[Shu-cdromlan] Re: CD-ROM on UNIX/Solaris?

[Katherine Cochrane]

I haven't used a CD-ROM DB over a network in Solaris 8, but a CD simply
looks like another volume (with no write privileges) to the file system.

Katherine Cochrane
publisher of http://www.cd-webstore.com, http://www.history-ebooks.com,
and, since 1995, The CD Information Center at http://www.cd-info.com

On Friday, February 1, 2002, at 11:42  AM, yangs wrote:

> Hi, everyone:
>
> I am considering changing a Novell server running CD-ROM databases to
> UNIX/Solaris 8. Does anyone have any experience running cd rom
> databases from a
> Solaris machine? I need some input as to how it works. Thanks.
>
> Sharon Yang
> Rider University
>
> Martin Sapsed wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've copied this to cd-rom-networking@jiscmail.ac.uk since the
>> question was
>> asked there too...
>>
>> Jon Knight wrote:
>>> On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, Preston,A wrote:
>>>> In order to run a networked version of FAME CD-ROM (from Bureau van
>>>> Dijk) all users need write access to the server where the CD is
>>>> installed.  For obvious reasons we are not happy to proceed on this
>>>> basis and this is not the first CD-ROM I have encountered which will
>>>> only work in this way
>>>>
>>>> I wonder if anyone out there has found a clever fix or 'over-ride' to
>>>> get round this problem?  Any replies to me will be treated in strict
>>>> confidence!
>>>
>>> One trick I've used with our Ultra*Net CD-ROM server in the past
>>> (including for FAME I think before we moved to the Web version) is to
>>> install the product on my clean test workstation in somewhere like
>>> C:\temp\productname using InCtrl3 (available from
>>> <URL:ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/acq/downloads/pub/zd/PCMag/pcminctr.zip>) to
>>> check what it installs and what registry changes it makes.
>>
>> I used to use InCtrl - i think there's a V4 now too - but found the
>> registry information only half usable. I now prefer InstallRite - a
>> free
>> download from
>> http://www.epsilonsquared.com/installrite.htm - which gives you usable
>> .reg
>> files for the registry alterations.
>>
>>>                                                            Move any
>>> DLLs
>>> that a naughty installer tries to put in somewhere silly like
>>> C:\windows
>>> or C:\windows\system back into C:\temp\productname.  Then check it
>>> works
>>> OK on the test workstation.  Keep tweaking until you've got all the
>>> naughty new files in the one place and it works.  Basically I'm
>>> doing a
>>> local product install but the CD-ROM image just happens to be on an N:
>>> drive delivered over the LAN from the Ultra*Net server.
>>>
>>> Next make a self extracting ZIP archive of the installation in
>>> C:\temp\productname and put that on our Ultra*Net server.  Now in the
>>> Ultra*Net launch script for this product I download the
>>> self-extracting
>>> ZIP, make the C:\temp\productname directory on the client PC (if it
>>> doesn't already exist), unpack the s/e ZIP (ie run it), add in any
>>> required registry entries (which we know about because InCtrl3 tells
>>> us
>>> about them) and then run the c:\temp\productname\superprogram.exe
>>> product
>>> executable.  The Ultra*Net script waits for the product's main window
>>> to
>>> disappear and then tidies away all the cruft in c:\temp.  Bingo - one
>>> working product usually!  You might need to salt to taste for products
>>> that look for host based keys and the like but experience has shewn
>>> that
>>> they tend to be pretty grotty anyway and soon get ditched by the
>>> users/librarians (at least round here.  If CD-ROM vendors make things
>>> too
>>> painful folk will now just go elsewhere and their products will
>>> either be
>>> dropped by us or consigned to the single standalone CD-ROM
>>> workstation.
>>> "Hurrah!" for the Internet and the WWW! :-) ).
>>
>> Similar to my initial thoughts but I didn't think of zipping it...
>>
>>> Bit of a pain in the bottom but it does mean that I can run (for
>>> example)
>>> Bowker's Global Books In Print and the new GBIP Archive off the
>>> Ultra*Net
>>> server without writing to the server's filestore _and_ have it put
>>> into a
>>> writable space on what in some cases are fairly locked down NT
>>> workstations in labs.
>>
>> I have all of GBIP on a server apart from the ini file bits. A few
>> alterations to the glbipw.mnu file means you can have them elsewhere.
>> All I
>> have to do on the server is update the t01 file for each CD. I wouldn't
>> fancy heaving that around!
>>
>>> Works for me.  YMMV. :-)
>>
>> Sounds like you've got a similar opinion of many software writers to
>> me...!
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> --
>> Martin Sapsed                           To have no errors
>> Information Services                    Would be life without meaning
>> University of Wales, Bangor, LL57 2UX   No struggle, no joy.
>> Fax: +44 (0)1248 383826
>
>