Upgrading from Previous Versions of webMathematica

This section discusses some of the issues that will concern you if you already have webMathematica. If you are using an older servlet container, this may be a good opportunity to upgrade to something more recent. If you are going to upgrade your servlet container, you could follow the instructions at the beginning of this chapter as though this was a fresh installation of webMathematica.

Install Mathematica

webMathematica comes with a copy of Mathematica and this should be installed as discussed in the section on Installing and Configuring Mathematica.

If you have installed any applications into your copy of Mathematica, you will need to make them available to Mathematica. This is discussed in the section Installing Packages. Note that you should not copy the MSP application to Mathematica.

Install the webMathematica Web Application

To install the webMathematica web application, you will need to remove your current webMathematica web application out of your servlet container. For Tomcat, this is a simple matter of moving the webMathematica directory from the webapps directory. You may need some of the material in this web application, so you should probably keep it somewhere accessible. After this you can follow the instructions for Installing the webMathematica Web Application.

Configure the New Layout

If you made any special configuration to your old version of webMathematica, you may want to make similar changes in webMathematica 3.3. Typically this might affect the file web.xml, as well as the webMathematica and security configuration files.

web.xml

You should only make changes to web.xml if you are certain that you understand the intent of the setting. In addition, it would be better to copy any modified configuration parameters from the old version rather than taking the entire file. The web.xml file is found in the directory webMathematica/WEB-INF.

MSPConfiguration.xml

webMathematica uses a configuration system based on an XML file called MSPConfiguration.xml, which is found in the directory webMathematica/WEB-INF. You should copy specific configuration parameters rather than taking the entire file. The configuration section describes the new format and the meaning of the configuration settings.

Security Configuration

The mechanism for locating the security configuration file has changed. Now the security configuration file is named in the pool configuration and is located in a central configuration directory in webMathematica/WEB-INF; the default name is SecurityConfiguration.m. Previously the configuration file could be loaded from anywhere on the Mathematica path.

This change was made because loading the security configuration from a single central location is more secure. Since the default security system of webMathematica is very conservative, any sites that do not move their security files will run with a higher level of security than is expected. A fuller discussion is found in the section on Security.

Move Content to the New Layout

Now you should copy your content from your old layout. You should not copy any of the examples because webMathematica 3.3 has its own set of updated examples. Instead, you should just copy your own material from the old layout into the new.

Finalize the Installation

When you have installed the new version of webMathematica you should test your installation. A good URL to use is http://localhost:8080/webMathematica/Examples/Specification.jsp. This will print the version numbers of your installation. You should confirm that you have webMathematica 3.3 and Mathematica 10.0