Basic premises for the hosting of a VHL site
This documento aims to describe the basic requirements for the hosting of a VHL. Hardware requirements are not included provided they depend on external factors such as: amount of installed applications, estimated amount of system users, data storage, memory and processing specific requirements.
Operating System
As any other application, it is required you have an operating system. This is the basic core for installing other software such as web server, PHP and the VHL model applications.
In BIREME, the standard operating system is OpenSUSE, a Linux flavor whose distribution is free and it has been chosen due to its stability and a broad capabality of setting up.
All VHL model’s applications, as well as their pre-required software can be hosted under Windows and Linux.
Internet access
In order the VHL’s applications can be accessible, it is essential to have an internet connection, all network infrastructure required (server’s physical location, network cabling, net drivers well set etc), as well the hiring of an internet service provider.
This step depends on the previous step completely: installing and setting up the operating system.
Pre-required software
Note: We strongly recomment NOT TO USE preinstalled packages such as XAMPP and LAMP because they are intended to be used in development environments and are not set based on a secure environment required by production servers.
BIREME’s applications have been tested and approved to run under Apache web server and PHP language, therefore being important the correct installing and setting up of both software so any VHL model application can be further installed.
BIREME makes available an installation and setting up manual of these pre-required software in its approved versions. The Installation manual of pre-required software to VHL applications.
ABCD specific requirements
To the specific case of ABCD, please take a look at ABCD.
Domain name for external browsing
The domain name aims to locate and identify one or more computer over the Internet, making it easier to memorize their addresses. Without this resource we would have to manage IP sequences. For further informatio, please go to Domain name.
Also, to announce and promote a VHL address, e.g.: Regional VHL, it is required to have a domain name registered and set accordingly. This process involves registering under one of the institutions that provide that service, the setting up of a web server and, lately its setting up into the DNS server.
PHP configuration
In order to confirm the previous steps have been completed successfully, a PHP script has been created to present the current environment. This script must be placed in the Document_root of the web server to allow the script to be accessible through the URL below:
Assuming the script name be info.php, therefore:
The contents of this script must be:
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
In case the resulting page is similar to the one showed below, the process was successfully done.
Variations in the configuration
In case the environment is intended to accomodate the installation of the VHL-Site, DirEve or LIS, it will be necessary to also check if both XML and XSLT modules have been installed and set within the PHP processor, as oriented in the Installation manual of pre-required software to VHL applications.
E.g.:
For most of the VHL applications, it is required to set the DNS server so the applications’ domains are correctly solved. This configuration is necessary provided many of the applications do internal HTTP calls to their own addresses.
This setting is easily tested in the command line (DOS Prompt or Shell) of the server, using the PING command:
$ ping mydomain