for your database that you stored in the previous step.
dbProperties
identifies the icat database and how to connect to it.
glassfish
is the top level of the glassfish installation. It must contain "glassfish/domains", and will be referred to here as GLASSFISH_HOME as if an environment variable had been set.
port
is the administration port of the chosen glassfish domain which is typically 4848.
adminUsername
The user name to use when setting up the topcat admin user. This will then be the user name to use to log on to the topcat admin console.
adminPassword
The password corresponding to the adminUsername

For a local oracle-xe installation the following values of driver and dbProperties should be good except for the user and password values:

driver=oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource
icatProperties=url="'"jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/XE"'":ImplicitCachingEnabled=true:MaxStatements=200:user=icat:password=secret

Note the "'" which is needed because the url contains colons which also separate individual properties.

For MySQL:

driver=com.mysql.jdbc.jdbc2.optional.MysqlDataSource
icatProperties=user=icat:password=secret:databaseName=icat

The topcat.properties file

KEYWORDS_CACHED
Boolean flag, 'true' or 'false'. True will result in keywords being cached on the server, this could result in the bypassing of the authorisation rules
LOGO_URL
The location of an image to display in the header of topcat. The value should be a path/file name relative to the <GLASSFISH_HOME>/glassfish/domains/<DOMAIN>/applications/TopCAT/ directory.
MESSAGE
This message will be displayed at the top of the web page. It is intended for use by sys admins so that they can inform users of up coming down times. If you change it then you will need to reload the application.
ACCESSIBILITY
The URL for an accessibility web page, a link to this is included in the topcat footer
PRIVACY_POLICY
The URL for a privacy policy web page, a link to this is included in the topcat footer
DATA_POLICY
The URL for a data policy web page, a link to this is included in the topcat footer
TERMS_OF_USE
The URL for a terms of use web page, a link to this is included in the topcat footer
COMPLAINTS_PROCEDURE
The URL for a complaints web page, a link to this is included in the topcat footer
FEEDBACK
The URL for a mailto link, a link to this is included in the topcat footer.

Add ICATs with the admin console

Connect to the https://<your host name>:8181/TopCATAdmin. You will be prompted for a username and password.

Check that TopCAT works

Go to https://<your host name>:8181/TOPCATWeb.jsp and try logging in to one of the configured ICATs if you have a login on one of them.

In case of problems look at the log files: server.log, topcat.log and topcat_admin.log all of which can both be found in the logs directory below your domain.

Schema Upgrade

To upgrade the schema from topcat 1.1.10 to 1.1.11, run the following sql queries for your database:

  • Oracle:

    ALTER TABLE TOPCAT_ICAT_SERVER ADD DOWNLOAD_TYPE VARCHAR2(255);

  • MySql:

    ALTER TABLE TOPCAT_ICAT_SERVER ADD DOWNLOAD_TYPE VARCHAR(255);

  • Derby:

    ALTER TABLE TOPCAT_ICAT_SERVER ADD DOWNLOAD_TYPE VARCHAR(255);