Server Installation

UnForm 11.0 will run on most modern Linux systems.  Examples include Redhat 8 and up, or Ubuntu 20 and up, and their respective families of distributions (such as Oracle 8 being similar to Redhat 8).  If there is any question about the ability to run on a given Linux, it takes just minutes to try an install and run it in demo mode.

Another thing to note is that UnForm can be configured to use third party packages, and it is usually best to be on a recent version of Linux in order to have access to recent versions of those packages.  The publisher recommends using a well supported (commercial or community) Linux with readily available packages, such as Redhat, Oracle, Rocky, Ubuntu, Debian, or OpenSUSE.

•Login as root, or use "sudo -i" to become an interactive super user.

•Create a directory to hold the UnForm files, and change to that directory.

 Example:        

 umask 0

 mkdir /opt/uf110

 cd /opt/uf110

•Uncompress and extract UnForm from the download file.  Many Linux versions do not require that you uncompress first, so the gunzip step is optional.

 gunzip uf110d_linux.version.tar.gz

 tar xvf uf110d_linux.version.tar

•Execute the UnForm set up script.

 ./ufsetup.sh

The ufsetup.sh script will create two scripts, called /usr/bin/uf110c and /usr/bin/uf110d.  The uf110c program is the client, while uf110d manages the server.

The setup script will offer to create the user 'unform', which is recommended.  If you choose not to run UnForm under that user, it will default to starting up as 'root'. Note while running UnForm as root is convenient, it is not recommended as all UnForm jobs run with full rights to the entire system.

The script will attempt to install the server to launch automatically at boot time, using either systemd or chkconfig settings.

The script will check for Ghostscript and Image Magick dependencies and offer to install them if not found.

The script will determine which version of openssl is installed and link to the available version: 1.1 or 3.0.

If not previously activated, the script will activate UnForm in 21-day demo mode.

•To activate permanently or use an emergency temp activation using your serial number and pin code, use ./license.sh.

•Start the server: uf110d start

•Run uf110c –v command to ensure UnForm is installed and set up correctly. The output from this command will display information about the installation.

See the licensing chapter for activation information.

Shared Library Dependencies

The install script will attempt to create symlinks to shared libraries that it depends on.  If this fails for some reason, you can follow these steps:

Two optional features require access to shared libraries on Linux, to support SSL and Zlib compression.  These are loaded as libssl.so, libcrypto.so, and libz.so at runtime whenever they are required.  In some cases, these generic names might not be defined in the system's lib directories.  If that is the case, then you can define symbolic links with these names to the correct local paths.

For example, if the installed and available name for libssl.so is /lib/libssl.so.1.0.1, you can create a symbolic link like this:

 ln -s /lib/libssl.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib/libssl.so

You will likely have the same requirement for the related libcrypto.so file:

 ln -s /lib/libcrypto.so.1.0.1 /usr/lib/libcrypto.so

Verify each of the three .so files are present or links to local versions: libssl.so, libcrypto.so, and libz.so.  Note that if UnForm is a 64-bit version, you will need to perform this step for 64-bit libraries, typically found in /usr/lib64.

Custom Launch Settings

The /usr/bin/uf110d script will look for the file uf110d.include in the UnForm home directory.  If found, its lines will be included in the script with ". uf110d.include".  Use this feature to set up custom environment variables or perform other initialization tasks.  The $n variables contain the arguments passed to the script, such as 'start' or 'stop'.