Installing and Configuring Alfresco Community Edition 3.2

[resplin]

Obsolete Pages{{Obsolete}}

The official documentation is at: http://docs.alfresco.com

This is a Work in Progress.
If you find links to other pages in this wiki that relate to the topic listed, please feel free to add them on this page. If not, we encourage you to write new related content.  

Table of Contents

• 1 Before Installing
  
  
  
  • 1.1 Installation Files
    
    
    
    • 1.1.1 SharePoint Protocol Support
    
    
    • 1.1.2 Alfresco WCM
    
    
    • 1.1.3 Alfresco Web Service Client
    
    
    • 1.1.4 Alfresco SDK and APIs
    
    
    • 1.1.5 Extensions
    
    
    • 1.1.6 Microsoft Office Add-ins
    
    
  
  
  • 1.2 Software Requirements
  
  
  • 1.3 Installing a JDK
    
    
    
    • 1.3.1 Verifying the JAVA_HOME environment variable location
    
    
  
  
  • 1.4 Installing MySQL
  
  
  • 1.5 Installing JBoss
    
    
    
    • 1.5.1 Configuration Changes
    
    
    • 1.5.2 JAR Files
    
    
  
  


• 2 Installing Alfresco
  
  
  
  • 2.1 Windows
    
    
    
    • 2.1.1 Full installation
    
    
    • 2.1.2 Excluding JDK
    
    
    • 2.1.3 Alfresco Tomcat bundle
    
    
  
  
  • 2.2 Redhat Linux
    
    
    
    • 2.2.1 Alfresco Tomcat bundle
    
    
  
  
  • 2.3 Mac
  
  
  • 2.4 Alfresco WAR on any platform
  
  
  • 2.5 Alfresco components
    
    
    
    • 2.5.1 Alfresco WCM
    
    
    • 2.5.2 OpenOffice
    
    
    • 2.5.3 ImageMagick
    
    
    • 2.5.4 Microsoft Office add-ins
    
    
    • 2.5.5 Flash Player
    
    
    • 2.5.6 SWF tools
    
    
    • 2.5.7 TinyMCE language packs
    
    
    • 2.5.8 Alfresco Module Package (AMP)
    
    
    • 2.5.9 Microsoft Office SharePoint Protocol Support
    
    
  
  


• 3 Running Alfresco
  
  
  
  • 3.1 Starting and stopping the Alfresco server
  
  
  • 3.2 Starting Alfresco Share
  
  
  • 3.3 Starting Alfresco Explorer
  
  
  • 3.4 Starting and stopping the Alfresco virtualization server
  
  
  • 3.5 Starting and stopping the deployment engine
  
  


• 4 Configuring Alfresco
  
  
  
  • 4.1 Configuration overview
    
    
    
    • 4.1.1 Global properties
    
    
    • 4.1.2 Upgrading configurations to Community Edition 3.2
    
    
    • 4.1.3 Modifying Spring bean definition files
    
    
    • 4.1.4 Modifying system configuration files
    
    
    • 4.1.5 Customizing individual configuration items
    
    
  
  
  • 4.2 Customizing Alfresco Share
  
  
  • 4.3 Configuring databases
  
  
  • 4.4 Configuring core services
    
    
    
    • 4.4.1 Tuning the JVM
    
    
    • 4.4.2 Command line configuration
    
    
    • 4.4.3 Customizing dir.root
    
    
    • 4.4.4 Configuring the repository cache
    
    
  
  
  • 4.5 Configuring extended services
    
    
    
    • 4.5.1 Adding a MIME type
    
    
    • 4.5.2 Configuring metadata extraction
    
    
    • 4.5.3 Versioning
    
    
    • 4.5.4 Setting up replication
    
    
    • 4.5.5 Configuring the connection pool
    
    
    • 4.5.6 Customizing content transformations
    
    
  
  
  • 4.6 Configuring Alfresco subsystems
  
  
  • 4.7 Configuring authentication
  
  
  • 4.8 Configuring synchronization
  
  
  • 4.9 Configuring file servers
  
  
  • 4.10 Configuring the email server and email service
    
    
    
    • 4.10.1 IMAP Protocol support
    
    
  
  
  • 4.11 Configuring Web Content Management
    
    
    
    • 4.11.1 Configuring the virtualization server
    
    
    • 4.11.2 WCM deployment
    
    
  
  


• 5 Troubleshooting
  
  
  
  • 5.1 Debugging an Alfresco installation
  
  
  • 5.2 Setting log levels
  
  
  • 5.3 Testing and debugging links
  
  
  • 5.4 Error messages
  
  
  • 5.5 Troubleshooting NFS
  
  
  • 5.6 Troubleshooting CIFS
  
  
  • 5.7 OpenLDAP tips
  
  
  • 5.8 Active Directory tips
  
  

Before Installing

Installation Files

SharePoint Protocol Support

Alfresco WCM

Alfresco Web Service Client

Alfresco SDK and APIs

Extensions

Microsoft Office Add-ins

Software Requirements

Installing a JDK

Verifying the JAVA_HOME environment variable location

In the file {JBOSS_HOME}\bin\run.conf, update the JAVA_HOME variable to be the folder that JDK was installed into.

Installing MySQL

thumb|alt=Alfresco Schema|Alfresco Schema Creation
thumb|alt=Create New User|Alfresco New User
thumb|alt=Updating Privileges |Alfresco Updating Privileges
When deploying Alfresco to utilize MySQL as its datastore, there are 2 required downloads to achieve this type of environment.

1. MySQL Community Server - The more recent versions should suffice.
   
2. MySQL JDBC Driver - This JAR file should be copied to {JBOSS_HOME}\server\default\lib.
   

Another useful tool is MySQL Administrator. Instead of using command line entries, one can use this graphical user interface to manage both local and remote instances of MySQL.

Once MySQL is installed, the user and database will need to be created.

Screenshots on the right depicts creating a new schema, user and assigning privileges.

Installing JBoss

1. Download JBoss Application Server from JBoss Downloads.
   
2. Expand the zip file to the target server. (i.e. c:\jboss). Set your environment variable, JBOSS_HOME, to be the location that the zip file was expanded to. For example, if the zip file was expanded to c:\jboss, then the environment variable should be look as such:
   
   JbossHomeEnvironmentVariable.png
   

Configuration Changes

1. Change the following in file {JBOSS_HOME}\server\default\deploy\ejb3.deployer\META-INF\persistence.properties:
   From:

   hibernate.bytecode.provider=javassist

   
   To:
   

   hibernate.bytecode.provider=cglib

   
   
   
   
2. Optional: Adding

   set NOPAUSE=true

   to the beginning of {JBOSS_HOME}\bin\run.bat and {JBOSS_HOME}\bin\shutdown.bat will remove the need to 'Press any key to continue . . . '
   

JAR Files

If MySQL is the target database, then perform the following:

1. Download MySQL Driver from MySQL Downloads.
   
2. Save the driver into the {JBOSS_HOME}/server/default/lib folder. For any other application server, save the JDBC driver in a folder that is in the application server classpath.
   

Installing Alfresco

Windows

Full installation

Excluding JDK

Alfresco Tomcat bundle

Redhat Linux

Alfresco Tomcat bundle

Mac

Alfresco WAR on any platform

Alfresco components

Alfresco WCM

OpenOffice

After downloading the appropriate version from OpenOffice Downloads, it needs to be installed. Where it is installed is important for a couple reasons:

1. Must be accessible from Alfresco deployment application server.
   
2. Application server must have permission to execute the binaries.
   

After installing OpenOffice, you will need to inform Alfresco the OpenOffice installation information. The best way to do it is to add the properties as follows in your alfresco.war\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco-global.properties file:

# Path to OpenOffice executable
ooo.exe={ABSOLUTE OPEN OFFICE INSTALLATION PATH}/program/soffice

# Path to store OpenOffice User information
ooo.user=${dir.root}/oouser

ImageMagick

Alfresco Community Edition 3.2, like past editions, require binaries of ImageMagick. Binaries can be downloaded from ImageMagick's Download page. Once the proper version has been downloaded, it needs to be installed where Alfresco has the accessibility and permission to execute the convert utility.

When running in a Windows environment, set the environment variable 'PATH' as such:

ImageMagickPathVariable.png

This value assumes that ImageMagick was installed at this location.

Lastly, there is a property img.root in the repository.properties file. One can override this value by use of the file alfresco.war/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco-global.properties. Adding an img.root entry with the aforementioned location (c:/ImageMagick) will allow Alfresco to execute the convert binary.

More info at ImageMagick Configuration.

Microsoft Office add-ins

Flash Player

SWF tools

SWF tools can be downloaded from the SWFTools Downloads. Once the appropriate version has been downloaded, it will need to be installed so that Alfresco has access and permission to execute the pdf2swf.exe binary. This utility is used to display PDF documents in a Flash application when viewing the document detail in Alfresco Share.

Once installed, override the swf.exe property defined in repository.properties with an entry in alfresco.war/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco-global.properties file. For example if SWFTools was installed in C:\SWFTools then the entry in alfresco-global.properties should have this entry:

swf.exe=C:/SWFTools/pdf2swf

TinyMCE language packs

Alfresco Module Package (AMP)

Microsoft Office SharePoint Protocol Support

Running Alfresco

Starting and stopping the Alfresco server

Starting Alfresco Share

Starting Alfresco Explorer

Starting and stopping the Alfresco virtualization server

Starting and stopping the deployment engine

Configuring Alfresco

Configuration overview

Global properties

Upgrading configurations to Community Edition 3.2

Modifying Spring bean definition files

Modifying system configuration files

Customizing individual configuration items

Customizing Alfresco Share

Configuring databases

Out of the box, Alfresco 3.2 Community Edition has been configured as follows:

db.name=alfresco
db.username=alfresco
db.password=alfresco

These values have been defined in alfresco.war\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\repository.properties. Additionally, out-of-box, Alfresco is also configured to deploy to MySQL. This means you will have to create a catalog, user and password using 'alfresco'. Should these values require something different, customization configuration files will be needed as part of this deployment. The user that was created for the instance of Alfresco should have all permissions assigned until needed to lock down security (for production mode).

Configuring core services

Tuning the JVM

Command line configuration

Customizing dir.root

Configuring the repository cache

Configuring extended services

Adding a MIME type

Configuring metadata extraction

Versioning

Setting up replication

Configuring the connection pool

Customizing content transformations

Configuring Alfresco subsystems

Configuring authentication

Configuring synchronization

Configuring file servers

Configuring the email server and email service

IMAP Protocol support

Configuring Web Content Management

Configuring the virtualization server

WCM deployment

Troubleshooting

Debugging an Alfresco installation

Setting log levels

Testing and debugging links

Error messages

Troubleshooting NFS

Troubleshooting CIFS

OpenLDAP tips

Active Directory tips

Installation
Community Edition
3.2