This is an attempt at a guide and a few helpful pointers for those who don't care to use the prepackaged NAV for Debian.

Versions used:

Make sure you have the non-free archive present in your sources.list:

deb http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free

Install NAV's runtime dependencies:

sudo aptitude install perl python sun-java6-jdk apache2-mpm-prefork \
                      cricket postgresql-8.3 libapache2-mod-python \
                      libpg-java libsnmp1.4-java python-pysnmp2 logrotate \
		      python-cheetah python-xmpp python-django \
		      python-egenix-mxdatetime python-gammu python-ipy \
                      python-ldap python-psycopg2 python-pyrad \
		      python-pysnmp-se python-twisted python-twisted-snmp \
		      python-rrd rrdtool samba-common

Be aware that NAV doesn't run well under the kaffe Java VM, which is why you should confirm that Sun's Java JDK is installed (sun-java6-jdk) and is the active alternative for the java and javac commands:

sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac

Next, NAV's build time dependencies:

sudo aptitude install ant autoconf automake libsnmp1.4-java python python-cheetah sun-java5-jdk make

tar xvzf nav-3.7.0.tar.gz
cd nav-3.7.0
./configure CRICKETDIR=/usr/share/cricket
export CLASSPATH=/usr/share/java/libsnmp-1.4.jar
make
sudo make install

Note: avoid using -j when calling make. It will break the build, since make tries to run many ant processes with interdependencies at the same time.

Edit /etc/postgresql/8.3/main/pg_hba.conf, change ident sameuser into md5 for local users connecting through UNIX sockets (except the postgres user). The file should look something like this:

local   all         postgres                          ident sameuser
local   all         all                               md5

host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          md5
host    all         all         ::1/128               md5

Then reload PostgreSQL to make the changes effective:

sudo invoke-rc.d postgresql-8.3 reload

While still in the NAV source code directory, cd to doc/sql. The following set of commands assume you have sudo access to run commands as the postgres system user. If not, please become the postgres user in some other way. The procedure has been adapted from doc/sql/README.

To create the PostgreSQL user and database:

# The following command will prompt for a password for the new database user.
# Pick one of your own choosing. 
sudo -u postgres ./createdb.sh

Then, take the password you chose for the database user and put this as the value to the userpw_nav option in /usr/local/nav/etc/db.conf.

We do this because we don't install the libraries to the systemwide Python library directories by default. We do however want them available for use systemwide:

sudo bash -c 'cat << EOF >> /etc/python2.5/sitecustomize.py

import sys
__navpath = "/usr/local/nav/lib/python"
if __navpath not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(__navpath)
EOF
'

cd /usr/local/nav/lib/java
sudo ln -s /usr/share/java/postgresql.jar
sudo ln -s /usr/share/java/libsnmp-1.4.jar

Put this in /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-nav:

ServerName nav.example.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html index.php index.cgi index.py
AccessFileName .htaccess
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

DocumentRoot /usr/local/nav/apache/webroot
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

<Directory "/usr/local/nav/apache/webroot">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI 
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

LogLevel warn

<Location />
    # Enable debugging on errors, if you like
    PythonDebug on
</Location>

Then run the following commands:

sudo a2dissite default
sudo a2ensite default-nav
sudo a2enmod mod_python
sudo invoke-rc.d apache2 force-reload

Create groups and users, and set proper permissions:

sudo addgroup --system nav
sudo adduser --system --no-create-home --home /usr/local/nav \
             --shell /bin/sh --ingroup nav navcron;
sudo addgroup navcron dialout

cd /usr/local/nav/var
sudo chown -R navcron:nav .

Edit /usr/local/nav/etc/nav.conf, set your ADMIN_MAIL and DOMAIN_SUFFIX options. Also set DJANGO_DEBUG=True if you want complete error information when stuff goes awry in the web interface.

Optionally make the nav process control command more available: sudo ln -s /usr/local/nav/bin/nav /usr/sbin/nav

Cricket should already be installed as it is a part of the runtime dependencies.

Remove /etc/cron.d/cricket or comment out the active cron job line in the file.

Create a directory to place the nav cricket-config:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/nav/etc/cricket-config

Change owner to navcron:nav

sudo chown navcron:nav /usr/local/nav/etc/cricket-config

Edit the /etc/cricket/cricket-conf.pl and set the configroot variable. At the same time, fix the logging. Cricket defaults to /var/log/cricket as logdir. This directory is created on install, but the owner is cricket. Either create your own logdir and set the correct path ($gLogDir) in /etc/cricket/cricket-conf.pl or change ownership of /var/log/cricket to navcron.

$gConfigRoot = "/usr/local/nav/etc/cricket-config"
$gLogDir = your/log/dir

Copy /usr/local/nav/doc/cricket/cricket/subtree-sets to /etc/cricket/

cd /etc/cricket
sudo cp /usr/local/nav/doc/cricket/cricket/subtree-sets .

As navcron, copy recursively /usr/local/nav/doc/cricket/cricket-config/ to your cricket-config

sudo -u navcron cp -r /usr/local/nav/doc/cricket/cricket-config /usr/local/nav/etc/

Create a directory to store Cricket's data files, and give navcron ownership of that directory.

sudo mkdir /usr/local/nav/var/cricket-data
sudo chown navcron /usr/local/nav/var/cricket-data

Go to the cricket-config directory and edit the “Defaults” file. Replace the Datadir with the correct path to cricket-data. Don't forget the %auto-target-path%

Target  --default--
    dataDir         = /usr/local/nav/var/cricket-data/%auto-target-path%

Compile the cricket-config as navcron to create the cricket-database.

sudo -u navcron cricket-compile

Run mcc.py to create config from the database. The first time, remember that the database should contain data before doing this. Also, it's a good idea to start ipdevpoll and let it run a good couple of minutes before making the cricket-config as it then will have gathered and stored information about devices and interfaces in the database.

cd /usr/local/nav/bin
sudo -u navcron ./mcc.py

Now, start Cricket:

cd /usr/local/nav/bin
sudo ./nav start cricket

Create the cricket directory in apache/webroot/

cd /usr/local/nav/apache/webroot
sudo mkdir cricket

Make a symlink to the cricket cgi-scripts and copy cricket.css from source.

cd /usr/local/nav/apache/webroot/cricket
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/cgi-bin/cricket/grapher.cgi 
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/cgi-bin/cricket/mini-graph.cgi
sudo ln -s grapher.cgi index.cgi
sudo ln -s /usr/share/cricket/images
sudo cp /usr/local/nav/doc/cricket/public_html/cricket.css .

Create .htaccess-file to make sure mod_python doesn't handle this directory.

sudo bash -c 'echo "SetHandler none" > .htaccess'