Overview
Pulse packages are distributed in three forms:
| Extension |
Type |
| exe |
Windows installer. |
| tgz |
Compressed tar archives. |
| zip |
Zip archives. |
The Windows installers are the recommended way to install pulse™ on a Windows system, although an archive may also be used. The tar archives are recommended for Unix-like systems as they retain file permissions in a standard form. Zip archives also retain permission information, but this may not be supported by all unzip tools.
Package Naming Conventions
Package names have the form:
pulse-<version>.<ext>
where <version> is the version of the pulse server and <ext> is one of the extensions listed above.
Requirements
All pulse™ users require a Java Runtime Environment, version 1.5 or above, on the host machine. A suitable runtime is made available by Sun Microsystems at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
. When installing the runtime, make sure you set the value of the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the runtime install directory, and add the java binary to your path.
Additionally, support for Perforce requires the Perforce command line client p4. This is available for many platforms from http://perforce.com/perforce/loadprog.html.
 | Perforce Users
Ensure that the p4 binary is in the path of your pulse™ process. The easiest way to achieve this is to add the binary to a directory on the system path (e.g. /usr/bin on Unix-like systems) or add the install directory to your system PATH (Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables on Windows). |
Windows Installers
To install pulse™ using a Windows installer, simply run the installer and follow the prompts. When the installer completes pulse™ will be set up as a Windows service that may be started and stopped using the Start menu shortcuts provided.
Installing From An Archive
Unpacking the Archives
The archives provided all unpack into a directory with the same name as the archive, excepting the extension. You can unpack the archive to a directory of your choice on the host system. To unpack the archives, use your favoured archive unpacking tools. For example:
or:
Environment Variables
For the pulse™ startup and shutdown scripts to function regardless of where they are run from, you should set the environment veriable PULSE_HOME to the home directory for your pulse install. This is the full path of the pulse-<version> directory created when you unpacked the archive, for example:
The steps required to set environment variables vary from system to system.
Windows Systems
From the Start menu, select: Settings > Control Panel > System. On the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button. This will present you with the environment variables, along with an interface to add new variables. To check the variable has been set, type the following at a command prompt:
Unix Systems
Typically, you set environment variables in the profile for your shell. For example, bash users will have a .bash_profile in their home directory. To set a variable in a bourne-compatible shell, enter the following lines on your profile:
You can check the variable has been set correctly in your shell by typing:
Starting Your Pulse Server
Once you have set the PULSE_HOME variable and confirmed it has the correct value, you can control the pulse™ server using the script $PULSE_HOME/bin/pulse.bat (Windows systems) or $PULSE_HOME/bin/pulse (Unix-like systems). For example, to start the server, run the script specifying the start command:
The server will start the web interface listening on port 8080 by default (refer to Changing the Web Application Port to change this default). For more information about the pulse script, issue the help command (i.e. pulse help) or see Server Commands.
 | Running as a Service
It is usually most convenient to install pulse™ as a service. For details, see the Running as a Service page. |
Next Steps
To complete the setup process, open:
http://<host>:8080/
in your web browser and complete the Setup Wizard.
