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The MercWare.com server installation program makes basic assumptions about your hardware.  The current version 3.03 assumes you are installing onto an Intel based computer with an IDE hard drive.  It does not automatically configure your network cards.  We have tried to make the program flexible by having auto-detect menu options for PCI network adapter cards and selections for the most commonly used network cards, including ISA and USB.

The installation program will only attempt to detect that you are using a single or multiple CPU motherboard and what type of USB controller is available.

The system that is installed supports a wide variety of the most common hardware devices and in most cases will automatically load the appropriate drivers for the device. You may be required to manually install software packages and/or drivers if you wish to use software and hardware that isn't managed by our Cybers administration software.

Our CD installs the latest stable Linux 2.4 kernel based on the RedHat distribution along with literally thousands of "programs" needed or managed by our software for the various server functions. 

If you received your Cybers installation CD from us it should have included an insert in the case with the following information.  If you received a copy of the CD somewhere else then here is your insert information.

Disclaimer of Warranty on Software. You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of the MercWare.com Software is at your sole risk. The software and related documentation are provided "AS IS" and without warranty of any kind and MercWare.com EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS AND IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. MercWare.com DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS ASSUMED BY YOU. FURTHERMORE, MercWare.com DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR RELATED DOCUMENTATION IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, CURRENTNESS, OR OTHERWISE. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY MercWare.com OR OUR AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OR IN ANY WAY INCREASE THE SCOPE OF THIS WARRANTY. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU (AND NOT MercWare.com OR OUR AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE) ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR,OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. Limitation of Liability. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, SHALL MercWare.com, OR ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES OR AGENTS, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, AND THE LIKE) ARISING OUT OF THE USE, MISUSE OR INABILITY TO USE THE  SOFTWARE OR RELATED DOCUMENTATION, BREACH OR DEFAULT, INCLUDING THOSE ARISING FROM INFRINGEMENT OR ALLEGED INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PATENT, TRADEMARK, COPYRIGHT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT, BY MercWare.com, EVEN IF  MercWare.com OR OUR AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION IF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. MercWare.com will not be liable for 1) loss of, or damage to, your records or data or 2) any damages claimed by you based on any third party claim. In no event shall MercWare.com's total liability to you for all damages, losses, and causes of action (whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise) exceed the amount paid by you for the software.

Installation: Method 1) Reboot the pc and hit the key indicated to change the  pc (bios) setup. In most newer pc's you will find an option to allow  the pc to boot from a cdrom. Insert the enclosed CD and reboot.  This installation method is somewhat faster than booting the pc  using the enclosed diskette. Method 2) Insert the enclosed floppy and CD. Reboot the pc. Initial  loading of the software from the diskette may take a few minutes. Answer 'N' to install the Operating System source code unless you absolutely need it. Source code should never be installed on a firewall server.  Make a note of any instructions displayed by the installation  program. When the installation is complete you will be instructed to  remove the installation CD and reboot. You will then be given a menu options to complete any needed server  information. You may need to contact your system administrator to obtain an available IP address, the network netmask, and the network  gateway.

Troubleshooting: If the installation program indicates that it was unable to partition  the hard drive you may need to either use the bios 'low level  formatting' if the pc bios has that option, or locate a bootable  DOS diskette that has the fdisk and format programs on it. Use  fdisk to remove any existing partitions then create one DOS  primary partition. Then use the format program (c:>format c: /s)  to format the hard drive. Note that you only need a single partition and it does not matter  if it uses the entire hard disk. Our installation program will  remove this partition and proceed to use the entire hard drive  when you re-run the installation. Recommended Minimum PC Requirements: Pentium 100 or equivalent/better 64 Megs RAM (more is better) 1.6 Gigabyte Hard Drive (Install uses approx. 600 Meg) 10/100 ethernet card. (usb 1.1 NIC card ok). You must be able to assign a permanent IP address to all  MercWare Servers. Default root password "pleasechange" Default browser login "cyberadm" user password "admin503"

 figure 1.1 CD jewell case insert

Our CD is intended to be used on Intel based personal computers (PC) with an IDE hard drive.  The operating system has built in support for most SCSI devices including hard drives and CD R/W but the install program expects an IDE hard drive.  If you prefer to use a SCSI hard drive please contact us for a special edition of the install program.  Future versions will include support for SCSI installations. Please click here for a list of supported and unsupported hardware.

Note:  You should use the BIOS setup screen option to make sure your computer's time and date settings are correct.  Our Cybers administration program uses the computer date when generating the trial period License.  Please don't try to fool the program by setting a date in the future, doing the install, then resetting the date.  This will not only cause problems with Cybers but may cause problems with the operating system which uses the date and time for a large number of its functions.

Some older computers are not able to boot from a CD.  If this is the case for you, please send (US) $9.95 to the address shown on the "Try/Buy" web page and request the bootable 3.5" diskette (includes shipping & handling).

Whether you are booting from the CD or from a diskette the process is the same.  Most error messages you may see will not affect the installation unless the install program determines that you have an incompatible hard drive or the hard drive isn't found or is found but has problems.  In any case you should be notified by the program about what is wrong or what is needed before an installation is possible.

The installation program insists that you enter an uppercase 'Y' before continuing the installation process.  All data will be overwritten on your hard drive so make any needed backups before using the CD.

You should now be asked if you want to install the operating source code which also installs the compiler needed if you make changes to the source code.  Installing the source code is not needed unless you intend to install other packages that need to be "compiled" before they can be used.  If you don't know what this means then you should press 'N'.  Note: You should never install the source code and compiler on a server used as a firewall.  The source code and compiler can potentially be abused by an intruder who could use it for malicious purposes.  Installing the source code will add 2 to 5 minutes to the installation time.

The first part of the installation process is to re-partition the hard drive by first removing all known partitions and calculating what the new drive layout will be.  The install program is sometimes unable to do this because you have had another operating system installed that used partitions or drive layouts that the program is unable to change.  If this happens for you, you will need to use the BIOS drive formatting option or locate a bootable diskette containing the DOS fdisk.exe program and do the following:

Most modern and even older computers allow you to change the "BIOS" settings when the computer is started.  You should see something like "Press F2 to enter Setup" or "Press DEL for Setup".  These settings control the very basic functions of your computer and sometimes need to be changed.  Some computers require a setup diskette to be used.  Follow the directions on the screen or refer to your computer manual for information on changing settings or using a BIOS drive formatting option.

After setting up the hard drive, the install program will attempt to detect whether your computer supports more than one CPU.  Multiple CPU motherboards (your computer may have more than one brain) are commonly used for high performance servers.

If you have a multiple CPU computer the install program should automatically install a version of the operating system that has been optimized to make best use of it.  If you don't have a Multiple CPU computer or the install program does not detect it then it will ask if you want to install the Multiple CPU version anyway.  Note that the install program may not be able to detect all makes and models of high performance motherboards but the installed operating system probably will detect and use the resources.

You should not choose to install the Multiple CPU version unless you actually have more than one CPU or will be upgrading the motherboard after you have installed our software.  The single CPU version is optimized for best use with one CPU.  It does have the ability to make partial use of additional CPU's but is best suited for a single CPU.

At this point you wait for the short time it takes the install program to do the installation.  Mid range and newer low end computers should take around 5 minutes. A low end, old pc may take as long as 15 minutes to install.  Very old computers could take even longer.  

Once the operating system is installed you will be prompted to remove the CD (and diskette if used) then press Enter to reboot.

The server will start with some default settings enabled.  You will see a menu displayed where you can tell the second stage installation program the name of the server, any network cards you have installed in the computer, whether you will be using the computer as a firewall, etc..  Any questions you may have should be answered by pressing the F1 key to view the online installation manual.  If you have any questions that are not answered by reading the "Help" manual please email us at support@mercware.com for answers.

Our install program assumes that you will be using standard ISA, PCI, or USB ethernet network adapters.  We have included support for a number of other types of network adapter cards but you will have to know the name of the driver and select the option to enter the driver name manually if this is true for you.

When you have made the necessary changes and configured your network cards you will need to use option 1 on the main menu and save your settings.  You may then press the ESC key to finish.  Be sure to read the information presented.  It will look similar to:

fs2.myserver.com Server is ready to use if you have saved the network information!
      
After this server resets (reboots) you should be able to use any https
capable browser to access the MercWare.com Cybers administration software
using the URL:   https://ipaddress:4280
      
   https://192.168.1.1:4280       if the server ipaddress is 192.168.1.1
      
Login: cyberadm  Password: admin503  (case sensitive)
Please note the URL (address) format as shown before continuing.

      Press Enter to continue.

If you need to change network card setting you will need to login (you are at the login: prompt when the system is finished restarting).  Use "root" for the login name and "pleasechange" for the password.  You will be presented a menu which allows you to change critical server information.

Remember to save your new settings before exiting.  You should then enter "reboot" and press Enter to reboot the server so that it starts back up with the correct settings.

If you need to change the server name you should do this immediately before trying to use your browser to connect to our Cybers administration program.  The first time you connect to our program it will start your 30 day expiration timer and create your trial period license based partially on your server's name.  If you change the server's name afterwards the Cybers program will complain and quit running.  You will then have to either re-install the server or contact us for a replacement temporary license.

If you didn't see any errors to correct or fixed any configuration problems your server should now be ready to use!  Simply go to a workstation on the same network as your new server and use the instructions as shown above in figure 1.3.

If you are unable to connect to the server with your browser, make sure you have entered the correct URL as in figure 1.3.  People sometimes forget to use https:// and not http://.  The 's' tells your browser that you will be using encrypted communications and the Cybers administration program requires it.

Make sure you have the ":4280" at the end of the URL.  That is a colon ( : ) shown as a dot above a dot and not a semi-colon ( ; ) shown as a dot above a comma. It is easy to confuse the two if you are not familiar with them.

Don't forget to make good use of the "HELP" buttons when displayed and the "Getting Started" button.  The help screens they both display may be very helpful with questions you may have.  The "Getting Started" button should be used right away as it will explain the recommended steps to take when setting up a new server.

Email Support: support@mercware.com