UNDERSTUDY FREEBSD 4.0 RELEASE NOTES

This is the release notes of Understudy for FreeBSD 4.0. 
The Understudy FreeBSD distribution contains the following files: 

                    README - this document 
                    understudy-1.3-x.freebsd-4.0.i386.tgz - a tarball
			       that can be extracted by the pkg_add utility. 
                    understudy.pdf - administrator's guide in PDF format
		    quickstart.pdf - Quickstart Guide for Understudy 

If you have downloaded Understudy electronically, 
then you must obtain the documentation directly by downloading it now,
or go to our website at www.polyserve.com. 

DESCRIPTION OF UNDERSTUDY 

PolyServe Understudy is a software-only server clustering solution for 
high availability and load balancing. It offers an array of features that
assist end-users and service providers in building cost effective clustering 
solutions for e-business. Understudy guarantees that mission critical 
applications are highly available and easy to administer by offering the 
following features: 

-Service monitoring for web, email, file transfer, e-commerce, and TCP/IP applications 
-Failure detection, automatic failover & reintegration into the cluster upon recovery 
-Load balancing solutions for highly responsive applications 
-Distributed operation & centralized management 

Understudy maintains high availability server clusters by managing the
servers as virtual hosts, directing traffic only to those hosts that are 
correctly servicing end user requests. A virtual host can be configured to
service any number of hosts in a cluster, either for load sharing or 
primary/backup support of servers. Understudy supports multiple virtual 
hosts per server, this is ideal for ISPs or other service providers needing
to support many web sites on a single server. Understudy is also well suited to
support small to medium sized e-commerce shops running on clusters of low cost
servers or server appliances. 

Since it is software based, Understudy operates in a distributed manner to guarantee
the availability of services and reduce traffic overhead. Because of this distributed
operation, there is no single point of failure in an Understudy cluster; therefore, 
there is no need to build additional redundancy into the cluster. Understudy is centrally
managed to assist and ease the web and server application manager in installing and
configuring a clustered server farm.


PREREQUISITES 

The minimum system requirements for Understudy on the 
FreeBSD systems are as follows: 

                    Intel 486 compatible or higher 
		    A pair of FreeBSD Servers running 4.0 or higher
                    16MB memory or higher 
                    25MB Disk Space or higher 
                    Ethernet 10/100 port 


QUICK INSTALL GUIDE 

To install understudy on FreeBSD 4.0, logon as root and 
use the pkg_add command to install the tarball. e.g. 

root> pkg_add understudy-1.3-x.freebsd-4.0.i386.tgz 

The tarball contains shell scripts that pkg_add runs. These scripts set 
things up so that spare starts automatically after reboot.

Once understudy is installed, use the utility sppasswd that comes with 
understudy to set the password for the "admin" user. Understudy's GUI 
administration tool, understudy, prompts for this password when connecting 
to the understudy server. e.g. 

root> sppasswd 
sppasswd> admin mypassword 


UNINSTALL 

To uninstall understudy, use the pkg_delete utility. e.g. 
root> pkg_delete understudy-1.3-x.freebsd-4.0.i386.tgz 


STARTING/STOPPING THE UNDERSTUDY DAEMON (SPARE) 

To manually start/stop the Understudy Daemon, execute the following: 

root> /usr/local/etc/rc.d/spare.sh start 
root> /usr/local/etc/rc.d/spare.sh stop 

UNDERSTUDY LICENSE CODE

Understudy requires a license code to be activated.  The license code 
has the following format, 

           understudy expiration-date signature 

A 30-day evaluation license or purchase license is required to fully 
activate Understudy.  If you choose to evaluate Understudy, a license 
code will be returned to you via email once you have completed the
appropriate evaluation registration form at:

http://www.polyserve.com/freebsd

Instructions on activating the license will be provided in our Quickstart Guide 
and in the email that is returned to you upon product
registration. 

If you have any problems with activating Understudy for the 30-day 
evaluation contact us directly at 1-877-4POLYSERVE.  If you wish to
purchase Understudy, you will be given a permanent license code.
Please call 1-877-4POLYSERVE if you would like to purchase a copy of
the product.