######### Requirements for Running and Using NOMAD ##########

This document describes the Dependancies of the NOMAD Server and the
prerequisites on client machines.

## Section 1 Server requirements for using NOMAD:

1. Operating System

	We have only developed and tested NOMAD under linux and to a lesser
	extent Mac OS X, but see no reason why it shouldn't work in other 
	UNIXs. if you would like to contribute perspective to the project 
	and make the code base more portable, please let us know.

	If you plan to use NOMAD with large data sets on Linux, use at 
	least the 2.4 kernel and glibc 2.2; they include a workaround (a 
	64-bit file position value) so that files greater than 2 gigabytes 
	in size can exist. another option is to use the 2.2 kernel with the 
	LFS patch.

	If you plan to use NOMAD on a Mac OS X based system you should be 
	aware of a couple of limitations with the OS and MySQL at the present
	time. As it stands starting and stopping MySQL is tricky at best, 
	this is being worked around, but is a (minor) problem at the moment.
	A second problem is that inserts into the MySQL database are rather
	slow on Mac OS X, this is expected to improve as Mac OS X matures.

2. SQL database

	We have developed NOMAD using MySQL (http://www.mysql.com). At first
	we aimed for portability, but this goal was abandoned when it
	started presenting unpleasant complexity.

3. HTTP server

	We have developed NOMAD using apache (http://httpd.apache.org). The
	same caveat and request regarding portability from sections 1 and 2 
	apply here as well.  one bit of reconfiguration may be necessary: 
	that the server is willing to execute CGIs. for administrators 
	familiar with apache, this is a trivial change; for others, we 
	include several sample apache configuration files in 
	doc/examples/httpd.conf.

4. Perl interpreter

	Perl is the primary language in which NOMAD is written. the CGI,
	DBI, DBD::mysql, and GD modules are also required.

5. libgd
	
	The GD perl module requires the libgd library, this is most easily
	satisfied by installing the gd application.

## Section 2 Client Requirements:

1. Web Browser

	Browsers used with NOMAD must support Java, javascript and Macromedia
	Flash.

# Requirements v1.0a1 Last Modified 02/01/2002