EWBRVR – Linux Installation Option

I’ve recently simplified/automated the process to install and run EWBSRVR under Linux.   The complete documentation to install Linux and EWBSRVR fits on three pages, it’s pretty easy,

Note: I don’t use EWBSRVR for any of my own applications, and I’m certainly not an expert in it.  But it appears to work with the demos I’ve tried.  And I’ve been using similar Windows servers in this general configuration for years, they are very reliable and scalable.

Linux buys you a few benefits including:
-   More online hosting options at reduced cost
-   Free OS options (Debian or Ubuntu)
-   Lower system requirements (no TPM requirement, 1.5 GB minimum RAM though more is always better)
-   Excellent stability (usually updates do not require reboots)
-   Ability to integrate with other features (such as ADFS OAuth, SAML, etc) with Apache tunneling
-   Ability to host multiple environemnts on one IP address and single machine (again through Apache tunneling)
-   Ability to use with free High Availability systems (eg. ProxxMox) for redundancy
-   Ability to use ZFS file system (instant snapshots, growth to exobyte file sizes, compressed volumes, etc.)

There are no changes required to the EWB environment, your source code or executables.

Once configured, EWBSRVR runs as a Linux service, there is no need to log in after reboots.  And if the system is shutdown in an orderly fashion (ie. don’t cut the power), EWBSRVR exits gracefully and file state is preserved.

These  installation scripts are available to all licensees of my Nice Toolkit.   Initially I am asking users to connect with me to get access – just so I know whom to notify when changes are needed to the intiail install process.  But once I’m confident, I’ll include the script in my typical NICE updates.

Contact me at erickengelke@gmail.com
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com

erickengelke wrote:

> EWBRVR – Linux Installation Option

To answer questions...

1. Licensing: Other than being a NICE licensee, you must be an EWB licensee, obviously.  There are no other costs

2. OS Distro: I used Debian because it's free and doesn't require you to register or anything.  I think the same files will work with Ubuntu, but it requires registration now... which seems less free to me.  It can be made to work on other distributions but you would need to change the scripts to reflect their differences.

3. Downsides?  I haven't found any.  

4. Can you use cheap hosting plans?  Sort of.  You will need to have a virtual machine account because you will be installing a system process (EWBSRVR) and not a PHP-only web hosting plan.   So you need a virtual machine with at LEAST one core.  On my old Intel box, according to ProxxMox, the background processing of the OS+Windows Environment+EWBSRVR consumes about 4% of an active CPU when idle.   So on Amazon that could add up because they charge for CPU cycles.  But this is only 2/3rds of what a slimmed down Windows 11 machine consumes in CPU and 2/3rds also of the RAM.  So it is still a savings.

Erick.
EWB Programming Books and Nice Component Library
See my EWB BLOG posts, at:
http://www.erickengelke.com