File structure

Napp-it is a copy and run web application. Copy and run means, you just have to copy napp-it to your cgi-bin folder with winscp to handle ascii files and set permissions of napp-it folder to 777 recursively (napp-it will adjust all right automatically).

Files and folders within napp-it folder:

1. napp-it core files in ..cgi-bin/napp-it/
admin.pl and admin-lib.pl
you will only need these two files to have napp-it running. napp-it will create all other needed folder on first login.
i have not the time to build base napp-it appliances for unix, mac or windows, but it should run if you have a webserver installed and cgi/perl enabled.

2. Os-folder ex cgi-bin/napp-it/sunos
if you do not have a os-folder, napp-it will create a default folder. napp-it zfs server has a sunos folder with menues and actions for Nexenta or Opensolaris.

3.Logfolder for logs and settings ..cgi-bin/napp-it/_log
Napp-it stores temp-files, jobs and settings within this folder.
This Folder is not changed on updates to keep settings.

4. Private folder for user add-ons and menue modifications ..cgi-bin/napp-it/_my
Within the my-folder, you can store your settings, your libaries and actions and your menues.
The my-folder is not changed on napp-it updates to keep settings. The my folder contains a os-folder ex /_my/sunos for your private menues and actions. Napp-it will merge menues from this folder with menues in /napp-it/sunos.

Setup your System

Webserver

You must have a webserver (example apache) with perl interpreter and cgi enabled. Your napp-it webserver must run with root or admin privileges if you want to call commands that will only run as root or admin; if you plan to have other virtual webserver on your machine, run your virtual napp-it webserver under another account (example user nappit) than your other virtual webserver (user nobody or www-data). It is also recommended to have an isolated management-network for napp-it.

Install napp-it

Basic

napp-it is basically a framework to build user editable web interfaces. With napp-it, you can manage your server via your browser. napp-it is developped on nexenta but it will run not only on nexenta and (open)solaris but on nearly any computer with a cgi-enabled webserver and a perl interpreter.


Install napp-it on your computer

use online installer wget -O - www.napp-it.org/nappit | perl
all files are installed/ compiled and your NAS/SAN is setup ready to use.
You need only to reset root-pw once - thats all-


or (only suggested on non-supported platforms)
copy folder napp-it into your cgi-bin folder. use a transfer programm that can handle/ convert napp-it ascii dos-files. If you have a unix-like system, dos-textfiles must be converted into unix-textfiles (handled by winscp automatically)


Set Rights (not needed on windows)

set folder ..cgi-bin/napp-it/ recursively to 777 (all user full rights, use winscp)
napp-it will reduce/adjust rights automatically on each run


Run napp-it

Start your browser and call http://ip of your server/cgi-bin/napp-it/admin.pl
if you get a Server 500 error:
-recheck access rights?
-files copied in ascii-mode?
-cgi-bin folder allowed to execute scripts?
-shebang correct (first line of admin.pl must point to your perl interpreter)?

-does your perl have modules cgi and carp installed?
for ex. they are not installed on eon per default
on eon, you must copy content of napp-it/_lib/ into perl modul folder /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/

if error remains, open file admin.pl in a editor (example notepad), look at the beginning of the file for:
use CGI::Carp qw (fatalsToBrowser); and change it to
#use CGI::Carp qw (fatalsToBrowser);

or check error-log of your webserver for more infos

Create a User Interface

You could either edit or extend napp-it-zfs server or you could begin a complete new project. To do this, delete or rename default sunos-folder to _sunos to make it inactive. nappit will now create an empty project-folder named default.
you could rename this folder or you can manually create a new projectfolder within /napp-it.

More than one project folder

napp-it will use the first folder (sorted list, will ignore folders beginning with "_") per default. with menue napp-it-setup you could set a special folder.

Add Menues

Klick on edit (right-top of napp-it windows). Now xou can create, delete and rename menue items and you can add actions to thes items

Actions and Libraries

For each menue item, napp-it automatically creates a action.pl perl script to handle this item. You can edit this action within napp-it. Klick on edit (right top of windows) to edit actions or delete, add, rename menues. You can also use your preferred perl-editor.

If you need a perl-functions in more than one action, you can collect them in libraries. Napp-it will automatically load all libraries for used functions (libraries must have names like xxxlib.pl, function must be named xxxlib_...). If you want to create a library for a sub-menue item, you can include it manually by &load_lib('lib.pl') or automatically. details see napp-i zfs-server

Rearrange or rename menues

You can rename (spaces are allowed, use no other special characters) or move menues without problems if you only use libraries in the os folder. if you want to modify a default menue item, it is suggested to rename it to have no problems with updates.

If a menue item is only for a special os-version, add ==osversion to the name of the menue
ex 01_special==nexenta creates a menue "special" which is not visible in opensolaris or eon.
01_ .. nn_ is not displayed and is used to sort menue items.

If you add !A to this menue, it is not visible for user operator.