To run RCE on a system, the only prerequisite is an installed Java Runtime Environment (JRE), version 7 or above. If you don't already have one on your machine, use your system's package manager to install it; the most common choice is the OpenJDK JRE.
There are two installation options on Linux: installing RCE from .deb/.rpm packages, or extracting it from a zip file (which was traditionally used by earlier versions of RCE). Whenever possible, using the packages is recommended, as RCE is automatically installed into the proper system locations, and can be cleanly managed using your distribution's package manager. If you are on a Debian-based distribution, a package repository is provided as well, which makes it even easier to install and upgrade RCE. The following table compares these options:
Table 2.1. Linux installation options
| Installation type | Multi-user operation supported | Daemon operation (system service) supported | Installing more than one version at the same time | File system location | Updating to a new version | Verifying digital signatures | Registers start menu entry and icon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Using the package repository (Debian/Ubuntu/Mint only) | yes | yes | no | /usr/share/rce | Using the distribution's update manager (automatic or manual) | automatic | yes |
| Manual installation of the .deb/.rpm package | yes | yes | no | /usr/share/rce | Manually download and install a newer package | manual (gpg/shasum) | yes |
| Unpacking the .zip file | no | no | yes | (anywhere) | Use "Help > Check for Updates" in RCE -or- delete the old installation directory and manually download and unpack a newer zip file | manual (gpg/shasum) | no |
To register the RCE .deb package repository in your system, you have to add the repository location, and add the RCE signing key. Then, you can install RCE like any other software package. There are three different ways to do this, all leading to the the same result.
(Option 1) The simplest way is to use a shell script provided since RCE 7.x. It takes care of all installation steps (with confirmation prompts before executing them).
Download the script by opening
https://github.com/rcenvironment/rce-signing/blob/master/register_rce_8.x_deb_repository.shin your browser, clicking "Raw" in the top right, and then pressing Ctrl-S (or using the "Save As" option of your browser).
If you prefer to download the script using
wget, you need to use the URL behind the
"Raw" button as well, not the page link above.
If you already use git, you can also simply
clone
https://github.com/rcenvironment/rce-signing.git.
Execute the script as "root" and follow the confirmation messages.
(Option 2) If you prefer to use graphical tools, start the program "Synaptic"; if it is not available, install if from your Software Center - or similar - first. Please note that this option might not be available on all systems. If this is the case for you, you can still install the package using the manual process listed as Option 3.
Open "Settings > Repositories".
Click on "Authentication keys", and then on "Download a key...". Copy the text
258BC129EDA2389D3ECD2DE6BA880CB39DC1CE34
into the dialog that appears and click "Ok". The list of keys should now contain an entry "RCE 6.x-8.x Automatic Signing Key <rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>".
Click on a section named "Additional Repositories", "Other Sources" or similar. Select the "Add..." or "Add new..." option. Copy the text
deb https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/8.x/products/standard/releases/latest/deb/ /
into the dialog that appears and click "Ok".
Close the settings dialog and click "Refresh" to update the list of available software. After this, you should find an entry "rce" in this list (for example, using the "quick search" box), which you can install like any other software. You will also receive automatic notifications when a newer version of RCE 8.x is available.
(Option 3) If you prefer to execute all step manually using the command line, enter the following commands as "root" (or with the "sudo" prefix). Obviously, this is the most complicated way.
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://pgp.mit.edu:80 --recv-key 258BC129EDA2389D3ECD2DE6BA880CB39DC1CE34
If you see a message containing the text "RCE
6.x-8.x Automatic Signing Key
<rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>",
the key import was successful. Sometimes, this step fails
with the message "key [...] not found on keyserver;
gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found." If this
happens, just repeat the command a few times until it works.
This issue may also be caused by an outdated gpg version
(gpg version 2.0.9 on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 is
known to be problematic, while gpg version 2.0.22 works). If
you cannot access keyservers at all for some reason, you can
also download the key manually from
https://github.com/rcenvironment/rce-signing/blob/master/rce_8.x_signing_key.asc
After the download has completed, you can import the key by executing
apt-key adv --import rce_8.x_signing_key.asc
from the command line.
echo "deb https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/8.x/products/standard/releases/latest/deb/ /" >/etc/apt/sources.list.d/dlr_rce_8_releases.list
Although it may be split across lines here, this command must be executed as a single line.
apt-get update
apt-get install rce
Once you have installed RCE using either of these approaches, any RCE 8.x upgrade will automatically show up in you operating system's update mechanism. Depending on the upgrade settings of your system, they may be installed automatically, or be presented to you for selection.
Although technically possible, RCE 8.x will not auto-upgrade to 9.x (or higher) to maintain compatibility within networks of RCE 8.x instances. You will need to install the 9.x repository location to upgrade.
To install the .deb file manually, download the latest version from
https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/8.x/products/standard/releases/latest/deb/You
can either install it with the graphical package management tools of your
distribution (double-clicking the .deb should start them), or by running sudo
dpkg -i <filename> from a terminal. To upgrade an existing
installation, simply install the newer package. The package manager will detect the
upgrade and handle it properly.
To install the .rpm file, download the latest version from
https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/8.x/products/standard/releases/latest/rpm/You
can either install it with the graphical package management tools of your
distribution (double-clicking the .deb should start them), or by running the
appropriate installation command as the "root" user. On CentOS or Red Hat, the
command is yum install <filename>; on SUSE, use zypper install
<filename>. To upgrade an existing installation, simply install the
newer package. The package manager will detect the upgrade and handle it
properly
If none of the previous installation options fits your needs, you can also extract RCE from a zip file downloaded from
https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/8.x/products/standard/releases/latest/zip/If you prefer graphical tools, double-click the .zip file to open it with your distribution's archive manager. Extract it to a location of your choice, and open that location in your file-system explorer. Typically, double-clicking the "rce" executable will work out of the box to start RCE. If it doesn't, right-click the executable, open its "properties" section (or similar), and look for an option to mark it as executable. Confirm the dialog, then double-click it again.
If you prefer using the command line, use the unzip command
to extract the zip file to a location of your choice. In the location where
you unpacked the files to, you can usually simply
enter
./rce
to start RCE. In same cases, you may need to make it executable first with the
chmod +x rce
command.
The path to your installation location must not contain any colons to avoid Java Virtual Machine errors when starting RCE.
Starting with RCE 6.x, we provide digital signatures for our releases. These are intended to verify the integrity of the downloaded files, as any unsigned software can be tampered with while downloading it over an unsecured (HTTP) connection. This is especially important when installing RCE from a user account with root privileges, for example as a system daemon
For each type of release files (.zip, .deb, and .rpm files), a
SHA256SUM.asc file is provided next to the actual files. This file
contains checksums for each release file, and these checksums are signed with our
release key. It is named "RCE 6.x-8.x Automatic Signing Key", has the id 9DC1CE34, and
is valid until Nov 25, 2018. Its full fingerprint is 258B C129 EDA2 389D 3ECD 2DE6
BA88 0CB3 9DC1 CE34.
On Linux, the required command-line tools to verify these signatures (gpg and shasum/sha1sum/sha256sum) are usually already installed as part of your distribution. If not, use your system's package manager to install them. To perform the actual verification:
Execute
gpg --keyserver hkp://pgp.mit.edu:80 --recv-key 258BC129EDA2389D3ECD2DE6BA880CB39DC1CE34
to import the signing key. This only needs to be done once per key, e.g. once for all RCE 8.x releases.
If you see a message containing the text "RCE 6.x-8.x
Automatic Signing Key
<rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>", the key
import was successful. Sometimes, this step fails with the message
"key [...] not found on keyserver; gpg: no valid OpenPGP
data found." If this happens, just repeat the command a
few times until it works. This issue may also be caused by an
outdated gpg version (gpg version 2.0.9 on SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop 11 is known to be problematic, while gpg version 2.0.22
works). If you cannot access keyservers at all for some reason, you
can also download the key manually from
https://github.com/rcenvironment/rce-signing/blob/master/rce_8.x_signing_key.ascAfter the download has completed, you can import the key by executing
gpg --import rce_8.x_signing_key.asc
from the command line.
Download the SHA256SUMS.asc file from the same location as
the installation package. Run
gpg -v --yes SHA256SUMS.asc
in the location where you saved it to; this verifies the digital signature. Inspect the output to see if it is correct; you should find the text "Good signature from "RCE 6.x-8.x Automatic Signing Key <rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>" (or a similar translation).
When following these steps, it is normal to receive a warning about the fact that the owner of this key cannot be verified. If you have received this user guide from a trustworthy source (e.g. an official RCE project site secured with HTTPS), you can assume that the key is correct, as the command used to import the key has already verified the key's integrity. Alternatively, you can fetch the key's fingerprint from a trustworthy source (e.g. a secure intranet page, or the official @rcenvironment Twitter feed accessed via HTTPS) and compare it with the one shown in the command's output. If they match, you can trust that you are using the authentic key.
Run
shasum -c SHA256SUMS
in the same folder. This verifies that the actual download matches what has been digitally signed for the release. You should see the installation package's name, followed by "OK".
On some distributions, you need to use sha1sum or
sha256sum instead of shasum.
Once your RCE instance has started, you can open the configuration file with the menu option "Help > Open Configuration File". Edit the file, save it, and then restart RCE using the "File > Restart" menu option to apply the changes. There are configuration templates and other information available via the "Help > Open Configuration Information" option. The available configuration settings are described in the configuration chapter.
On Ubuntu, the Ubuntu overlay scrollbars can sometimes lead to problems with
the RCE GUI. To avoid these problems, you can start RCE from a terminal with
env LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0 ./rce to disable the overlay
scrollbars for RCE. Alternatively, if you want to enable the overlay scrollbars
permanently for all programs, execute echo "export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0"
> /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars as a superuser and then
restart your computer.
RCE can also be run from the command line without a graphical user interface (which is called "headless" mode), which uses less system resources and is therefore recommended when the GUI is not needed.
To run a headless RCE instance, open a terminal and run the command
rce --headless -console
While RCE is running,
you can enter various console commands described in Section 3, “Commands”; note
that you need to prefix all RCE commands with "rce " here. To perform a clean shutdown,
for example, type rce stop and press enter.
For ad-hoc or temporary RCE network setups, running a headless RCE from the command line is perfectly fine. For more permanent installations, however, we recommend installing RCE as a system daemon instead. This has the advantage that RCE automatically shuts down when the server is shut down, and automatically restarts when the server does.
Executing the following steps will install RCE as daemon. An RCE daemon will start automatically on system boot and stop before system shutdown.
The recommended (and supported) way to install a Linux daemon is to install RCE from a .deb or .rpm package, or (equivalently) installing it from the APT repository. While installing a daemon from the .zip file distribution can be made to work, it creates unnecessary complications regarding installation paths and file permissions. As registering a daemon requires root privileges anyway, there should be no reason to use the .zip file; if you have a compelling use case for this, please contact the RCE team.
Once RCE is properly installed, registering it as a daemon is very
simple. A command named rce-daemon is provided to control the whole
daemon life cycle. The only manual step you need to perform before is creating a
user account that the daemon will run under. For now, this account has to be named
rce-daemon; use you distribution's console commands or GUI tools to
add it. (Please note that this account needs to have a home directory to hold the
daemon's profile directory.) Future RCE versions will make this account name
customizable.
Once this user account is created, you can use the following commands to manage the daemon installation:
rce-daemon install - installs and starts the daemon
instance
rce-daemon uninstall - stops and uninstalls the daemon
instance; the profile directory remains unchanged
rce-daemon start / rce-daemon stop /
rce-daemon restart - standard daemon controls
rce-daemon locate - prints the location of the daemon's
RCE instance's profile directory and relevant files
rce-daemon status - displays if the RCE deamon is
currently running or not
After installation, the daemon instance will be automatically started. This will create a default configuration file if it does not exist yet.
To configure the daemon instance, use rce-daemon locate to
find its configuration file, edit and save it, and then use rce-daemon
restart to apply the new configuration.
The need to restart the daemon is temporary; future versions of RCE will apply configuration changes as soon as the configuration file is changed.