Acs 8.0 Web Start *


Acs Java Applications can be installed on any machine supporting Java Web Start technology.

When an application is selected, all necessary libraries and configuration files are automatically downloaded (or updated if already installed and a new version is available on the web server). The examples below are purely java based and can run on any machine. They are provided to demonstrate the capabilities of Web Start deployment. Real Acs applications to be deployed using Web Start are being developed and a prominent example is the ALMA Observing Tool which uses Web Start to conduct its user tests.

In order to prepare an application for Web Start deployment, it is necessary to put all necessary files on a web server and prepare the proper configuration files. An example of this is the very same module that contains the page you are reading. It can be found in the ACS/Web/AcsWebStart CVS module in the ACS tree. We have put together a little How-To on how to prepare an application to be deployed via Java Web Start.

 

* may differ from standard Acs Release: see details

Prerequisites

You need to have Java 6 installed

Java 6 is often synonymously called Java 1.6 or J2SE 1.6 which refers to its internal version number. Check your java version on the command-line. It should read something like this: 

> java -version
java version "1.6.0_02"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_02-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0_02-b05, mixed mode, sharing)
An output like this (with the 1.6.x) means you have Java 6 installed, and this means you have the Java Web Start technology installed, too.

 

Your Java Web Start needs to be working

To try out whether your Java Web Start works, go to Sun's Web Start Demo Page and try to run one of the demo applications. On Sun's pages you find troubleshooting documentation in case it doesn't work - in that case simply (re)installing Java may be the easy solution.



First Time Users: When you use Acs Web Start for the first time, it will download a quite big amount of shared resources (in the order of 30 MB) to your host. This is only happening the first time, and subsequent usage will not download much and thus be much faster.
Also, when you use Acs Web Start for the first time, you will be warned that the application's digital signature is invalid (along the lines of "The security certificate was issued by a company that is not trusted"). This is due to the non-official certificate we are currently using to authenticate our applications. Be not worried (though in general you should be!) and run the application anyhow. In that warning dialog, you might also check "Always trust content from this publisher". Otherwise, you will be asked the same question each time you run any of the Acs Web Start applications.

 

Applications

The main purpose of this page is to start Acs Java Clients (like Object Explorer, Cdb Browser) easily on any machine, without having to install the whole Acs and with automatic updates whenever a new version is available. If you want other clients added to this list, please contact the Acs development team.

When you below select and start a client, it will be run on your local machine. Most of the clients are meant to connect to an Acs Suite (Services, Manager, Containers). The Acs Suite can be running on any host - as long as it is reachable from your local machine.

In the Standard form below, you simply select the client to run, and specify the host and the instance where Acs is running. The Advanced variant allows you to specify the hosts and ports of the single Acs servants separately. This is only of interest in special cases.

 

Standard

For convenience, you can reset the data to default values:

 

Tool
Instance
Host
Project name *

 

Advanced

For convenience, you can reset the data to default values:
Or you can fill in values from the Standard section above: (requires Javascript enabled)

 

Tool
against Manager on ...
against NameService on ...
against Interface Repository on ...
against CDB DAL on ...
Project name *

 

* Project name is the name you want to give to this combination of values. It will be stored in your Cache Viewer, so that you can run it directly from there (or even from a shortcut on your desktop) without having to re-specify the values already entered now. We recommend using a short but meaningful project name like e.g. "STE - 5" if your combination of values refers to Acs Instance 5 on the STE.

Miscellaneous

 

Other Web Start Versions

Acs Web Start versions are also available by version number. Older versions are kept for reference. This is useful if you create your own webstart application that uses Acs Web Start as a library. See the version list.

 

Cache Viewer

Configure your Cache Viewer to see log messages, run already downloaded applications, create desktop-links to run applications, and more.