Next steps after packaging

Congratulations, you've just successfully packaged a LivePC! Here are the steps to share your LivePC.

Now that you've created and packaged your LivePC you can post the LivePC to the LivePC Library for public or private sharing.

Step 1: Upload your LivePC to a hosting service.

Find an http or https server where you can host your LivePC. If you would like to upload your LivePC to Moka5.com please re-package your LivePC using the 'Host LivePC at Moka5' option for automatic upload.

When first uploading a LivePC to your own server we recommend creating a version_1 directory. Should you later update your LivePC the new package would go into a new version_2 directory. By saving your LivePCs into unique version directories your users should not experience errors. Each time they shutdown and re-launch your LivePC they will get the most recent version. If you overwrite older versions of your LivePC you may cause crashes for users who have the earlier version running at the time of your update.

Step 2: Publish your LivePC in the LivePC Library.

Go to www.moka5.com, login, and click 'LIVEPC LIBRARY'. In the lower menu bar click on 'MY LIVEPCS'. For a new LivePC click on the 'Submit a new LivePC™' link.

Put in the URL to the vm.xml of the version you just uploaded. (e.g. http://www.hostingservice.com/great_livepc/version_1/vm.xml).

Include the title, description, and a logo for your LivePC. Moka5 will shrink most logos to 96x96 pixels unless you are providing a link to a very large image which you will need to pre-scale.

If you are not including the LivePC in the public Library, Moka5 will not verify that the URL address is valid.

Step 3: Subscribe to your LivePC in your Moka5 Engine.

Click on 'ALL PUBLIC LIVEPCS' and click on 'Download' next to your LivePC. After subscribing, delete the local copy of your LivePC. This will ensure that you and your users are having an identical experience using the same LivePC.

Step 4: Update your LivePC.

To update your LivePC, go to the Moka5 Engine and click on the option icon for the LivePC and select 'Keep my changes'. After updating and testing your shared LivePC you can share the new version. To update a LivePC you have submitted previously you can click on 'Library' in the Moka5 Engine. Then select 'My LivePCs' in the lower menu bar. Click on the 'Edit' link for the LivePC you have modified. Once you are under the 'edit' tab you can track your revisions with the 'revisions' tab.

Each time you edit your LivePC you should change package URL of the current version. You may also change the name, logo and description. You should also include a 'Changelog' entry to describe the modifications you have made to the LivePC. Your users will see the new information the next time they exit and re-launch their LivePC. Drastic changes to the name and logo may prevent your users from recognizing your LivePC as the one they previously subscribed to.

Optimizing your web server to deliver LivePCs

After uploading a LivePC onto a web server do not change the files in the package. To modify the LivePC use the Moka5 Engine to re-package the changes and upload them to a new directory. The Engine will only package the changes so subsequent changes will be small and fast to both upload and download.

Many web servers cannot serve files larger than 2GB in size. The Moka5 Engine will split large files into pieces that are less than 2GB in size allowing large LivePCs to be hosted on any web server.

Performance of the Moka5 Engine is greatly improved if your web server has HTTP persistent connections enabled. To enable persistent connections on an Apache web server, ensure that the 'KeepAlive' option in httpd.conf is set to 'on'.

In order to identify that the files being served are LivePCs, we recommend adding a Content-Type: application/vnd.Moka5.cdsk header when serving LivePC disks. Adding the following Apache configuration option to your httpd.conf file (most likely installed in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) will do the trick:

AddType application/vnd.Moka5.cdsk .cdsk