OpenOffice headless startup

[simon]

Hey there,

This is an OpenOffice related question but some of you should or will have the same problem so it can be useful to solve it here…

We start OpenOffice with Alfresco (with the start_oo.sh script) on RHEL 4:

/opt/openoffice.org2.0/program/soffice -headless -nologo -invisible "-accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager" &‍

Notice the -headless, -nologo and -invisible parameters. OpenOffice only starts when there is some sort of X display available. I don't see why because we don't need, and don't want, this. OpenOffice should start with Alfresco, even if there is no GUI available (e.g. at boottime).

Any idea how to configure OpenOffice to start without user interaction. According to the OO documentation the -headless option should do the trick but… it doesn't.


I read something about xvfb on Debian. Is this relevant for Red Hat and is this the only (best) way to solve it? Seems unlikely that OpenOffice doesn't support this out of the box…

Update: it seems that other Alfresco users choose the Xvfb way. Don't know why but it seems like the wrong way to solve this (extra load on the server for no reason).

[steve]

Hi Simon,

Unfortunately, Openoffice requires an X display - even in headless mode!
Xvfb is the method that Openoffice suggests to use for linux machines that don't have an X display… so that is what we recommend.

Steve

[simon]

OK, thanks Steve! I was hoping to see some other solution with less overhead but I'll have to convince OpenOffice…

Update: Installed Xvfb and followed the display setting as described by hikenboots and it works. Not perfect but it works.

[zipho]

Its been months trying to get openoffice to run on alfesco for document conversions, and the is no success. I have visited every resource on the internet (openoffice website, Xvfb sites, Alfresco Wiki & Forums), but nothing much is said about this feature, but I think it is a core feature for this ECM. Please can somebody, who has done it, help me on this subject…………We love the product, just would appreciate if this feature would work…

Thank you guys in advance..

[steve]

Hi,

Could you post some more ionformation about your problems please?

Thanks,

Steve

[sagar]

Just start the openoffice like

C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\program>soffice -headless -nologo -invisible -accept=socket,host
=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager

or through bootstrap-context.xml.