Tutorial: Spinning up Opensim - Startup (part 5)

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In part 5 of this tutorial, we will finally get Opensim running. After a few edits to some config files you will be able to fire up your first sim.  My apologies for the delay of this final installment which may have frustrated a few of you, I got caught up in the Google Lively launch.

Step 1 - Start the Opensim.exe application

Find the Opensim.exe in an explorer window.  Right click on the file and select “Run As Administrator”.  If you don’t do this, it won’t work.  A windows command shell will come up and you will see messages indicating Opensim is starting up.

Step 2 - Enter First Time Startup Data

The first time you do this you will either get errors or be prompted for some default information.  If you get errors it is likely that you did not configure the database settings properly or your firewall is hindering your progress.  Below are the prompts and what they mean.

DEFAULT REGION CONFIG

• Region Name [Opensim Test]:
  • The name of the your new Sim, you can safely change this but keep it short and one or two words, I no evidence to suggest it would not work with a long sentence, but based on SL sim naming conventions I’m suggesting you adhere to this if you are not a developer.
• Grid Location (X Axis) [1000]:
• Grid Location (Y Axis) [1000]:
  • Starting location in the world for your avatar.  Keep defaults.
• Internal IP Address for incoming UDP client connections [0.0.0.0]:
  • Should remain 0.0.0.0
• Internal IP Port for incoming UDP client connections [9000]:
  • Modify only if you are planning to use a different port or expose your sim to the internet
• External Host Name [127.0.0.1]:
  • Modify only if you plan to login to this sim from elsewhere
• First Name of Master Avatar [Test]:
  • First name of your main avatar
• Last Name of Master Avatar [User]:
  • Last name of your main avatar.  Yes, you can pick this in Opensim :-).
• (Sandbox Mode Only)Password for Master Avatar Account [test]:
  • Password for your avatar

At this point the Opensim server should be up and running

Step 3 - Login with your SL Client

You can’t just login with your Second Life client because it has no way of knowing about your Opensim server.  You need to launch the SL client with some command line parameters to tell it to use Opensim vs. the SL grid.  Open a command window and navigate to the directory where you installed Second Life.  You should find SecondLife.exe  You can then type in “SecondLife.exe -loginuri http://localhost:9000/ -loginpage http://localhost:9000/?method=login“  Replace localhost:9000 with the server/port in question if you have modified the defaults above.

Start Building.  Or if you are so inclined learn how to create your own custom terrain here. 

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