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EzSign Installation


The software is delivered as either a zip or gzip (tar.gz) file. Unzip and unpack the installation file to a location of your choice

The installation files are organised as follows:

[Installation Folder]/EzSignVX.Y.Z/EzSignClient
[Installation Folder]/EzSignVX.Y.Z/EzSignServer

(Where X.Y.Z is the version number e.g. EzSignV4.4.0)

The EzSignClient folder (or just the kezsign-client-X.Y.Z.jar file) should be copied to all clients that will be accessing the server

Within the EzSignClient folder there are the following directories

  • /doc – contains EzSignClient documentation
  • /lib – contains the EzSignClient jar files
  • /samples – contains client samples

Within the EzSignServer folder there are the following directories

  • /bin – scripts to start, stop and manage the server

  • /doc – contains this document

  • /lib – the EzSignServer libraries

  • /logconf – contains the logging (log4j2.xml) configuration file

  • /logs – the default location for log files

  • /samples – contains sample configurations

The product is bundled with a Java runtime but if you prefer to use your own, edit the envs.sh file in the EzSignServer/bin directory and edit the JAVA_HOME parameter so that it points to your JDK/JRE installation folder e.g.

JAVA_HOME=/fs01/app/jdk1.8.0_251

The account used to run the server must have permissions to access the EzSignServer folder and be able to execute the scripts (located in the /bin directory) and jar files (located in the /lib directory). The account must also have read/write access to the keystore location (see the Key Store Files section later)

Client applications must be able to access the jar files located in the EzSignClient/lib folder


The lib folder and upgrades

When upgrading to version 4.6, see also Upgrading to EzSign 4.6 for the changes you are most likely to notice

The server scripts (including the Management Tool scripts) load every jar in the EzSignServer/lib folder. If two jars contain the same class at different versions, either copy may be loaded, which shows later as an error such as NoSuchMethodError or NoClassDefFoundError. To avoid this:

  • When upgrading, replace the whole EzSignServer/lib folder with the new one rather than copying the new jars into it, so no jar from the old version is left behind
  • Do not copy other jars into EzSignServer/lib. In particular the EzSign client jar (from EzSignClient/lib) is for client applications and is not needed by the server

From version 4.6.0 the server and the Management Tool check for this when they start. Each class found in more than one jar with different contents is logged as an error by the server (and printed as a warning by the Management Tool), naming the jars, so the out of date jar can be removed. By default the server still starts; set server.failOnClasspathConflicts=true to stop it starting instead. The server also logs the EzSign version and the jar it was loaded from

For nCipher HSMs the account running the server must have access to the nCipher kmdata/local folder. This is usually achieved by adding the user to the nfast group