Creating an account, a home directory, and a login environment

Create a specific user account and group under which the Crystal Enterprise daemons can run. You will log on as this user in order to perform the remainder of the installation procedures. Although you will require root privileges to set up this account, the account itself does not require root privileges. Neither the installation scripts nor Crystal Enterprise itself needs to run as root.

Use your usual administrative procedures to perform these recommended tasks.

To set up the crystal account

1. Create a new group called crystal. Create a new user called crystal, and set this user's primary group to the new crystal group. Assign a secure password to the new user account.
2. Create the directory where you want to install Crystal Enterprise. These installation procedures use /usr/local/crystal as the installation directory. You can change /usr/local/crystal to the directory of your choice. If you do so, however, be sure to replace /usr/local/crystal throughout the installation procedures.
3. Set the new user's HOME directory to the installation directory that you created. When you run the installation script, you can choose a "user" installation type so that all of the installed files are confined to the directory that you specify here.
4. Ensure that crystal has read, write, and execute permissions on the new HOME directory.
5. Assign the new user a default login shell, and create or modify the appropriate login script(s) for the crystal user account. In particular, make sure that the login script(s) set up a default login environment that meets these requirements:
   • The crystal user's HOME directory must be included in the PATH environment variable.
   • All of the commands and utilities required by the install.sh script must be accessible in the PATH environment variable.

     For details, see Checking for required commands and utilities.

   • The crystal user's login environment must set up the database environment such that the install.sh script can access your database client software.

     For more information, see Providing and verifying connectivity to the CMS database.