Tomcat only runs webMathematica if run as root.

From: Dave (INVALID.See-signature-for-how-to-determine_at_southminister-branch-line.org.uk)
Date: 11/23/05 

Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 04:33:15 +0000

Hi

I sent this to a Mathematica newsgroup, but are trying a couple more
just in case someone here might know. The Mathematica one is moderated
(what a pain), so I'm sending this separately to avoid delays due to the
moderation.

I've been trying to install on a Sun Ultra 60 the program webMathematica:

http://www.wolfram.com/products/webmathematica/index.html

which is free or cheap web-based front end to an expensive bit of
commercial software. An example of the webMathematica is here

http://integrals.wolfram.com/
(useful if you are doing Calculus). Your browser interfaces with a
Tomcat server, which calls Mathematica to do the computations and
returns the results to the browser.

I've installed Mathematica 5.2, Tomcat 5.5.12 and webMathematica 2.1 on
the Sun.

Starting up Tomcat, the examples from Tomcat work fine at port 8080. But
none of the Mathematica ones do unless I run Tomcat as root. Which
launches Mathematica as root too - not a good idea, given that program
can read and write files.

Here's the Tomcat log file, which shows the error message:

"A front end is not available; export of PNM requires a front end."

Nov 23, 2005 3:37:19 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: MSP: Wed Nov 23 03:37:19 GMT 2005 Memory alloc: 9814016 used: 7515080
Nov 23, 2005 3:37:21 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: MSP: General KernelData0::
Export::nofe: A front end is not available; export of PNM requires a
front end.
Nov 23, 2005 3:37:21 AM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: MSP: IOException thrown java.io.FileNotFoundException:
/usr/local/apache2/apache-tomcat-5.5.12/work/Catalina/localhost/webMathematica/MSPStore993157332_0
(No such file or directory)

The webMathematica program seems a bit dumb in that ideally it needs
XVnc running, otherwise windows pop up on the console whenever someone
runs the application!

http://documents.wolfram.com/webmathematica/v2/index_2_4.html

I can't get XVnc to work for me ( the client always reports the password
is wrong), so I have logged in as root and run

# xhost +

which should allow anyone to connect. Windows will pop up on the console
I believe, but I'm not too bothered by that. Perhaps I should log in the
console as user "nobody" then try starting as nobody. (It's in my
garage, so might do tomorrow, but not now).

Any other ideas? I realise this is very Mathematica specific, but I it
is worth a try on one of these two newsgroups. 

-- 
Dave K
http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/
Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is
always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)

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