Installation
VARP_Thor has created some wonderful visual tutorials on installing SEOW. Worth a look, especially since they were only created in 2017, so they show reasonably up-to-date operating systems etc.
Thor SEOW Installation Tutorial #1
Thor SEOW Installation Tutorial #2
OVERVIEW
Before you start the installation make sure you check the Requirements page for any supporting libraries you may need to install. From now on we assume that all requisite software is installed. To proceed with SEOW installaiton, there are three main components, all which must be installed, for a fully functional SEOW system:
1. The Dynamic Campaign System (DCS) - Installed on the User's PC.
The DCS is a Win32 (Visual Basic .NET) executable program front-end to a SQL-compliant database (DB) backend. The EXE for the DCS is installed on a user's desktop PC.
2. The Mission Planner (MP) - Installed on a Web Server.
The MP itself is a web application written in PHP that must be installed on a Web Server that has support for PHP. The MP is developed expressly for MS Internet Explorer 6 or higher, but it works very well in Mozilla Firefox with the IETab add-on.
The MP acts as a mission planning tool for all commanders active in the campaign. The MP handles all aspects of mission planning, reconnaissance, reinforcement, resupply etc. Presently the MP is available only as a PHP application, connecting to the standard SEDB in either MSAccess or MySQL format via a (free) third-party ADO library.
3. The Database (SEDB).
Two types of databases are supported by SEOW. MySQL database on a database server or Microsoft Access on a user's desktop PC.
The SEDB database stores all data related to SEOW campaigns.
Step 1. Download and install the required software libraries.
You must do this before starting the installation of SEOW components. Make sure that you have a web server with PHP installed and working correctly - yes, do this NOW. If you are going to use MySQL, make sure you get this working with the following options set in the my.ini configuration file for MySQL:
# Local extensions for SEOW lower_case_table_names=2 #Use old password encryption method (needed for 4.0 and older clients). old-passwords #extend query chunk size to something sensible max_allowed_packet=64M
Also, make sure that your PHP has the MySQL extension loaded. This is enabled by default in some PHP releases, but not the recent PHP v5.2.x releases. You do this in the php.ini file of your PHP installation folder. Simply uncomment the MySQL extension line. That is, change:
;extension=php_mysql.dll
to
extension=php_mysql.dll
That should do it! The next time you web server restarts it should load MySQL support.
Step 2. Download the SEOW files.
Download the Scorched Earth Install files from the SEOW File Releases page at Sourceforge - Latest Scorched Earth files - SEOW Web Site.
You need the latest DB, DCS and MP releases - that is 3 separate files. You want to download the packages - SEDB (The Database), SEDCS (The DCS Dynamic Campaign System) and SEMP (The MP Mission Planner), to your local hard drive.
The latest SEOW release files are here:
Step 3. Install the DCS Dynamic Campaign System on your local PC.
You will have downloaded a file similar to SEDCS-vx.x.x_installer.exe. This is an executable installation program. Just run this program and follow the instructions presented on screen.
Step 4. Install the database.
For MSAccess, simply place the .mbd file somewhere convenient on your hard drive, preferably in a folder that has no special restrictions on read/write permissions.
For MySQL you will have downloaded a file similar to SEDBxxx.zip. This includes SEOW database definitions in two versions: (1) a Reference version which contains ALL information required to run campaigns in ALL supported sectors, and (2) a set of Lite versions which are specific to each geographic sector. The Reference database contains over 1,000,000 records and is not recommended for production use. The Lite versions are .sql files, which can be used to build sector-specific databases.
All these files are SQL files that contain table and field names and data type information to build the SEOW Database tables. You will need a software package that can read SQL files and create a table from them onto a Web Server, for example DBTools Manager or Navicat.
The latest versions of the database installation contain a Lite version for each supported sector, where you only have to install one .sql file for the campaign sector you want to use. This saves storage space on the Web Server if you do not intend to use all the other maps at this time. We will assume that you are installing from the Lite database files with a view to creating a database for the Kursk map.
- First, you need to create a new database on your MysQL server, using any name you wish, e.g. SEDB_Kursk.
- Next, you must run the corresponding SEDB_Kursk.sql file on your SEDB_Kursk database. The SEDB_Kursk.sql file creates all the tables that are required to run SEOW and also adds all the data to these tables. Often the SEDB_Kursk_extendedins.sql variant executes faster with some MySQL clients (e.g. Navicat). The *_extendedins.sql variants contain the same database information as the normal counterparts (see next paragraph).
- For a full SEOW install, e.g. for a high-volume ISP host, you might want to repeat this process for every sector, i.e. build a separate database for each sector. Or, as above you might only want a couple. The main rule is that you cannot run more than one campaign in a single database at the same time. Note that the Lite databases now area available in "normal" and "extendedinserts" formats. The normal format contains 1 SQL INSERT statement for every database record, while the extendedinserts format aggregates multiple records into a single SQL INSERT statement. The normal format is more portable among different database tools but is slow, while the extendedinserts format is less portable but much faster to execute.
Step 5. Install the Mission Planner on a Web Server.
You will have downloaded a file similar to MP4-vx.xxx.zip. This is a compressed zip file containing the PHP files and directories required to load to your Web Server for the installation of the Mission Planner.
- First, unzip the file to a directory in the document root of the your web server, it will create the necessary sub directories and install the PHP files in the correct directories.
NOTE : The default path for Icons used in the MP is "/SEOW/MP4public/uniticons/", if you plan on installing the Mission Planner in a directory other than this, you need to change line 15 in the MP-Configuration file that reads : $IconLocation="/SEOW/MP4public/uniticons/";, to the location you are using.
If you start the MP and can't see any of the Icons, this is usually the problem. Therefore, the easiest way to install the MP is to use the path "/SEOW/MP4public" on your Web Server.
Step 6. Configuring the MP
You now need to add the Host Address, Host Name, Login Name and Password, so that the Mission Planner can automatically access the SEOW database.
This is done by typing in the following URL into your web browser http://localhost/SEOW/MP4public/Scripts/MP-Admin.php, assuming that you used the default path and substituting your Web Server address for the localhost. Make sure that your MP4public/Scripts/MP-Connections.php file is writeable. You can edit this file directly if you wish (using a text editor), but MP-Admin.php actually manages the database connections details directly, so you can open this page in your web browser and use it as a GUI (the default password is admin, as defined in the MP-Configuration.php file). Detailed examples of connection formats for each type of database are written inside MP-Connections.php. Open this file in Notepad and have a read if you are unsure about what information is necessary.
The important concept is that EVERY sector MUST point to a valid SEOW database. You can point multiple sectors at the SAME database if you like (but there can only be ONE campaign in a database at any time), but you MUST NOT point any sector at a non-existent database or connection. If you do, the MP will not load the front page. A simple way to set up the MP database connections is to create a single database, and set the MP default connection to point at this database. Then tell each sector to use the the default connection (via the pull-down menus for each sector).
For more advanced SEOW users, it is possible to run 70 campaigns in different sectors simultaneously, by having a separate database per active sector. Using the General HQ tools, you can even transfer reinforcements between sectors, thereby making multi-sector campaigning easy and engrossing.
Installation Complete.
--IV/JG7_4Shades 11:44, 16 April 2011 (CET)
