4 The Base product

In the following descriptions, instructions, and examples, the expression “HELIOSDIR” is used for the directory path where the HELIOS software is installed. This could be e.g. the default installation path “/usr/local/helios”. Under UNIX, the actual HELIOS installation path can be traced by entering the command:

$ cat /etc/HELIOSInstallPath

4.1 Software installation

The following list gives details about the hardware and software you need for making the HELIOS Base software successfully work.

4.1.1 Network requirements

Ethernet compatible network interface
Any TCP/IP network

4.1.2 Server requirements

One of the following host systems:
- Oracle Solaris
- Linux
- macOS
- Windows
Note:

A detailed list of supported platforms and operating systems can be found on the HELIOS website (www.helios.de/platforms).
Local or remote DVD drive or option to mount DVD image
At least 1 GB of free disk space for the initial installation of the HELIOS products. An additional 1 GB of free space is recommended long-term to allow storage for temporary files, log files, and updates
At least 256 MB RAM on the server
At least one supported network adapter installed and active
TCP/IP must be installed and running

Additional requirements on Windows

NTFS file system (for HELIOS installation path and shared folders)
Perl 5.22 or newer (www.perl.org)
ActiveState and Strawberry Perl were successfully tested. Perl is used for all scripts (“start-helios”/“stop-helios”, HELIOS Script Server scripts, HELIOS action scripts, etc.) and must therefore be downloaded and installed first. Make sure that the path to the Perl program was added to “PATH" in the Windows environment!

4.1.3 Client requirements

In order to run HELIOS Admin, HELIOS WebShare Manager and HELIOS ICC Tagger, a suitable Java version must be installed on the client. The easiest way is to install the HELIOS Java runtime on each used client:

OS X

Mount the “HELIOS Applications” volume and open the “MacOS” directory.

In the “Java” subdirectory you will find the “HELIOS JavaRuntime.pkg” file. After opening this file, a Java installer is started.

Windows

Map the “HELIOS Applications” network drive and open the “Windows” directory.

In the “Java” subdirectory you will find the “HELIOS JavaRuntime.exe” file. After opening this file, a Java installer is started.

4.1.4 General remarks

About this chapter

This chapter describes the steps that are indispensable for a standard installation, and gives short explanations where necessary. All steps are marked by an arrow ( hsymInstruction ) to the left. For a quick installation, you may proceed directly from one instruction to the other, and skip the explanations in between.

Firewalls

All installed firewalls must be turned off for the initial HELIOS installation (see 5.10 “Windows firewall problems”).

Machine ID

The machine ID is required to license the HELIOS software. Without a valid license the software only works in a 3-hour demo mode, or with demo activation keys (see What you have to do in “Welcome to HELIOS Base” above).

Machine ID in virtual machines

When installing the HELIOS software on virtual machines, the machine ID is generated automatically (see 4.1.10 “Software installation (Virtual machines)”).

References to HELIOS CDs

HELIOS G8 is available on CD027. This manual covers the HELIOS software versions as of G8, including EtherShare 7.0, PCShare 7.0, WebShare 5.0, ImageServer 6.0, PDF HandShake 6.0, and PrintPreview 6.0.
CD027 is distributed as a disk image file. For convenience, we refer to it as the HELIOS CD.

Earlier HELIOS CDs:

HELIOS CD	Products	Version
CD026	EtherShare 6.0, PCShare 6.0, WebShare 4.0, ImageServer 5.0 PDF HandShake 5.0, PrintPreview 5.0	UB64
CD025	EtherShare 5.0, PCShare 5.0, WebShare 3.0, ImageServer 4.0 PDF HandShake 4.0, PrintPreview 4.0	UB2
CD023 CD024	EtherShare 4.5, PCShare 4.5, WebShare 2.0, ImageServer 3.5 PDF HandShake 3.5, PrintPreview 3.5	UB⁺
CD021 CD022	EtherShare 4.0, PCShare 4.0, WebShare 1.2, ImageServer 3.0 PDF HandShake 3.0, PrintPreview 3.0	UB
CD018 CD019 CD020	EtherShare 3.1, PCShare 3.1, WebShare 1.0, ImageServer 2.5 PDF HandShake 2.1, PrintPreview 2.0	4th
< CD017	EtherShare 2.6, PCShare 3.0, EtherShare OPI 2.1, PDF HandShake 2.0, PrintPreview 1.1 or earlier

The server installation program(s)

The installation is carried out by two separate programs. The first program (“installer”) must be started from the HELIOS CD. It lets you select the product(s) you wish to install and copies all related files to the local disk of your host. The “backend” installer then automatically completes the installation.

Updates

HELIOS issues software updates every now and then to enhance the product. These updates are distributed via the HELIOS website (www.helios.de/updates), and they are included on every HELIOS CD. The installation procedure for software updates is described in 18 “HELIOS Update Installer”.

4.1.5 Preparing the installation

Note:: For installing the HELIOS software, you must be able to log in to your host as “root”.
For GUI-based installations (macOS or Windows) make sure to have administrative user rights.

Have your activation key at hand

You can install the HELIOS software without a software activation key (kind of password).

In case you have no activation key at hand, please follow the instructions given in the paragraphs License information and What you have to do in “Welcome to HELIOS Base” at the beginning of this manual.

Under certain conditions, HELIOS issues demo licenses. If you are entitled to use a demo license, you will receive an activation key for demonstration purposes that expires after a given period of time.

Preparing the host

The host must be provided with a fully installed and configured operating system. You must be able to log in as user “root” (“Administrator” on Windows) to allow the installation program to create subdirectories and make the required system changes.

Important:: Before starting the installation, you should create a backup copy of the system disk of your host computer!

4.1.6 Navigating within HELIOS Installer

Key shortcuts

HELIOS Installer is a server program and does not support mouse operation. It is designed to be fully operable with the keys available on a standard “vt100”-keyboard. You can highlight menu items either by:

Positioning the cursor with the cursor keys
Typing the first letter of the menu item
Positioning the cursor with the TAB key

TAB (or Ctrl+I)

In screens with several input fields, you can skip to the next field by means of the TAB key.

Shift+TAB

In screens with several input fields, you can skip to the previous field with “Shift+TAB”.

BACKSPACE (or Ctrl+H)

In lists, the BACKSPACE key deletes the selected entry. In text fields, it deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves all other text one position to the left in order to fill the gap.

Note:: If BACKSPACE (on some special terminals/keyboards) does not work, try Delete instead.

Delete

The Delete key deletes the character under the cursor and moves all other text one position to the left to fill the gap. Delete is not always available on a UNIX terminal keyboard.

Home (or Ctrl+A)

The cursor is moved to the start of the current field or the first line of the list.

End (or Ctrl+E)

The cursor is moved to the end of the current field or the last line of the list.

PgUp (or Ctrl+P)

The cursor is moved to the previous page of a multiple-page list.

PgDown (or Ctrl+N)

The cursor is moved to the next page of a multiple-page list.

CsrUp (or Ctrl+K)

The cursor is moved up one line.

CsrDown (or Ctrl+J)

The cursor is moved down one line.

CsrLeft (or Ctrl+H)

The cursor is moved left one character.

CsrRight (or Ctrl+L)

The cursor is moved right one character.

Esc (or Ctrl+X)

The currently selected function is aborted and the program goes back to the previous prompt or action.

Return

The current input or selection is accepted.

Insert (or Ctrl+V)

The cursor inserts a space (on some machines it may be necessary to press “Ctrl-V” two times).

Ctrl+R

Refresh the screen display. Sometimes needed for terminals.

4.1.7 Software installation

Note:

If you plan to install the HELIOS Software on an OS X platform, skip ahead to 4.1.8 “Software installation (OS X)”.

If you plan to install the HELIOS Software on a Windows platform, skip ahead to 4.1.9 “Software installation (Windows)”.

First time and upgrade installations

You are guided through the installation by the menu-driven HELIOS Installer which does nearly everything on its own. You merely have to start the installation.

: To start the installation, log in as “root” on your host.

: Mount the ISO image burnt to physical disc or the ISO image file.

Example:

(Linux)

# mkdir -p /mnt/helios
# mount -r /dev/cdrom /mnt/helios
# cd /mnt/helios
# ./installer

As soon as you have entered the last command, you are asked to choose the installer operating language. After selecting the desired language the “Introduction”, “Welcome to HELIOS”, and “License Agreement” windows appear.

: If you agree to the terms and conditions select Agree. If you do not agree select Disagree; the HELIOS software installation will then be aborted.

Fig. 4.1: HELIOS Installer – Main menu

Note:: The bottom of the “HELIOS Installer” window provides helpful details and instructions.

The default installation path of the HELIOS software is “/usr/local/helios”. However, if you want to use – for whatever reason – a different path you must first specify it in HELIOS Installer.

: Select Setup from the main menu (Fig. 4.1) and specify the desired path. Then confirm your changes with Ok, else select Cancel.

Note:: HELIOS Installer creates an installation log file (“helios.installer.log”) in the “/tmp” directory which records all actions and steps that have been taken during the installation or migration process.

: Select Install HELIOS Products from the main menu and press RETURN.

HELIOS Installation

The Installable Products section shows all available HELIOS software products. HELIOS software products already installed on the server are listed in the Already Installed section. Otherwise this section is missing (Fig. 4.2 and Fig. 4.3).

Note:: The HELIOS products Base and Base Data are always required for the installation of any other HELIOS product, e.g. EtherShare, PCShare.

Fig. 4.2: HELIOS Installer – Install HELIOS Products

Fig. 4.3: HELIOS Installer – First time installation

: In the Installable Products section highlight the product you wish to install and press the space bar, so it becomes marked. To deselect one (or more) item(s) in the list, press the space bar again.

The example in Fig. 4.2 shows that Base (with Base Data) and EtherShare are already installed, and PCShare is about to be installed.

Important:: Starting the installation will stop all HELIOS services running on the server. Therefore, please make sure all HELIOS users are logged-out before you install new products. To verify the HELIOS user status you may use the “swho” command (8.6 “swho”) or HELIOS Admin (Lists > Active Users).

: After you have marked all products you wish to install confirm with Ok.

The “Installing” window shows the progress of the installation (Fig. 4.4).

Fig. 4.4: HELIOS Installer – Installing the software

: Leave the installation menu with Esc or Ctrl-X (see also 4.1.6 “Navigating within HELIOS Installer”) to get back to the main menu. You can now quit HELIOS Installer.

HELIOS Installer has now installed all the specified applications from the HELIOS CD. You should now check if there are updates available for download and installation. See 18 “HELIOS Update Installer” for complete details.

See 17 “Remove the software” for instructions on how to remove the HELIOS software from the server.

Your next step is to enter the HELIOS software license(s) for the installed product(s). Find instructions on how to do that by skipping ahead to 4.3 “Licenses”.

4.1.8 Software installation (OS X)

In order to install the HELIOS software on an OS X platform, do the following:

: Copy the “cd027.iso” image file to the OS X computer, and double-click on it to mount it.

: Open the “macOS” folder and start the installation by double-clicking the “HELIOS Installer” icon.

The “Welcome to the HELIOS Installer” dialog opens (Fig. 4.5).

Fig. 4.5: HELIOS Installer (OS X) – Welcome

: Then click on the padlock symbol in order to authenticate with administrative rights to make changes (Fig. 4.6).

If you have administrative rights on the machine you can use your name and password in the authentication dialog.

Fig. 4.6: HELIOS Installer – Authentication

The Introduction dialog (Fig. 4.7) gives an overview of the installable HELIOS products and their main features.

: Make sure that the Please select pull-down menu shows the entry Installation, and click Continue to proceed.

Fig. 4.7: HELIOS Installer – Introduction

The “License Agreement” is displayed (Fig. 4.8).

: Read the content carefully and click Continue.

: If you agree to the terms and conditions click Agree. If you do not agree click Disagree; the installation of the HELIOS software will then be aborted.

: In the “Destination for HELIOS Products” dialog (Fig. 4.9) enter the path to the location where you want to install the HELIOS products or click Choose, which brings up the Mac File Selector. Then click Continue.

Fig. 4.8: HELIOS Installer – License Agreement

Fig. 4.9: HELIOS Installer – Destination for HELIOS products

Fig. 4.10: HELIOS Installer – Installable HELIOS products

The “Installable Products” section shows all available HELIOS software products. If there are already HELIOS software products installed on the server they are listed in the “Already Installed” section. Otherwise this section is empty (Fig. 4.10 and Fig. 4.11).

Fig. 4.11: HELIOS Installer – Installable HELIOS products

: In the “Installable Products” section click the checkboxes of the products you wish to install (see Fig. 4.11).

The example shows that Base (with Base Data) and EtherShare are already installed, and PCShare is about to be installed. Fig. 4.10 shows a “fresh” installation of Base (with Base Data), EtherShare and PCShare, where no HELIOS product software was installed before.

Important:: Starting the installation will stop all HELIOS services running on the server. Therefore, please make sure all HELIOS users are logged-out before you install new products. To verify the HELIOS user status, you can use the “swho” command described in 8.6 “swho” or use HELIOS Admin (Lists > Active Users).

: After you have marked all products that you want to install confirm with Install.

The “Status” window (Fig. 4.12) informs you about the progress of the HELIOS software installation. As soon as the installation is finished, the software is started so the services are available immediately.

: Enter the HELIOS software license(s) for the installed product(s) according to 4.3 “Licenses”.

Fig. 4.12: HELIOS Installer – Status

4.1.9 Software installation (Windows)

Available products

HELIOS PCShare is not available for Windows.

Every Windows version already includes SMB/CIFS
On Windows, PCShare SMB/CIFS printing is included in HELIOS Base

EtherShare, WebShare, ImageServer, PDF HandShake, and PrintPreview are available for Windows.

Installation path

The default HELIOS installation path on Windows used in the examples in this manual is “C:\Program Files\Helios”.

HELIOS USB driver for Windows

If desired, you can have the machine ID on Windows computers provided by a USB dongle (see What you have to do in “Welcome to HELIOS Base” above). When it is plugged in for the first time, a driver must be installed. You will find the driver on the HELIOS media, in the “Windows\usbdriver” directory.

Installation

: Mount the “cd027.iso” image file as a drive on your Windows machine (either by burning the ISO image file to DVD-ROM or using a virtual mount solution). Start the installation by double-clicking the “HELIOS Installer.exe” icon in the “Windows” subfolder.

The “HELIOS Installer” window opens.

: Click Continue.

The introductory dialog gives an overview of the installable HELIOS products and their main features.

: Make sure that Installation is selected on the pull-down menu and click Continue to proceed.

: Read the license agreement carefully (the “license” file is also available on the HELIOS CD) and – if you agree to the terms and conditions – activate the Accept License radio button and click Continue.

: If you do not agree, leave the Do Not Accept License radio button as is and close the window. The installation of the HELIOS software will then be aborted.

: To specify a different HELIOS product installation path (Fig. 4.13) click Custom..., which brings up the Windows file selector.

: Select the desired installation directory and click on Continue.

Fig. 4.13: Select destination folder

The Installable Products section shows all available HELIOS software products. If there are already HELIOS software products installed on the server they are listed in the Already Installed: section. Otherwise this section is empty (Fig. 4.14 and Fig. 4.15).

Fig. 4.14: Select products to install (clean install)

: In the Installable Products section click the checkboxes of the products you wish to install (see Fig. 4.14). You can select multiple products at once.

Fig. 4.14 shows a “fresh” installation of Base (with Base Data), EtherShare and ImageServer, where no HELIOS product software was installed before. Fig. 4.15 shows that Base (with Base Data) and EtherShare are already installed, and ImageServer is about to be installed.

Fig. 4.15: Select products to install (update install)

Important:: Starting the installation will stop all HELIOS services running on the server. Therefore, please make sure that all HELIOS users log off before you install new products. To verify the HELIOS user status you can use the “swho” command or use HELIOS Admin (Lists > Active Users).

: After you have selected the desired products for installation, click the Install button.

The status window (Fig. 4.16) shows the progress of the HELIOS software installation. As soon as the installation is finished, the software is started so the services are immediately available.

Fig. 4.16: Installation status

After the installation, an installation log file is written to the user’s (hidden) temp directory, e.g. (since Windows 7):
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\helios.installer.log.

It contains the information from the “HELIOS Installer” window (Fig. 4.16).

Configuration

Upon installation, the HELIOS programs are automatically started. They are generally administered via the HELIOS Admin application.

: To run HELIOS Admin directly on the server, navigate to the “public\Windows” directory within the HELIOS installation path, and double-click on “HELIOS Admin.exe”.

: To enable access to HELIOS Admin remotely from a Windows client, navigate to the “Helios” directory, and right-click on the “public” directory. Go to the sharing options, click Share this folder, and (if desired) change the Share name to something descriptive, e.g. “HELIOS Applications”. See 5.7 “Windows shares & HELIOS volumes” for additional details.

Network clients can now mount that volume via SMB, or, if HELIOS EtherShare is installed on the Windows server, via AFP. However connected, Mac clients can find “HELIOS Admin.app” in the “MacOS” folder, and Windows clients will find “HELIOS Admin.exe” in the “Windows” folder of the volume. Other clients can use the “HELIOS Admin.jar” application in the “Java” folder. Simply double-click the respective HELIOS Admin icon.

Alternatively, you can copy the application to your local hard disk and use it from there.

For a complete reference to HELIOS Admin, refer to 7 “HELIOS Admin”.

4.1.10 Software installation (Virtual machines)

Software installation works as described in the chapters for the installation on UNIX and Windows. However, only certain virtual machine solutions (VMs) are supported.

The HELIOS machine ID is based on the network hardware address and VM-specific information.

For up-to-date information on supported and tested VM solutions, see the HELIOS website www.helios.de/virtualization.

4.2 Upgrade product generations

4.2.1 Upgrade from UB64 to G8

When upgrading from HELIOS UB64 generation products to the G8 products, all settings are preserved. For details see Migrating HELIOS UB64 to G8 on the HELIOS website.

4.2.2 Upgrade from older HELIOS software versions

See Migration from older HELIOS software versions on the HELIOS website.

4.3 Licenses

Note:: For instructions on how to enter HELIOS software licenses on an OS X platform read 4.3.3 “Enter a new license (OS X)”.

4.3.1 Enter a new license

After you have installed a HELIOS software product on the server you must license the program in order to make it work.

On the command line of the host machine log in as “root” and enter:

# cd /usr/local/helios 
# bin/license

The “License a HELIOS Product” dialog appears (Fig. 4.17).

: In the “Licensed Products” section select …New Entry and press RETURN (Fig. 4.18).

Fig. 4.17: License a HELIOS Product

Fig. 4.18: License a HELIOS Product

In our example, we license the PCShare software which was installed in HELIOS Installation above in this chapter.

: In the “PCShare Base License” dialog window (Fig. 4.19) enter the serial number of the product, the number of users (i.e. the type of license you purchased with the software product) and the checksum which you get from the “Activation Key Reply” form. Then confirm with Ok.

Note:: What you have to do in “Welcome to HELIOS Base” shows you step-by-step how to receive the “Activation Key Reply” form with the required keys.

: To leave the “License a HELIOS Product” dialog navigate to Ok and press RETURN. Otherwise the changes you have applied to the server will not take effect.

The HELIOS services must now be stopped and restarted for the new license to take effect. See 4.4 “Start/stop HELIOS services manually”.

Fig. 4.19: License a HELIOS Product

4.3.2 Remove a HELIOS license from the server

An already existing HELIOS license cannot be edited. In such cases it must be removed and then replaced by another. To remove a HELIOS software license do the following:

: In the “License a HELIOS Product” dialog highlight the software license you want to remove and press BACKSPACE or Ctrl+H (see 4.1.6 “Navigating within HELIOS Installer”).

: To leave the “License a HELIOS Product” dialog navigate to Ok and press RETURN. Otherwise the changes you have applied to the server will not take effect.

4.3.3 Enter a new license (OS X)

HELIOS Services is a GUI application designed for entering HELIOS software licenses, and for easily starting and stopping HELIOS processes.

: Double-click the “HELIOS Services” icon in the “Applications” folder and select the Licenses tab within the “HELIOS Services” window (Fig. 4.20).

The field Machine ID shows the machine ID of your Mac. In the other field all HELIOS product licenses are displayed, with Product name, Serial Number, and Expiration Date (note that the entry in the Expiration Date column remains empty if you are running the software with a full license).

Fig. 4.20: HELIOS Services – View license

: Click View License File... to see the complete license file (Fig. 4.21).

This may be convenient if you wish to view and extract serial numbers etc. with “copy and paste”.

: Click Add License ... to add a new HELIOS product license.

Fig. 4.21: HELIOS Services – View license

Fig. 4.22: HELIOS Services – Add license

An extra dialog window opens (Fig. 4.22) which lets you choose the desired product from the pull-down menu Product, and lets you enter the serial number (Serial), the number of Units, and the Checksum. As mentioned before, if you are running a full license of the HELIOS products, leave the Expires field empty. Otherwise, the expiration date of the demo or subscription license must be entered in the Expires field as well.

Note:: All HELIOS products are licensed for use on a single computer system (“server”), which has a unique machine identification (“HELIOS MachID”). The software can only be licensed once for a given machine ID. Compare Fig. 4.20 and Fig. 4.21.

HELIOS services must be stopped and restarted for the new license to take effect. See 4.4 “Start/stop HELIOS services manually”.

4.3.4 License conditions (Windows)

Note:: This chapter is about the HELIOS licensing conditions only. Microsoft’s licensing conditions for their server and client solutions must be obtained separately.

On Windows installations, all HELIOS products are available, except for PCShare. For SMB/CIFS connectivity the Microsoft built-in service is supported.

HELIOS products on Windows offer identical functionalities as on other server platforms. For instructions on how to enter HELIOS software licenses read the chapter 4.3.1 “Enter a new license”.

4.4 Start/stop HELIOS services manually

For instructions on how to start and stop HELIOS services on OS X skip to 4.4.1 “Start/Stop (OS X)” below.

For instructions on how to start and stop HELIOS services on Windows, see 5.1.3 “Starting and stopping the HELIOS software”.

Sometimes it may become necessary to start or stop HELIOS services on the server manually, e.g. after installing updates via HELIOS Update Installer (see also 18 “HELIOS Update Installer”):

On the command line of the host machine log in as “root” and enter:

# cd /usr/local/helios 
# bin/start-helios

To stop all HELIOS processes on the server enter:

# cd /usr/local/helios 
# bin/stop-helios now

Important:: Before issuing the “stop-helios” command make sure that all clients are logged-out (e.g. with the “swho” command, see 8.6 “swho”).

4.4.1 Start/Stop (OS X)

“HELIOS Services” is an OS X GUI application designed for entering HELIOS software licenses, and for easily starting and stopping HELIOS processes.

: Double-click the “HELIOS Services” icon in the “Applications” folder.

The “HELIOS Services” window appears providing information on the HELIOS products status when you click Status.

Starting the HELIOS services

In order to start the HELIOS software do the following:

: Click the lock icon (Fig. 4.23) to authenticate. After the authentication, the Start button will become available.

Fig. 4.23: HELIOS Services – Remove locking

: Click the Start button within the “HELIOS Services” window.

The Messages box shows the information that the HELIOS services are being started. When all available services are running, the display shows Done..

A click on the Status button then reveals a listing of all HELIOS processes (Fig. 4.24) and gives information about their name (Service), their Status, their process ID number (PID), date and time of starting (When), and – if a process has been started more than once – the number of Restarts.

Fig. 4.24: HELIOS Services – View process status

Stopping the HELIOS services

In order to stop all HELIOS services on OS X do the following:

: Click Stop within the Status tab window.

HELIOS Services has a feature that lets you specify a shutdown message and the time span to shutdown.

Note:: This message will not be displayed anymore on newer Mac and Windows clients.

: Specify the shutdown message in the Shutdown message text box. In the Time to shutdown (minutes) field enter the time after which the services should be stopped (to make the services stop immediately, enter “0”).

The Messages box then displays the information that the HELIOS services are being stopped (Fig. 4.25).

Fig. 4.25: HELIOS Services – Stopping services

4.5 HELIOS TCP/IP security overview

HELIOS server applications allow very precise, easy to administer control of access to their services. For example, access to volumes can be limited to members of specific groups (if you are not a member of an authorized group, the volume will not even be listed), and a password can be required to mount the volume. Printers can also be password-protected. HELIOS Admin recognizes four levels of authorization, to allow appropriate delegation of administrative capabilities.

4.5.1 Password security

HELIOS programs use encrypted passwords, so that no cleartext passwords are sent over the network during the login procedure. This feature is called Encrypted Password Transport.

For more information, see 10.1 “The authentication server program”.

4.5.2 Set passwords

During the installation of the HELIOS software on UNIX, the user “demouser” is created. The HELIOS password for both “root” and “demouser” are set to empty. This means a significant lack of security (anybody can log on to the server as user “root” without needing to know the password), and so you should specify a password for “root”.

Important:: For your own security, provide your user accounts with passwords to prevent them from unauthorized access and abuse!

Note:: If this is an upgrade from an installation that utilized HELIOS encrypted passwords, and those settings were migrated to the new version, then normally no further action is needed.

: Launch HELIOS Admin (see 7.2 “Start HELIOS Admin”) and select Login from the HELIOS Admin File menu. In the User Name field enter “root” and leave the Password field empty.

: Open the Users tab, select the “root” entry from the list and double-click it.

Fig. 4.26: HELIOS Admin – User configuration window

: In the User configuration window for “hendrik” (Fig. 4.26) specify a password for “root” in the Password field and click OK or Apply.

HELIOS Admin will ask you to enter the new password again. This ensures that no typing mistakes have been made. After clicking OK the password will be assigned to user “root”.

: Then set passwords for all other existing users or add new users (passwords defined in HELIOS Admin also update the user’s system password).

Note:: On an OS X machine, the “root” login is disabled by default. Once a “root” password is specified with HELIOS Admin, it is enabled automatically. Also note that if a password is modified via host system tools, our additional password file is not changed. Therefore it makes more sense to administer users with HELIOS Admin or by using the HELIOS utility program “authutil” (see 10.2 “authutil”).

4.5.3 IP access control list

HELIOS offers additional access control by means of IP access lists, based upon the user’s IP address. The default installation creates a single IP access list, that specifies which IP addresses are allowed access to HELIOS resources (volumes, home directories, printers) and services (HELIOS Admin).

All of the above settings are easily configured by means of HELIOS Admin, which allows easy GUI-based server administration from any client on the network. Once the HELIOS software is installed, HELIOS Admin should be used to configure these security options.

Finer IP-based access control can be specified for individual HELIOS resources. For example, each volume can have its own IP access list. This allows certain volumes to be accessible only from within the local network, while others can be made available to remote offices or customers. Or the System Administrator can be authorized to access HELIOS Admin from home. The default IP access list is called ipaccess, and is described in 6.6.1 “HELIOSDIR/var/conf”. To create a resource-specific IP access list, create an “ipaccess” file (see 7.8.6 “IP Access”) with the desired access settings for that resource, and use either HELIOS Admin or the “prefvalue” command to associate it with the appropriate volume, etc. For reference, upon installation, a second access list is created, ipaccess.local, which contains the settings that will allow access only to users on the local network.

Occurence	Chapter
ipaccess	“AFP server preference keys” (see EtherShare manual)
ipaccess	“PCShare preference” (see PCShare manual)
ipaccess	19.14 “HELIOS Admin server preference keys”
IPAccess	19.2 “Volume preference keys”
ipaccess	15.7 “LPD”
ipaccess.local	6.6.1 “HELIOSDIR/var/conf”
ipaccess	“papsrv” (see EtherShare manual)

Table 4.1: Overview of IP access preferences and their description

4.5.4 Firewall ports

If your server is protected by a firewall, then access from network clients to HELIOS server services (volumes, printers, Admin, etc.) will be blocked by the firewall, until ports for the respective services are opened in the firewall.

For example, on an OS X based HELIOS server, these ports need to be open:

137       UDP PCShare Browsing 
138       UDP PCShare NetBIOS 
139       TCP PCShare SMB/CIFS 
445       TCP PCShare SMB/CIFS 
2005      TCP Create PDF Server (Distiller) 
2006      TCP HELIOS Admin 
2007      TCP EtherShare print spooler (papsrv) 
2009      TCP WebShare Web Server 
2010-2015 TCP WebShare File Server
2026      TCP mDNS proxy server registrations
5353      UDP mDNS Server (“Bonjour”)

You will not need any other ports open, unless you enable other HELIOS services (e.g. DHCP server, Remote LPR).

A complete overview about TCP server and client ports used by the HELIOS software is given in C.8 “TCP ports used by HELIOS”.

4.6 After the installation – What now?

: Read the manuals of the HELIOS software products you have installed.

We recommend that you subscribe to the HELIOS Newsletter, and to HELIOS Tech Infos to be alerted about updates and new features.
www.helios.de/contact.html

: To configure the network interfaces use – if necessary – the “netconf” program, which is described in the EtherShare manual (OS X uses its own network interface configuration program).

Verify that all HELIOS services are running:

# cd /usr/local/helios
# bin/srvutil status

On OS X, run the HELIOS Services application (Fig. 4.24).

: Check the system messages file for any HELIOS startup messages. See 7.5.16 “System messages”.

Note:: HELIOS LanTest can be used to test network server volume and local hard disk performance. It is available in the “HELIOS Applications” volume.

: Verify that user passwords have been set (see 4.5.2 “Set passwords”).

: Set up users, groups, volumes, printers, ipaccess, etc. We recommend to do this with HELIOS Admin (see 7 “HELIOS Admin”).

4.7 Migration to other platforms

All installed HELIOS products and settings can be transferred to a new platform by installing the HELIOS products from CD and moving the HELIOS “var” folder to the new platform. All server settings including volumes and printers are transferred to the new platform and are automatically used on the new system. All volumes and printer spool directories will then be re-created on the new platform when start-helios -i is executed.

Example:

The HELIOS software on Oracle Solaris is subject to be transferred to a Linux platform:

: Install the HELIOS software from CD on the new platform (in this example Linux).

: Then enter the command stop-helios on the new (Linux) platform.

: Enter the command stop-helios on the old (here Sun Solaris) platform. Copy the complete “HELIOSDIR/var” directory, which contains all volumes and printer settings, from the old platform to the new platform (Linux).

In doing so the “HELIOSDIR/var” directory on the Linux platform will be replaced with the “HELIOSDIR/var” directory of the Oracle Solaris platform.

On the new (Linux) platform, enter the command:

start-helios -i

All existing server settings from the Oracle Solaris platform are now available on the Linux platform.

Note:: Users, groups and volume content are NOT migrated. You can use HELIOS Admin to copy user and group information from the old to the new platform.

4.8 Back up HELIOS settings

It is prudent to save the “HELIOSDIR/var” directory to a backup media at regular intervals, so that if a prior setting needs to be restored or if you want to quickly migrate settings to a different server if the server fails, it will be easy to do so. Tape backups are often not readily available for such purposes.

4.8.1 Automatic backup of the configuration

The configuration in “var/conf” and “var/spool/qmeta” is automatically saved daily in a “tar” file. This allows restoring old settings, e.g. if the preferences file has accidentally been deleted.

If there is the need to restore the system to a previous configuration, go to “HELIOSDIR/var/adm” and open the desired “tar” archive “configuration.tgz” (today) to “configuration.tgz.6” (seven days ago).

4.9 Data backup

As with all computer systems, it is highly advisable to make regular backups of network volumes to tape or disk. Although modern servers provide comprehensive safety mechanisms in case of system faults, it is never possible to fully exclude loss of data. For this reason, the administrator should regularly archive all volumes of the file server to mass storage. For data backup solutions see Complementary Solutions.

In addition, the HELIOS Synchronization Service can be used to sync server data for server failover purposes, or to retrieve a prior version of files. This allows a second copy of the server data, synced on a regular basis, to be immediately available upon need. See 7.5.9 “Syncs” for details.

HELIOS Manuals May 27, 2021