One more caveat: The window installers always lag the current development versions by a bit. You are in better shape if you run on linux, which is why I made a Virtual Machine that is already configured using Debian 5 that you can download (and please seed if you can!).

So lets dive in, shall we?

We’ll need the most current binary from the opensimulator website, so navigate with your favorite browser here:

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Next, click on the ‘Download’ icon near the top. You’ll also want to bookmark this site, as it has some answers to technical questions and requirements.

You’ll see a section once the page loads, called “Binary Packages”. You’ll want to download the .zip archive, since windows understands what to do with .zip files (or if you have installed a utility that does – same difference).

As of this writing, the version is 0.6.8 – right-click on the link and select “Save Link As”. Save the zip file where you can find it easily later. You’ll be extracting all the files on to your hard drive in a bit.

Get up, and take a break – depending on your connection, this will take a few minutes.

Once it is done, navigate to where you saved the file. Extract the file to a folder of your choice. I chose to make a folder called “opensim” on my C: drive.

You’ll see a main folder called “opensim-0.6.8.-binaries” once it is done. That is nice, but I’d like it all to be under a one thing, so lets cut-and-paste the folders so they are all under the “opensim” folder. The end result will look like this:

Now, to tweak some configuration files. You’ll want to keep the zip file around, just in case you make a mistake. I’m going to reference my folder structure here, so if you made any changes, substitute in your head. We’re now going to navigate to the opensim\bin directory.

Depending on how you have your options set in windows, you’ll see something like this:

The file we’re interested in right now is opensim.ini – find it, and open it up in either notepad or wordpad to make some changes.

Since we have our database installed, we need to make some changes to point opensim to that database. I hope you have your database password memorized, you’re going to need it here.

Scroll down and find the section “STORAGE” in opensim.ini

By default, opensim uses SQLite. But we’re not going to use that, so we need to change things. First, put semi-colons in front of the following, to comment them out. This will tell opensim we aren’t using these lines in our configuration.

Below those lines is the MySQL configuration lines. We need to uncomment these, so remove the semi-colons. Also, we need to change the connection string so it looks like this when you’re done. (Remember, put in YOUR password to the database where I’ve put PASSWORD.) One other note, it is totally possible to access the database using another user other than root, but frankly – I’m not going to get into that. For expediency sake, just use what I have here in the interim.

Now, lets go to the section called “Standalone”. You’ll have to scroll a bit to find it. Here, you can change the welcome message that you’ll get when you log in to your server, and the inventory database configuration.

We need to change the “Inventory database provider” and “Inventory Source” to point to our MySQL database. Change the following so it looks like this (remember, insert YOUR database password where PASSWORD is):

Okay, now we’ll have to do the same with the “User Data Database provider” section below it. Change the configuration so it looks like this, inserting your database password:

Make sure to save your progress.

This part has changed from the last time I wrote the guide, there is another configuration file to edit in a different folder. Make sure your work is saved, and navigate to the following – opensim\bin\config-include.

The file we’re looking for is “StandaloneCommon.ini.example”. We’re going to save this under a different name so we don’t alter the original. Open the file up in either notepad or wordpad.

The first thing we’re going to do, is save this as “StandaloneCommon.ini” under the same directory. Do that now.

Good, now the first section you see should be familiar – “DatabaseService”. We’ll need to change the database provider and connection strings. Here’s what they should look like after you are done (after inserting your database password at PASSWORD, of course):

Save your work. We have one more configuration file to deal with, so close “StandaloneCommon.ini” and open up the file “CenomeCache.ini.example”.

We’re going to do the same thing as before, save the file as “CenomeCache.ini” so we don’t alter the original.

We don’t have anything to do in this file, but we did need to save it as “ini” for it to be referenced properly. Close the window, we need to do something else here.

We’re actually ready to fire up the opensim server, but there are a few more steps once we’ve got it going. One way to make this easier is to make a shortcut to the opensim.exe and modify its properties so we can scroll inside of it to see all the status messages, etc..

Navigate back to opensim\bin, and right-click on opensim.exe – choose “Send To” –> “Desktop (create shortcut)”.

If you’ve done this correctly, you’ll see a shortcut appear on your desktop like this:

That isn’t too appealing, is it? Lets change the look of it and its name. Right-click on the shortcut, and select “Rename”. Lets rename this to “Opensim Server”.

Now, lets make it look like something, instead of a white dialog box. Right-click, and select “Properties”.

A window will pop up like this:

Click on the “Change Icon” button.

A warning will pop up, like this one:

Just click on the “OK” button, and another window will appear like this:

Choose an icon from what is listed in this window. (There used to be an OpenSim.ico file in other older distributions – so if you prefer to get it, download one of the older installers and extract that file to use here.) Click “Apply”.

Depending on what you chose, the result might look like this:

We’ll now alter a few things in the “Layout” tab, so we will have a scroll buffer and see what the server is doing a bit better. These aren’t absolute values, feel free to play around with them to get the right result on your system and screen resolution. Here’s what I have it set to:

Again, change these to whatever dimensions suit you best. You’ll have a chance to do that later on. Now, lets launch the server!

Double-click your opensim server shortcut on the desktop.

A dos-window will open up, and depending on the dimensions you chose, it should be big enough to see all the messages rapidly scrolling by. You may get this warning if you are running WinXP:

Just select “Unblock” so the firewall doesn’t interfere later on.

If you accidentally missed something earlier on, the program will print some red lines and error out. Close the window and go through the tutorial again and make sure you got the database connection strings right.

If all went well, you’ll see this at the very bottom of the window:

Time to name your region! You can use what you like, but for example sake, I’ll just name this “Sandbox”.

You’ll now get prompted with a Region UUID, just hit Enter to accept it.

A region location prompt will show up, hit Enter again to accept the X,Y coordinates of 1000,1000.

An Internal IP address prompt will appear, just hit Enter to accept the default of o.o.o.o.

An Internal port prompt will appear, just hit Enter to accept the default of 9000.

You’ll now be prompted with Allow alternate ports, hit Enter to accept the default of “False”.

An External host name prompt will appear, hit Enter to accept the default of “SYSTEMIP”.

A Master Avatar UUID prompt will appear, hit Enter to accept the default.

Now we’re at an important part, the Master Avatar first name. You can put what you want in here, just remember it or write it down for later. I chose to put “Builder”. Hit Enter.

For Master Avatar last name, I put “McBuilderson”. Hit Enter.

A Master Avatar (your region name) password prompt will appear. Put what you like, but make a note of it. Then hit Enter.

A whole bunch of activity will ensue, and at the end it will look something like this: (The only reason my startup time is so long, is because I was documenting all these steps for you – typically it will be much, much less.)

At this point, your simulator is up and running. But we need a viewer to connect to it! Lets get that done, shall we?

Shutdown your simulator by typing “shutdown” at the prompt, and hit Enter. (Note: your prompt will look different from mine if you chose a different name for your simulator earlier.)

The window will display some messages as the simulator shuts down, then the window will close by itself.

There are many choices for viewers, but I’m going to point you to this one – its an open alternative to the “commercial” viewer used by other grids. It also lets you connect to other grids in a flexible manner. One bonus for me is this viewer allows you to edit and scale objects in your simulator up to 256 meters. Yep, that is one big advantage when building.

Open your favorite web browser, and navigate to this page:

http://mjm-labs.com/viewer/download.php

You’ll see a section called “Binaries”. We’re going to click on the first link, “Download from OpenSimulator Forge”. (If that isn’t available for some reason, click on the other, but keep in mind you may see slightly different things than what I show.) Click on that link now.

Once the page loads, you’ll see some links up top. The one we’re interested in is the Windows installer, so click the following link:

Save the file where you can get to it easily.

Navigate to where you saved it, and double-click on the installer.

A window will pop up, showing a default installation directory. This should work for most people, so just click the “Install” button.

A progress bar will appear, and the installer will download some additional files to continue.

Once done, the window will change to say the “Installation finished successfully”. Click on the “Start” button to launch the viewer.

We need to change some preferences here. Select “Edit” at the top toolbar in the viewer, and select “Preferences”. A window will pop up like so:

Click on the “Grids” tab on the left.

We need to add a new grid definition for your local opensim server, so click on the “Add” button.

In the Login URI box, put this in: http://localhost:9000/

Platform should be set to “OpenSim”.

Grid Nickname can be whatever you’d like, but for this example, I put in: poschgrid

Grid Name can be whatever you’d like, but for this example, I put in: Tim Posch’s Grid

In the Login Page box, put this in: http://localhost:9000/?method=login

Helper URI, Web Site, Support URL, Account URL and Password URL can be left blank.

Rendering Compatibility is checked by default, you can leave it this way.

After you are done, click “Apply”. Now your grid definition should be available from the “Select a grid” dropdown up top. After you select it, it should look something like this:

Click the “Default” button to make this grid the one you will use when starting up the viewer, for convenience. Hit “Apply” and then “OK”. You can now exit this window. Shut down the viewer for now.

We need to restart the opensim server, so double-click on the icon you have on your desktop.

The server window will open, you’ll see a bunch of status lines, then finally the “Region (Your Region Name) #” prompt.

Now we are ready to connect! Fire up the viewer, and make sure the default grid is the one you defined earlier. If not, go to preferences and set it properly.

Once you have it set, you will see a white page that has First Name, Last Name, Password. We don’t need to use this, but it lets us know that the opensim server is up and running.

At the bottom, enter your First/Last/Password that you set when configuring the server earlier. For me, that would be Builder, McBuilderson, (PASSWORD).

Click the “Login” button. You should see a progress bar and connect to your region!

If all went well, you’ll be floating above a bump-like island in the middle of your very own simulator.

Good job!

I’ll cover some customizing commands in my next tutorial… stay tuned!

Fire up your favorite browser and go to the following URL:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

If that fails because they’ve re-done the site for some reason, then hit the main page here, and navigate to their downloads section for “MySQL Community Server”

http://dev.mysql.com/

You’ll see a page load listing the “Generally Available (GA) Releases” – keep in mind that if you haven’t gotten adobe flash player installed, or are blocking this for some reason – the download list won’t appear properly.

You’ll see a box that has a drop-down menu for different OSes, but we’re sticking with “Microsoft Windows” so you don’t need to change anything.

Versions change of course, but the one we’re after as of this posting is the Windows (x86, 32-bit) MSI Installer.

Click on the download button, which will load another page.

You’ll see a page asking you to register or login if you are a returning user. You can skip all that by clicking on ” >> No thanks, just take me to the downloads!” link at the bottom.

Select a mirror that makes sense geographically, and click on either the HTTP or FTP link on the right hand side.

This will take a bit, so get up and grab a snack or something while it downloads.

Navigate to where you saved the installer, and double-click it to begin.

Hit the “Next >” button to continue.

You’ll be presented with some choices about setup type. “Typical” is already selected, and will work for what we want, so click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Now it will change to “Ready to Install the Program” with a summary of the setup type, destination (install) folder and such. Click on the “Install” button to continue.

Depending on how fast your machine is, you’ll see a progress bar for a bit as it unpacks the files and other tasks.

After that has completed, you’ll see an advert about MySQL Enterprise subscription. We don’t need this for personal use, so just click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Another advert for MySQL Enterprise Monitor Service will be displayed, but we’re not interested in that either. Click the “Next >” button to continue.

The “Setup Wizard Completed” will be displayed, along with two checkboxes, one for “Configure the MySQL Server now” (which we want), and “Register the MySQL Server now” (which isn’t really necessary for our uses.) Uncheck the Register checkbox, and click on the “Finish” button to continue.

Now you’ll see the “MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard”. Nothing to do here, so click the “Next >” button to continue.

You’ll be presented with a choice here for configuration type. We’ll go with the default selected “Detailed Configuration” here. Click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Now we’re going to select a server type so the installer will tune the installation properly. Since I have a decent amount of on-board memory in my machine, I selected “Server Machine” so it will be tuned for more memory. When in doubt, just go with the “Developer Machine” which is selected by default, and click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Yet another window, this time we’re selecting the database engine being used. You’ll want to go with the default “Multifunctional Database” here, unless you have a compelling reason to do otherwise. Click the “Next >” button to continue.

Now you’ll see the drive where the tables will be installed, and a usage bar indicating how much space will be used and the amount free. Leave the drive and install path at their defaults, unless you really need to change this because of space reasons. Click on the “Next >” button to continue.

They weren’t kidding about ‘Detailed’, were they? Here’s another window asking you to select the number of concurrent connections. I’m going to go with the default, which is 20. If you need more, then use the higher options in the window. Click the “Next >” button to continue.

Now we’re at the networking option window. By default, “Enable TCP/IP Networking” is checked. This makes sense for us, since if you are going to use this for opensim and eventually transition to grid mode, you may want your database server to be able to talk to the other grid components. Leave the port number set to 3306. Leave the “Add firewall exception for this port” unchecked, as we’re not interested in remote connections to this database right now. Leave “Enable Strict Mode” checked, and click the “Next >” button to continue.

You’ll now see a character set selection window. Leave the default radio button “Standard Character Set” selected, and click the “Next >” button to continue.

Now a window appears to set Windows options. “Install As Windows Service” will be checked by default, as well as “Launch the MySQL Server automatically”. Leave these the way they are, and check the box next to “Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH”. This is helpful later on when you want to issue commands to the server directly. Click on the “Next >” button to continue.

We are now at a very important section, setting the security options. Remember what you put in here! It will be important not only to administer the database, but to access it with other applications, like opensim. Type in your preferred root password, and retyping it for accuracy. Leave “Enable root access from remote machines” unchecked. Click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Now we’re finally at the part where all of your selections get implemented. All you need to do here is click on the “Execute” button, and watch it all fly by as the server gets installed and tweaked.

After it completes, you’ll see a new message in the window, asking you to click “Finish” to close the wizard. Go and do that now.

Get up, stretch your legs – time to do a reboot so the service can be started properly. We’ll be doing a few more things to verify it is all okay.

The database is installed, but it would be nice to have something to query it with. Sure, you could use the command line, but lets download the MySQL Workbench and install it.

Open up your web browser and go the following:

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/

Look familiar? The same navigation is used to download this application like the server previously. Scroll down, until you see “Windows (x86, 32-bit) MSI Installer”. Click the “Download” button.

The same page as before will ask if you want to log in or register. Skip this like last time by clicking on the “>> No thanks, just take me to the downloads!” link underneath.

Select a mirror that makes sense, like before. Save the file where you can find it again easily.

Double-click on the workbench installer.

This will launch the usual installer window, click on the “Next >” button to continue.

Setup type by default is “Complete”. Keep this the way it is, and click the “Next >” button to continue.

You’ll now see a summary window like before, showing the type and destination folder for the install. Click on the “Install” button to continue.

A progress bar will appear while the installation takes place.

Once it is finished, you’ll see “Wizard Completed” now appears. Click on the “Finish” button to exit the installer.

Now, you can navigate to Start -> Programs -> MySQL and select “MySQL Workbench” to run the program.

After a quick splash screen, the main program window will appear. We’re interested in this bit right here on the left hand side. Click on “New Connection”.

A smaller window will pop up, with a bunch of options.

Type in the connection name up top, such as “Opensim Database”.

The default schema will be blank for now, but later on you’ll want to change this to the name of the database we’ll be creating, which will be “opensim”.

Click on “Store in Vault” button, to enter the password for the database. This will make managing it a bit easier when you use MySQL Workbench again.

Enter the password, and click the “OK” button.

Now click the “Test Connection” button on the lower right hand side.

If all went well, you should see a window pop up saying “Connection parameters are correct.”

Click on the “OK” button, and then on the “OK” button on the lower right-hand side of the “Manage DB Connections” window.

The window will close, and you’ll see that “Opensim Database” is now listed in the query window.

Great! Now lets click on “Open Connection to start Querying”.

You’ll see the “Connect to Database” window again, and now you can use the “Stored Connection” dropdown menu to select “Opensim Database”.

Click on the “OK” button on the lower right-hand side, and a new window will appear with a bunch of folders on the left hand side, a SQL Statements window, and below that a few tabs.

We now need to create the opensim database. Go to the “SQL Statements” window and type “CREATE DATABASE opensim” like so:

Hit enter, and then from the top toolbar, select Query -> Execute.

Now, right-click on “information_schema” and select “Refresh All”.

The database “opensim” now exists!

Now click on the small ‘x’ right below the tiny dos-window icon. (Not the main window ‘x’.)

If you feel like it, you can repeat the steps to connect to the database, select “Opensim Database” from the dropdown, and make the Default Schema on the connection the “opensim” database.

Close the workbench program. You are all set to install Opensimulator!

(Which I’ll continue in another tutorial.)

That is okay for a proof-of-concept, but I’m sure you want to make things more personalized. Here’s how to tweak a few things.

In the server window, you should see a prompt that reads: “Region (Sandbox) #”

This is showing you what region you are currently issuing commands to, named “Sandbox” which is the default. To view a list of helpful commands, type “help” without quotes. You’ll be presented with a long list, which you can scroll to view using the side scroll button on the terminal window.

The one that we’re interested in for now is “create user”.

Lets create a new user! Type the following into the terminal window:

create user Builder McBuilderson build

The format for this command is:

create user <First Name> <Last Name> <Password>

You’ll be prompted for the start region coordinates, which in this case the default of 1,000 is is fine for X and Y. This just sets the initial login coordinates, you can always assign a different home position and such later.

After hitting enter, you’ll see a bunch of “Adding folder” lines that occurs when a new user is created.

Go back to your viewer, and log out of the sim if you are still sitting there under the Opensim User avatar. Start it up again, and use the new First, Last and password you just created to log in.

You may see “you last location is not available, you have been moved to another region” message if you left the method of logging in to “Last location”. This is harmless, and you’ll end up in the middle of the Sandbox sim under your new user name.

Not bad! I’m sure you are sick of looking at the default ‘Ruth’ avatar. Lets change that too.

Before we begin, a few caveats – not sure why the Opensim server that I’m running does this (perhaps a dev could chime in?) but I’ve noticed that you can create new items and wear them, but upon logging out and relogging, you will appear gray until you edit your appearance. Also, removing everything then re-wearing them seems to fix most problems, but if you’ve edited your skin and worn it, sometimes the face is greyed out. But if you at least want to change your gender and walk around in some different clothing, here’s how:

In the viewer, click View -> Inventory

In the Inventory window, you’ll need to create new items before you attempt to edit your appearance.

Select the Clothing folder, right click and select New Clothes -> and the item you’d like to try customizing. Lets just do a New Shirt and New Pants for now.

Rename these to whatever you’d like, and then right click them and select Wear.

You now can right click on your avatar and select Appearance.

Click the item you’ve created under the Clothes tabs on the left side, and start messing around with styles and colors to your hearts content. Click the Save button to commit your changes, or Revert if you’ve made a mistake and want a chance to re-do things.

After doing that, you’ll have something you would (hopefully) want to wear while building and scripting.

Click Save All on the bottom button row, and then Close when you are done.

If you’d like to change gender, select the Body Parts folder in your inventory, right-click and select New Body Parts -> New Shape

Name this what you’d like, and then Wear it. While editing your appearance, Shape is the first button on the left hand side that gets selected by default. There are two small radio buttons on the lower left hand side of the inset window. Just select Male, and you’ve changed over! Mess with the sliders and save when done like before.

That was fun, lets do something else. How about changing the name of your region from “Sandbox”? I’m sure you can come up with a more creative name than that.

Make sure to quit out of the viewer before doing this next step. Also, you’ll need to issue the “shutdown” command (no quotes) in the server window before continuing.

Leave the terminal window open, you’ll need to restart the server again soon.

Use the Debian toolbar on top, click Places and then select Regions from the dropdown.

This will open a window that shows one file, “Regions.ini”

Go ahead and double left-click on it, to open it in the text editor.

You’ll see a name in brackets. In this case, it will be the default [Sandbox]. Just edit the name inside these brackets to what you’d like. While you’re here, change the MastarAvatar entries to reflect the new user name you’ve come up with, and the password.

Now save the file and go back to your terminal window. Bring the server back up by typing “mono OpenSim.exe” (without quotes). After the usual flurry of initialization you’ll see something different, the simulator command prompt now shows the name you changed the region to!

Go ahead and start up the viewer, and log in as usual. You’ll see that the region name up top in the viewer is changed as well.

Go ahead and have fun changing the name around using the steps above, and creating some users.

Enjoy!

********************************************************************************************

Been a while, eh?

Don’t worry about it. I’ve been busy with a lot of things, one of them is trying to package up an opensim server into a virtual machine so you can try it out without having to go through a whole bunch of steps. The final product is a VMWare machine image that uses Debian 5, mono (for scripting and running the server), MySQL (database) and Opensimulator. I’ve included a README file in the zipped archive that gives you the user and password info for logging in, plus more after you log in on the desktop.

All I ask is you please attempt to seed this so it can be spread to everyone interested in running opensim. The extracted files total about 4GB, the zip is about 2GB.

Once you log in and start the server, you can download or configure your viewer to connect! It really is one of the easiest ways to get used to working with the opensim server, since all the work has been done for you.

Torrent link:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5395069/DebianOpensim.zip (Sorry, this has been redacted until I can get someone to seed or host this file outright…)

You’ll need a bittorrent client like this one to download it:

http://www.utorrent.com/

And again, this is all software that is freely available – the virtual machine can be run using VMWare’s free player, and I believe some of the opensource players as well. Check the README for details once you get it started and login.

Happy opensim-ing!

Updated – MySQL Installation Guide

********************************************************************************************

Before we get started, I have a few things you should make note of before continuing.

If you already have your OpenSim running from the previous directions, you’re running on SQLite, which has some performance issues as you’ve probably already discovered. If you have any builds at all, you’ll want to export them to the xml format before doing any of the steps below. (type help in the opensim server dos-box, and use the commands there to save your region – look for the xml specific commands.)

Because of the evolving state of the xml spec, I can’t personally guarantee that every texture and such will be on your build, but you should at the very least have all the objects in that region saved. This is the nature of software such as OpenSim, things evolve quickly! Don’t worry about it too much, though.

If you’re absolutely *not* willing to experiment with your latest project in progress – backup the ENTIRE opensim directory after exporting your region’s objects to xml files. Just make sure the backup directory isn’t in a location where your original directory is – or opensim may have some problems. I recommend stuffing your backup under a folder called ‘Backups’ or something more specific.

Ready? Ok – lets go!

We’ll need to install MySQL server for windows first.

Get MySQL for windows here:

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.0/mysql-5.0.51b-win32.zip/from/pick#mirrors

If you’re coming in from the main site, you may have to click on “No thanks, just take me to the downloads!” to see the mirror list.

After you pick a mirror, (one of the http or ftp links next to the entry) you’ll see a download dialog like this:

This will take a bit, since the download is about 46 MB.

Once it is done, unzip the installer .exe and launch it.

This should display the setup wizard for MySQL.

Now you’ll see some setup types. Just stay with the selected ‘typical’ setup type, and hit ‘Next’.

Select Install, accepting the current settings.

Installation will start, and you’ll see a progress bar.

A new window will be displayed, presenting some subscription options, just hit ‘Next’ for now.

There will be a window about monitoring and advisory service, just select ‘Next’.

The setup wizard will now show a completed window, leave ‘configure the MySQL server now’ checked and select ‘Finish’.

You’ll now be greeted with the MySQL Server Instance Configuration Wizard. hit ‘Next’.

The next window will show configuration type options. I chose ‘Standard Configuration’, as it is the easiest. Hit ‘Next’.

Here you’ll select the windows operating system options. Leave ‘Install As Windows Service’ checked, and if you’d like, select ‘Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH’ if you’d like to use MySQL from the command line later without having to navigate to the MySQL install directory. Hit ‘Next’.

This window is where you’ll put in your administrative password. Leave ‘Modify Security Settings’ checked, and put in a password. My screenshot may be slightly different as I had this installed before – I’m going through it again for everyone’s benefit here on the blog.

Leave ‘Create An Anonymous Account’ unselected, as the installer notes, “this can lead to an insecure system”.

After you’re done, hit ‘Next’.

Your configuration is ready to execute! Select ‘Execute’ to begin.

Your configuration will be processed, which should result in the final success screen. Select ‘Finish’.

Now, we could get all command-line here, but I thought it might be helpful to have a GUI manager installed. (Its really cool to see all the tables and such after they’ve been populated.)
So, for those of you who don’t know how to create databases and all that wonderful geekery from the command line, here’s the steps!

(If you already know how to do this using the command line, go ahead – you probably don’t need this tutorial either if you know that, haha.)

Grab Toad for MySQL here:

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://www.toadsoft.com/toadmysql/

Launch Setup, hit ‘Next’

Accept the license agreement, hit ‘Next’

User Information, put in your name and organization if applicable. I selected ‘anyone who uses this computer’ for ease-of-use.

Accept the default directory for install

Now a bunch of files will be copied and installed, so wait a bit for this to finish.

If all goes well, you’ll see this window. Leave the release notes checked if you wish to view those, and accept the default to start Toad when installation is completed. hit ‘Finish’.

You’ll now see the main interface for the MysQL manager.

Close the launch page by selecting the ‘x’ to the right of the launch page tab.

Lets make sure you can view the ‘object palette’ by clicking on ‘View’ on the upper toolbar, and selecting ‘Object Palette’. This will allow you to create and view your database.

Lets create our database! Use the small ‘< >’ arrows to scroll the tabs in the object palette until you see ‘Databases’.

Right-click on one of the existing database entries, and select ‘Create Database’.

A small window will pop up asking for you to enter the name of your database. Put in ‘opensim’, and hit ‘Ok’.

You’ll now see a database called ‘opensim’ created in the object palette window!

If you double-click on ‘opensim’, a viewer database window will open to the right. There isn’t anything in there now, but don’t worry, on the first execution of OpenSim (after some OpenSim.ini changes), this will be populated with items.

Go down to the bottom of the object palette window, and select the Connection Manager tab.

Right-click on ‘root@localhost’ and select properties.

This will pop up a window where you can enter the same password you specified for your MySQL server install earlier.

Put in the database name ‘opensim’ as well. Leave the port to its default, and make sure ‘Save password’ and
‘Connect on startup’ is checked.

Select ‘Save’.

You can now close Toad for MySQL

Time for some OpenSim.ini changes, so all of this will work. (note, some of this may not look exactly like your configs or opensim server window messages because I’m using the latest trunk version.)

Navigate to your OpenSim bin directory, and open up OpenSim.ini (you made a full backup, right? If not, see the note at the very beginning.)

You’re going to see a few screencaps of my .ini file, but it should give you an idea of exactly what to do. Any instance of “OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll” is going to be commented out using the semicolon, and we’re going to replace it with a few MySQL plugin and connection strings. (substitute your password where I’ve put ‘yourpassword’.)

Under ‘STORAGE’ make the changes below:

Under the ‘StandAlone’ section, for asset database make the changes below:

Under the ‘Inventory database’ section, make the changes below:

Under the ‘User Data Database’ section, make the changes below:

There, now you’re done!

Fire up your opensim server. You should see a bunch of asset creation messages and migration messages as it populates the new MySQL database you’ve made.

Now login and enjoy your enabled database!

I’ll just break it down into simple “how do I…” here.

(All of these assume you are staring at the dos-like window that your OpenSim server is running in. That would be the small window with the “Region#” prompt in it.)

“How do I change my terrain?”

Pretty easy to do, but first, type ‘help’ at the command line, followed by the <Enter> key.

Lots of commands to play with! The one that we’re interested in is at the very end. Luckily the developers have a sub-help list for this, so type ‘terrain help’ at the command line, followed by <Enter>.

Scads more commands! You should see things like “load”, “load-tile”, “save” now being displayed in a handy list. The command we’re interested in is “load”.

My experience is with .raw files, but the formats OpenSim supports is: .r32 (RAW32), .f32 (RAW32), .ter (Terragen), .raw (LL/SL RAW), .jpg (JPEG), .jpeg (JPEG), .bmp (Windows Bitmap), .png (PNG), .gif (GIF), .tif (TIFF), .tiff (TIFF)

So, to load a .raw file (which a lot of you may already have some experience with, since it is the heightfield map that SL supports) you’d type “terrain load myname.raw” (Be warned, unless you use ‘change-region <simulator name>’ you are applying this command to *everything* running on your box!)

Feel free of course, to try out the other formats, though it may be a good idea to keep your source image sizes divisible by two, just like how you upload textures to SL.

To make this your default terrain, type “terrain bake”.

Other useful commands are “terrain elevate” which will raise (in meters) your terrain if it is too low, “terrain lower” which does the opposite, and if you totally and utterly mess up – it is okay, either type “terrain revert” which will put your terrain back to where you set it with the bake command, or alternately you could start all over and type “terrain fill <level in meters>” for a flat filled plane at whatever height you wish.

“How do I change my appearance?”

This is a bit easier, but for now I’ll have to lay off the steps needed to make all of your changes persistent – you’ll have the settings saved in the body shape and other things you edit, you’ll just have to drag them on to yourself again (if you’re using the default SQLite implementation for OpenSim – which you probably are) every time you login.

Inside the viewer (I’m assuming here you are using the SL default viewer I’ve referred to in my other tutorial) you’d select “Inventory” (Or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-I) then expand the directory “Body Parts”. There won’t be anything here, but we’re going to change that.

Right-Click the Body Parts folder, and select from the popup menu “New Body Parts” and proceed to create new shape, skin, hair and eyes for yourself. After you’ve done this, right-click on the new items and proceed to wear them.

This will allow you now to edit your appearance. Make sure to save your changes! The next time you login, you’ll have to re-wear these to change your appearance, but I’ll be helping out later with a tutorial on how to use the proper setup to have things be worn automatically. (These changes only apply to your personal OpenSim Simulator, so don’t worry about your main appearance on other grids changing – they won’t!)

“How do I save my objects?”

If you followed along with my other tutorial, you should have your OpenSim Simulator set up for object persistence. The key thing to check for here is the line in opensim.ini that says storage_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.Null.dll” if this *doesn’t* have a semi-colon in front of it, then you are *not* set up properly to have objects persist between simulator shutdown and restart!

To verify that you have this set properly – there should be a semi-colon in front of the above referenced line, and you should have at a minimum, the lines:

storage_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll”

storage_connection_string=”URI=file:OpenSim.db,version=3″;

This means you are using SQLite as your object database. Unless you have these two lines uncommented (no semi-colon in front!), your objects will *not* be around the next time you reload your sim!

Lets say you’ve built something pretty cool and you want to export it for later tinkering in another sim you have in your network, or you just like the idea of backing up your region. Just use the “save-xml2 <filename>” command. This will save an XML file in your opensim/bin/ directory containing all objects that are in your simulator!

If you’ve made a mistake, or just feel like loading things – you can use the “load-xml2 <filename>” command to bring objects into your sim that you’ve saved before.

“How do I get someone on my home network connected so I can show off my stuff?”

I’m including this because I’m sure it is a common question. Yes, you can have people connect from the internet, but I don’t have *that* much time today, so I’m going to put out the simpler solution of having someone on your same network connecting.

This assumes that you have two computers on the same network, such as 192.168.x.x

Navigate to your opensim/bin/regions/ directory on your machine.

If you’ve already gone through the tutorial, you should have a file called “default.xml” sitting there.

(if not, you’ll have to use the “create-region <sim name> <simname.xml>” command, accepting the defaults for now.)

Right-click this file, and select “Edit” – this should pop it up in notepad. Alternatively, you could just open up notepad and select this file to open from there.

You’ll see some text within – the part we’re interested in is the line:

external_host_name=”127.0.0.1″

You’ll need to change this to your machine’s network address. (To find out what this address is, go to Start –> Run type in “cmd”, then in the new dos-box command window, type “ipconfig” and you’ll see your ip address.)

For example, if your machine’s IP is 192.168.1.100, you’d change this line to:

external_host_name=”192.168.1.100″

From here on out its a bit easier, all you have to do now is have the person who is connecting create a new viewer shortcut, and put in the line “-loginuri http://192.168.1.100:9000″ right after the “Secondlife.exe” in the Target of the shortcut.

Now if you’re both on the same 192.168.x.x network, your friend should be able to log in and see your stuff!

Okay, I’m done for now – but I promise more goodies later Happy OpenSim-ing!

(Thanks to Joshua and Justin on the SLU forums for additional clarification on OpenSim commands and setup.)

Maxx Monde

I’m trying to get a simple installer done that will take the complexity out of the setup for the OpenSim newbies out there, in addition to more in-depth documentation.

Keep watching this space, more cool things to come!

Maxx Monde

**********************************************************************************************

So, you’ve heard of OpenSim – and wondered “what is it, some kind of fancy client?”. Well, good guess, but no – its much more than that. OpenSim, directly ripped from the homepage at http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page is described as:

The OpenSimulator Project is a BSD Licensed Virtual Worlds Server which can be used for creating and deploying 3D Virtual Environments. It has been developed by several developers. Out of the box, the OpenSimulator can be used to create a Second Life(tm) like environment, able to run in a standalone mode or connected to other OpenSimulator instances through built in grid technology. It can also easily be extended to produce more specialized 3D interactive applications.

While that is a mouthful, it just means that many talented developers banded together, (take the time to look at the contributor page here, these guys are AWESOME – http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Development_Team) shared code and programming skill in building an open-source (hence the BSD License part) virtual world that is compatible with a number of readily available Viewers, including the latest (as of this writing SL Viewer v1.19.1(4)) SL mainstream client.

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

(Link – http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/Second_Life_1-19-1-4_Setup.exe)

Pretty exciting eh?

What this means, essentially, is that you can run your own simulator, or ‘sim’ on fairly modest hardware. Yes, go ahead and read that again – I’ll wait. Now you HAVE to be excited (I sure was), if you’ve used such things before, because everyone I’ve ever known who has tried Second Life has always wanted a nice simulator they could run on their own, that didn’t depend on connecting to the Linden Lab Grid.

If you follow the steps below, you’ll have your own personal sandbox, which is pretty exciting – and because of some recent utilities, you’ll be able to port content into your own personal simulator and back into SL. There are some limitations that I’ll go into with later tutorials, but overall having your own sim to build in without any distractions is very attractive, indeed.

Ready? Good! Here’s what you need to begin!

Binaries, sweet, sweet binaries! For most, downloading a pre-compiled binary is the way to go – its fast, eliminates the need to compile (which can take a bit longer and may be a bit complicated for some) and you hit the ground running, fast.

The only downside is that you won’t have the latest features and bug-fixes that the most recent code release would provide.

That is your first decision – to compile or not compile! I’ll detail the steps below for both methods, but for most people, binaries that have been pre-compiled may be easiest.

NON-COMPILED: (This means that you won’t have to follow the ‘Compiled’ section after this one.)

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

Head over to OpenSim’s main site, to the downloads section – http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Downloads
You’ll see a few things about source code, just ignore that, and page down to the section “Un-Official Builds”.

Got it? Great, now download (as this tutorial is focused on Windows XP OSes) the latest ZIP file, (but not the ‘alpha’ designation, that may be a bit more unstable), as of this writing, that would be the file named

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

“OpenSim 0.5.5″ link – http://www.twingate.nl/downloads/opensim/0.5.5-build/opensim0.5.5-build.zip Don’t worry about the TAR.GZ files, as this is intended for Linux systems, which is not part of this how-to.

This file is approximately 37.8 MB, so it will take a little bit, depending on your connection.

Now once you open this zip you’ll see a folder called “opensim0.5.5-build” which has a subfolder “bin” (once you click on the first one) below it, and below THAT, is a bunch of files and directories.

Create a directory on your main drive, (for most, this is the C: drive) called “OpenSim”.

Under this directory, create one called “bin”. (this helps if you later decide to go the compile route)

Extract the contents of the zip file (after clicking on the ‘bin’ directory in the zip to show all the files there) to your local OpenSim/bin directory.

Lets take a breath here and detail the compiled steps, since after this point you’ll be working with the same executables and configuration files.

(Feel free to skip this if you want to get up and running, I included the compiled section for completeness.)

COMPILED: (Only do this series of steps if you elected not to do the ‘Non-Compiled’ section.)

For the geeky souls willing to compile source code and use SVN (Sub-version source code management) to retrieve it, here are the steps.

First, you need to grab an SVN client, this will allow you to contact a code repository and pull down the source you’ll be compiling. The SVN utility that I used is TortoiseSVN, available here -

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads

The specific SVN client I downloaded as of this writing is the 32-bit installer for Windows XP available at Tortoise’s download section – file size is approx. 8.9MB – available here -

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/tortoisesvn/TortoiseSVN-1.4.8.12137-win32-svn-1.4.6.msi?download

After you finish downloading, install the client, accept the defaults.

After it is installed, you’ll want to add a repository. First, create an ‘OpenSim’ directory under your main drive, (for most, this is C:), then, right-click on the folder and select “SVN-Checkout”. (This utility integrates itself into the windows ‘shell’ or file explorer, so you should have this option after a successful install – if not, reboot and try to install again.)

A dialog box will pop up, and under the “URL of repository” put in:

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://opensimulator.org/svn/opensim/tags/0.5.6-release

If you’re feeling adventurous, you could put in:

http://opensimulator.org/svn/opensim/trunk

Be forewarned that this puts you on the ‘bleeding edge’, so some functions and performance may change – its the true frontier of the OpenSim source code ‘tree’

After confirming the target directory, you should hit ‘ok’ and the download process will begin. Feel free to take a break at this point, there’s a good bit of data to transfer.

Back from break? Good, there’s a few more things you need to download before you can compile!

Referencing the OpenSim website, it says: “OpenSim requires either the .Net framework version 2.0, or the latest Mono.”

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

I didn’t do Mono, I just grabbed the free visual C# Express Edition, which includes the .NET framework install. Its available here – (note, don’t get confused and grab the Visual C++ version, its similar, but not what you need.)

http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/#webInstall – this downloads a file called “vcssetup.exe” (its the ‘web based’ installer) Be sure to download the Visual C# Express Edition – as there are numerous products listed on this particular web page.

Open this after download (it will be pretty fast, the file is fairly small – 2.6MB) You’ll know if you have made a mistake or not in your selection, since the installer dialog box will have the title of the compiler you are attempting to install.

Go through the steps, and accept the defaults to install – this will take a bit, depending on your system and
requirements.

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

Just in case you need the .NET 2.0 framework (I’m pretty sure it installs with the compiler, but just in case…) here’s a direct download link for Windows XP – 22.4MB -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en

Got the code? (Check your OpenSim/bin/ directory – it should have a lot of files and directories in it now.) Check!
Got the compiler? (Should be under Start -> Programs) Check!

Navigate to your OpenSim directory, there should be a file there called “runprebuild.bat” – double click on this to execute. (See below note – updated)

(Now I have to admit at this point I don’t recall which I used to get my OpenSim.sln file – it was a late night, so if the following steps fail – retry by executing the “runprebuild2008.bat” instead.)

Edit – Turns out you should run the “runprebuild2008.bat” for Visual C Sharp solution file, my mistake.

Launch Visual C# Express Edition.

At the top menu bar, select File -> Open Project

A dialog box will pop up, allowing you to browse to your OpenSim directory – do this now.

You should see a file called “OpenSim.sln”, select this, and click the “Open” button.

In the right side, under the “Solution Explorer” You should see at the top “Solution ‘OpenSim’ (60 projects)”.

At the top menu bar, select Build -> Build Solution.

If you have an output window below the main Start Page, you’ll see some text scroll by as it builds all the projects contained within the OpenSim solution file.

When it is done, you’ll see – “Build: 60 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped” – awesome, you did it!

Close Visual C# Express Edition.

Great! This is where both install paths converge, since you’ll be working on the same files and configuration entries.

Take a break, get up and get a snack and a drink, you’ll be OpenSim-ing in no time after these remaining steps, I promise

OpenSim CONFIGURATION

So, you’ve got all these files in your OpenSim/bin/ directory, right? Here’s what to do before you run your first simulator.

Navigate to your OpenSim/bin/ directory, and find the file called “OpenSim.ini.example”.

Right-Click, and select “Open”.

Because Windows XP doesn’t know what to do with this, you should get a dialog box that says “Windows cannot open this file”. Select the radio button that says “Select the program from a list”, and click “Ok”.

Find the program “Notepad” in the list, (It may already be at the top under “Recommended Programs”), making sure you DON’T have “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”, which would permanently associate notepad with .example files (it really isn’t necessary to do this, essentially.) Click “Ok” and you should see the contents pop up in notepad.

Since you don’t want to mess with the original, in case you make a mistake and need to revert to the default settings, select File -> Save As, and save this as “OpenSim.ini” under your OpenSim/bin/ directory.

Now its time to look at a few key settings.

At the top, under “STORAGE” you’ll see a line:

storage_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.Null.dll”

This means that when you start your sim, and build in it – your objects won’t be there the next time around when you run your sim again. This is lack of persistence, and we’ll fix that right now.

Put a “;” in front of the above mentioned line, and scroll down to the line:

;storage_plugin = “OpenSim.Data.SQLite.dll”

Remove the “;” in front of this line, this will enable a lightweight database to store your prims! Cool, eh?

Note: I know it may be tempting to set “appearance_persist” to “true”, but I haven’t gotten this working yet, and I’m pretty sure that will cause a crash if you were to try it right out of the box. (I’ll be sure to edit this when I’ve figured it out).

Scrolling further down past the “PHYSICS” section, you’ll see a line:

physics = basicphysics

This means that you’ll be able to walk on terrain, but objects will be phantom to you – you’ll be able to fly and walk right through them. The desired physics plugin seems to be (according to what I’ve read so far) the Open Dynamics Engine, but when I changed it to this, I experienced a crash on attempting to run it. I’ll edit this section once I figure out this detail. Leave this at ‘basicphysics’ for now, you can experiment with the others later.

Scroll down to the line:

[StandAlone]

Below this, there are the lines:

accounts_authenticate = true
welcome_message = “Welcome to OpenSim”

I recommend changing the accounts_authenticate to false, and feel free to change the welcome message to anything you wish, like – “Maxx Monde is awesome for writing this tutorial!”, hahah.

Save your work, you’re ready to run your first simulator!

You’ll need to launch OpenSim.exe, but first, to make this easier in the future, (and so you don’t have to constantly navigate to the directory to get it running) navigate to your OpenSim/bin/ directory and right-click on OpenSim.exe -> Send To -> Desktop (create shortcut) to place a shortcut in easy clicking range on your desktop. For extra style points, right-click on the shortcut, select Properties, click the Change Icon button, and use one of the built-in icons within your SHELL32.dll to make it cool-looking (I selected the Globe with the band swooshing around it – MY WORLD, MY SIM!).

Double-click on your shortcut for OpenSim.exe

(If you get a windows firewall message about this, choose to ‘unblock’ this program.)

This will launch a Dos-style command window, and a few things will pop up. You may have to hit <ENTER> to make the prompts appear (this only happens the very first time you run it) to input some final startup details.

At this point you’ll be prompted for a few things, like the simulator name (feel free to change from “OpenSim Test”) and the x,y coordinates of your simulator – just leave all of them alone, hitting enter to accept the defaults.

After a few more lines scroll by, you should see a “Region#” prompt. (If not, hit enter and it should appear.)

This means you are running your sim! Lets setup the SL viewer to connect, shall we?

Note – you may see a startup_commands error, however if you get the ‘Region#’ prompt, things are still running just fine. (This is just referring to an optional file.)

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

I assume you already have the SL viewer, if not – download it from here -
http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/Second_Life_1-19-1-4_Setup.exe

If the version has changed the link will break, so just in case, the main download page is here -

****THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, LINKS HAVE BEEN REDACTED.****

http://secondlife.com/support/downloads.php
(You’re looking for the main installer, not the “Release Candidate” or “First Look” viewers. While these will possibly work, I haven’t tested them all.)

Install the SL viewer, this should produce a desktop shortcut.

Right-Click your SL desktop shorcut and select “Copy”

Right-Click on a clear area of your desktop, and select “Paste”

This should make a copy of your SL shortcut. Feel free to rename this by selecting the shortcut, and pressing “F2″. I called mine “Opensim Client”.

Right-Click your newly renamed shortcut, and select Properties

We’ll need to change the “Target” entry slightly to allow you to login to your sim locally.

Right after the “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” text, you’ll need to put:

-loginuri http://localhost:9000/ -loginpage http://localhost:9000/?method=login

This will direct you to your locally running simulator, and the proper login page.

Click “OK” on the properties box, and double-click on your altered OpenSim Client shortcut.

The secondlife viewer will start, but with one crucial difference, you’ll see a white page with a “First Name”, “Last Name” and “Password” prompt.

Now at this point, I’ll admit I haven’t tested what happens if your name doesn’t match what is in the first and last name boxes at the bottom – so for simplicity sake, just keep them the same

Put in any first or last name, make sure they match below – both with no password.

Then click the white page “connect” button up top.

The SL Viewer should connect, and you’ll see your welcome message as it does.

If everything went well, you should be on a small rounded island in the middle of your very first simulator.

Congratulations, you did it!

When you’re done laughing with joy and loving low-lag building, make sure to disconnect the client in the usual way, and enter ‘exit’ in the Dos-box of the server to shut it down in an orderly fashion.

I’ll be following this main tutorial with how to change your appearance, terrain, etc.. so stay tuned!

Happy OpenSim-ing!