Elusive Sharepoint

[sreilly]

Hi all,
I've installed alfresco-community 3.2-9 from the Ubuntu 9.04 repositories and both the Explore and Share areas work.
However, I can't get the Sharepoint Protocol to work.
When I try to create a new Document Workspace in Word 2007 I get the message "The action could not be completed."
I read through the ECM_InstallConfigure_CommunityEdition32.pdf and it looked like I had not installed the vti-module.amp so I did that using the downloaded alfresco-mmt.jar thus;

/etc/init.d/tomcat6 stop
java -jar alfresco-mmt-3.2.jar install vti-module.amp /usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco.war -verbose

That went well and it appeared to install OK;

java -jar alfresco-mmt-3.2.jar list /usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco.war
Module 'org.alfresco.module.vti' installed in '/usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco.war'
   -    Title:        Vti
   -    Version:      1.2
   -    Install Date: Wed Sep 02 17:04:36 BST 2009
   -    Desription:   Alfresco Vti Extension

I also modified the alfresco-global.properties file as instructed;

vti.server.port=7070
vti.alfresco.deployment.context=/alfresco
vti.alfresco.alfresoHostWithPort=http://myserver:8080
vti.share.shareHostWithPort=http://myserver:8080

Restart tomcat6 and still no joy. Same message in Word.

The thing is that when I did a preview of the install of vti-module.amp it said it would create files in /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/module/org.alfresco.module.vti but that directory (org.alfresco.module.vti) doesn't appear when tomcat starts.

So, what am I doing wrong?

TIA,

Steve

[_sax]

At startup, your log should say
INFO  [org.alfresco.module.vti.VtiServer] Vti server started successfully on port: 7070
when nearing the finish.

Other than that your path is special. Did you install Alfresco in /usr/share or /var/lib? I'm not aware of two paths.
In my installation Alfresco/tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/module/org.alfresco.module.vti is populated with some files.
But if your log says, that the module is started, then paths should not be a cause.

[sreilly]

Hi _sax,

There is no mention of vti in any of the log files at startup.

Because this is an install using the Ubuntu repository version I didn't get the option to change the install paths but in reality the paths in /var/lib/tomcat6 are mostly links to /usr/share/tomcat6.

I'll try a fresh install and see if that helps

Steve

[_sax]

Hi Steve,

a fresh install should help a lot, I was not aware of an Ubuntu version.
As long as there is no mentioning at startup, the module is not actively used, although the messages during your installation looked right.
This option in log4j.properties comes standard:
# Sharepoint
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.module.vti=info
That should bring up some info during startup, providing the amp got properly installed.

[sreilly]

Hi _sax,

I built a fresh installation (reinstall Ubuntu etc.) and got exactly the same problem.
From your last reply it looks like you installed using the tar.gz file rather than the Ubuntu .deb

I tracked down the guy who created the DEB package and he instantly pointed me to my problem (http://jared.ottleys.net/alfresco/alfresco-community-3-2-ubuntu-package-explained).

The DEB package does not have the equivalent of the apply_amps.sh script so the /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco directory does not get re-built when installing an AMPS package.
Removing that directory and restarting tomcat fixed the problem.

Thank you and Jared for your excellent work.

Steve

[norgan]

Hi Steve, can I win you over to update the wiki installation guidelines to include that ?

Norgan

[elmuchacho]

here we go again

I've tried the same config (Ubuntu 9.04 with community package)
also integrated the vti-module via the mmt …
how about the config?

vti.server.port=7070
vti.alfresco.deployment.context=/alfresco
vti.alfresco.alfresoHostWithPort=http://myserver:8080
vti.share.shareHostWithPort=http://myserver:8080‍‍‍‍

is "myserver" to be replaced with "localhost"? Or do I need to set the FQDN or the IP ?
for now i've tried

vti.server.port=7070
vti.alfresco.deployment.context=/alfresco
vti.alfresco.alfresoHostWithPort=http://localhost:8080
vti.share.shareHostWithPort=http://localhost:8080‍‍‍‍

and how to connect right now ?
should i use

http://ip:7070/alfresco‍

by trying to use a shared webspace under WINDOWS?

netstat -tapn | jsvc‍

shows a listening tomcat on port 7070 …

[_sax]

You seem to have succesfully integrated Sharepoint support.

In the config, myserver should be replaced with your server's name:

vti.server.port=7070
vti.alfresco.deployment.context=/alfresco
vti.alfresco.alfresoHostWithPort=http://theserversname:8080
vti.share.shareHostWithPort=http://theseversname:8080
‍‍‍‍‍‍

If that does not work, try your IP.

Now, in Word you should be able to logon to "Sharepoint" by opening File->Open and entering http://youserversname:7070/alfresco in the name field. You should now be prompted with a login prompt, in which you can chose, who you want to be 😉
You'll then see a list of available sites, which you should create first in http://localhost:8080/Alfresco/Share.
You can also create spaces inside Word/Excel, etc. by using the shared workspace functionality in the Extras menu.

Note that there is still no automated logon even with the nightly builds. It is being worked on, and I hope it will be fixed soon.
https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ETHREEOH-2534
So make sure to disable NTLM in your authentication chain. If enabled, the logon is not possible anymore.
It may be required to logon several times, depending on what you do (creating spaces, writing, or reading).

[elmuchacho]

mmh …
… it looks like this won't work for me …

I can't connect to tomcat directly via

http://IP:8080/alfresco‍

I'm currently using apache's proxy for this, because we need our zarafa-webaccess via http / https on ports 80 / 443 …
and we wanna reach alfresco via http(s)://IP /alfresco or /shares …
this works right now by using this apache-conf:

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

        <Proxy *>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
        </Proxy>

        ProxyRequests Off
        ProxyPass        /alfresco   http://127.0.0.1:8080/alfresco
        ProxyPassReverse /alfresco   http://127.0.0.1:8080/alfresco

        ProxyPass        /share   http://127.0.0.1:8080/share
        ProxyPassReverse /share   http://127.0.0.1:8080/share

        DocumentRoot /var/www

        <Directory /var/www/>
                Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

        LogLevel warn
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

so we didn't reach alfresco directly via http://IP:8080/alfresco

we've created a small lan behind a router where the alfresco-server is located …

so it looks like this now:

my PC 192.168.80.100
router to alfresco-lan 192.168.80.20 (WAN)
router in alfresco-lan 192.168.100.20 (LAN)
alfresco-server 192.168.100.10

forwarded ports to alfresco-server : 22, 80, 443, 8080, 8443, 7070

/alfresco and /shares are only reacheable via 80 and 443 …
a direct connect to 8080 or 8443 is not possible for now …

if anybody knows a solution, i would be happy ,)

[_sax]

So your portforwarding works for the Alfresco webclient (:80 instead of :8080)?

Does it mean that you cannot use port 7070 for anything due to restrictions? I'm not aware if another port is okay with the protocol.

Have you tried to change the ports in alfresco-global to the ones you want to have? Instead of Apaches forwarding you could also use Tomcat's own server.xml to change the ports that are used by Alfresco.