Oops! I deleted the 'Guest' user

[theorbix]

I deleted the "guest" account by mistake.

To recreate it (and allow again guest users that will access the Alfresco Web Client without having to explicitely login), will it be enough  to use the administration console and create a new user called "guest" with a "guest" password?

Or there is something else to do?

[dinger]

Yes try that

Rob

[theorbix]

I tried to recreate the Guest user, but I'm having a strange behaviour…

The very first time I try to access to Alfresco as a guest (by entering http://myhostname:8080/alfresco), after starting the server, I *always* get the folloowing exception in the web client:

org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Failed to authenticate as Guest user.
at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:213)
at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:109)
at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationFilter.doFilter(AuthenticationFilter.java:75)
… etc …

BUT, if instead I ask to display the login page (by entering http://myhostname:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/login.jsp), the page is shown correctly.

After showing the login page, I can enter again the http://myhostname:8080/alfresco URL and at this point the login as a guest user  works properly.

So it seems that there is a sort of initialization problem: the http://myhostname:8080/alfresco URL is unable to initialize "something"  in Alfresco, while the  http://myhostname:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/login.jsp URL initializes properly the application…

I'm sure this problem was not happening before I deleted the Guest user by mistake and recreated it… what could be wrong?

I need to offer a reliable way to allow my users to connect to Alfresco as guest users, without having to pass through the login page…

[dinger]

Can you post the entire log?

I need to see what the cause of the exception is.

Rob

[theorbix]

Here you go (this is the full alfresco.log file: I start Tomcat, then I point the browser to http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/dashboards/container.jsp and this causes the exception:

16:13:32,250 INFO  [org.alfresco.mbeans.VirtServerRegistry] Creating VirtServerRegistry MBean
16:13:33,343 WARN  [org.springframework.remoting.rmi.RmiRegistryFactoryBean] Could not detect RMI registry - creating new one
16:13:33,421 INFO  [org.alfresco.mbeans.VirtServerRegistry] Created JMX serverConnector
16:13:39,046 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.domain.schema.SchemaBootstrap] Schema managed by database dialect org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect.
16:13:41,234 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.domain.schema.SchemaBootstrap] No changes were made to the schema.
16:13:44,062 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.admin.ConfigurationChecker] The Alfresco root data directory ('dir.root') is: C:\Alfresco\alf_data
16:13:44,140 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.admin.patch.PatchExecuter] Checking for patches to apply …
16:13:45,640 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.module.ModuleServiceImpl] Found 0 module(s).
16:13:46,328 INFO  [org.alfresco.service.descriptor.DescriptorService] Alfresco JVM - v1.5.0_11-b03; maximum heap size 506,313MB
16:13:46,328 INFO  [org.alfresco.service.descriptor.DescriptorService] Alfresco license: Enterprise Network granted to Alfresco Partner (does not expire)
16:13:46,328 INFO  [org.alfresco.service.descriptor.DescriptorService] Alfresco started (Enterprise Network): Current version 2.1.2 (268) schema 81 - Installed version 2.1.2 (268) schema 81
16:14:18,453 ERROR [org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/alfresco].[Faces Servlet]] Servlet.service() for servlet Faces Servlet threw exception
org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Failed to authenticate as Guest user.
   at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:213)
   at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:109)
   at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationFilter.doFilter(AuthenticationFilter.java:75)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:202)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:173)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:213)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:178)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:126)
   at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:105)
   at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:107)
   at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:148)
   at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:869)
   at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11BaseProtocol.java:664)
   at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.PoolTcpEndpoint.processSocket(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:527)
   at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.runIt(LeaderFollowerWorkerThread.java:80)
   at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:684)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: FacesContext must not be null
   at org.springframework.util.Assert.notNull(Assert.java:113)
   at org.springframework.web.jsf.FacesContextUtils.getWebApplicationContext(FacesContextUtils.java:50)
   at org.springframework.web.jsf.FacesContextUtils.getRequiredWebApplicationContext(FacesContextUtils.java:81)
   at org.alfresco.web.bean.repository.Repository.getServiceRegistry(Repository.java:431)
   at org.alfresco.web.bean.repository.Preferences.getNodeService(Preferences.java:103)
   at org.alfresco.web.bean.repository.Preferences.getValue(Preferences.java:75)
   at org.alfresco.web.app.Application.getLanguage(Application.java:622)
   at org.alfresco.web.app.servlet.AuthenticationHelper.authenticate(AuthenticationHelper.java:187)
   … 16 more
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

If, after getting the error I point the browser to http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/login.jsp and then back to http://localhost:8080/alfresco/faces/jsp/dashboards/container.jsp, at this point the Web Client successfully connects as a guest user… pretty strange.

Even if I clean the IE cache, close and restart the browser, the problem does not happen. If I try from another client on the LAN, it does not happen.

It only happens at the very first attempt of logging as a guest after starting the Alfresco application server.