Tutorial: Spinning up Opensim - Install and Config (part 4)

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In part 4 of this tutorial, we will finally get into some Opensim s**t. After a few edits to some config files you will be ready login to your own sim.

Step 1 - Install (Unzip) Opensim

Installing Opensim is not really like installing a regular application at this point. There is no click though forehead installer. However, installation cannot be easier. Simply upzip/extract the zip file it comes in. For me the zip file I downloaded was opensim-bin-0.5.8. After extracting, I had a directory named opensimbin. Note, this was different from 0.5.5 where there was an opensim/bin directory structure.

Step 2 - Find and Rename the MySQL Connection Initialization file.

The first thing we need to do is tell Opensim where to find the MySQL database and how to connect to it. Find the file mysql_connection.ini.example.

NOTE: You may only see mysql_connection.ini. In reality this file is actually named mysql_connection.ini.example. You may not see the .example unless you have enabled file types. If you have not enabled file types in Vista then do so. To do this select the opensimbin folder and then from the Windows Explorer menu select “Organize” and then “Folder and Search Options” from the drop-down list. Go to the “View” tab and uncheck “Hide Extensions for Known File Types”.

We want to change this from an example to the real thing, so create a copy and rename it to “mysql_connection.ini”. Accept the change when Windows complains about changing the file type.

WARNING: Rename the mysql not mssql file. I’ve gotten the wrong one several times. Not mSsql file, rather mYsql.

Step 3 - Edit the mysql_connection.ini file

Now that you have created the mysql connection file let’s edit it and tell it how to reach our database. Open the mysql_connection.ini file using whatever editing program you like. I’d suggest wordpad as it deals with line wrapping pretty well. There are only a few lines to edit.

• hostname=localhost
• database=<name of your database, mine was opensimdb>
• username=<name of your user, mine was opensimdbuser>
• password=<password you set for this user>

Step 4 - Find and Rename the OpenSim Initialization File

The next part of the configuration is to tell Opensim to use MySQL vs. other databases. We need to copy and rename the example initialization file like we did in step 2. Find the file OpenSim.ini.example. Copy it and rename it to “OpenSim.ini”. Tell Windows to bug off and accept what you are trying to do.

Step 5 - Edit OpenSim.ini

There are several changes we want to make in this file. The main one is to tell Opensim to use MySQL as the datastore for everything. The second one is to enable the more sophisticated physics engine. If you don’t you won’t be able to walk on any prim, instead you will just walk through the prims.

Find and replace the following items:

• Change the storage plugin from Null to MySQL
  • Change: storage_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.Null.dll”
  • To: storage_plugin=”OpenSim.Data.MySQL.dll”
• Add a semi-colon to the following line (this comments the line out or tells Opensim to ignore it).
  • storage_connection_string=”URI=file:OpenSim.db,version=3″
• Remove the semi-colon on the following line and add your database information.
  • ;storage_connection_string=”Data Source=localhost;Database=opensim;User ID=opensim;Password=*****;”;
  • storage_connection_string=”Data Source=localhost;Database=<your db>;User ID=<your user>;Password=<yourpassword>;”;
• Comment out (add a semi-colon to the front of basic physics and uncomment out OpenDynamicsEngine). IT should look like this when you are done.
  • ; Choose one of the physics engines below
  • ;physics = basicphysics
  • ;physics = POS
  • physics = OpenDynamicsEngine
  • ;physics = modified_BulletX
• Change the inventory plugin to MySQL and add a inventory_source string for MySQL. It should look like the following:
  • ; Inventory database provider
  • ; inventory_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll”
  • inventory_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.MySQL.dll” <– Change to MySQL
  • ; inventory_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.NHibernate.dll” ; for nhibernate
  • ; Inventory Source NHibernate Example (DIALECT;DRIVER;CONNECTSTRING)
  • ; inventory_source = “SQLiteDialect;SqliteClientDriver;URI=file:Inventory.db,version=3″ <– Comment out by adding a semi-colon
  • inventory_source=”DataSource=localhost;Database=<your db>;User ID=<your user>;Password=<your password>;”; <– Added this line
• Do the same thing for Asset and User sections (change the plugin and add the following lines

That’s it! Next, lets fire up that new server.

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