Installing OpenSimulator (Debian 6)

The first time I installed OpenSimulator was on a Debian 5 machine and it was hours and hours of debugging. I ended up with a half compiled version of mono 2.4.3 installed on top of the official debian 5 package. It has been running for at least 8 months now and I still can’t believe it, it’s a miracle. Unfortunately I neglected to document my struggles back then. But I have been planning to transfer to Debian 6 for a while so I decided to do a test install and fully document it. Mind you, with this guide you’re compiling the development version of OpenSim from source and the code could possibly be broken or unstable.

I started with a completely clean installation of Debian 6 (64 bit).

[Package Installation]

#su -
#apt-get update
#apt-get upgrade
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends screen
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends openssh-server //optional, needed for remote access
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends sudo //optional, needed for remote access
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends nant
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends mysql-server
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends mono-complete
#apt-get install --no-install-recommends git

[OpenSimulator Installation]

#cd /opt
#git clone git://opensimulator.org/git/opensim
#cd opensimulator
#./runprebuild.sh
#nant clean
#nant
#cp OpenSim.ini.example OpenSim.ini

[Create Database]

#mysql -u root -p
#create database Opensimulator;
#grant all privileges on Opensimulator.* to Opensimulator@"localhost" identified by 'password';
#flush privileges;
#quit

[OpenSimulator Standalone Configuration]

#nano OpenSim.ini

All the way down in the [Architecture] section, uncomment the line:

Include-Architecture = "config-include/Standalone.ini"

#cp config-include/StandaloneCommon.ini.example config-include/StandaloneCommon.ini
#nano config-include/StandaloneCommon.ini

Comment out the line under ; SQLite
And uncomment:

StorageProvider = "OpenSim.Data.MySQL.dll"
ConnectionString = "Data Source=localhost;Database=opensim;User ID=opensim;Password=password;Olds Guids=true;"

Make sure to fill in the right database name, username and password (case sensitive).

[Starting OpenSimulator]

#screen
#mono OpenSim.exe

You use the screen command so that opensim will stay alive even when you lose connection or decide you want to do something else at the server. You can ‘detach’ a screen by pressing ctrl+a+d and kill it by pressing ctrl+a+k. You can resume a screen by executing screen -r.

[OPTIONAL: Setting up remote access]

#nano /etc/sudoers

Add the line:

%adm ALL=(ALL) ALL

#adduser username adm

You can now remotely access your server by executing this command:

#ssh username@hostname

Don’t forget to use sudo when starting a screen or running OpenSimulator, it won’t work otherwise.