Is libreoffice supposed to be starting automatically?

[mfoster]

Can someone clarify if libreoffice is supposed to be started as a service when alfresco starts? I have inherited an Alfresco installation and libreoffice seems to be running as a service (at least I see an established "soffice.bin" process). However, on a test instance of the same version (5.0.d community), i do not see libreoffice running unless I go through these hoops [1] to fix the alfresco.sh startup script and the libreoffice_ctl.sh script. If I *don't* make those changes to start libreoffice, then I cannot get a preview of plain text files on this test instance. The production instance seems to work, but I can't tell why or how libreoffice is starting to generate the preview, which works as expected. It does not have those startup script changes. From [2] and [3] there seems to be a lot of confusion on what's really happening.

Any info would be appreciated.

[1] Alfresco 5 Office Preview Fix · GitHub 

[2] [ACE-2390] alfresco.sh has wrong paths - Alfresco JIRA 

[3] [MNT-12640] Unable to start/stop/retrieve status of libreoffice using alfresco.sh - Alfresco JIRA 

[douglascrp]

I am not 100% sure about that problem with that exact version, but I know that kind of problem happened in the past, and those were required steps to fix it.

If it is working on the inherited server, but not in the test, simply compare the files mentioned in the links and check if the changes were performed or not.

[mfoster]

Yes, I've compared the configuration files and the inherited server doesn't have those changes. I'm going to try and monitor the startup process then next time we reboot that server, but wanted to get clarification on the started services to document what should be running after the startup process. 

[cesarista]

Some fixes are needed from some versions ago, mainly some dependencies and a broken script.

i) Some Libreoffice dependencies not installed in your OS. There is a usual warning in the installer relating some libraries not installed. You need to install them. If not soffice will not run. It depends on your stack.

ii) alfresco.sh broken link to ctl.sh (here I create a symbolic link for not changing alfresco.sh, but you can change alfresco.sh LIBREOFFICE_SCRIPT variable) 

$ cd /opt/alfresco52g/libreoffice/scripts

$ ln -s libreoffice_ctl.sh ctl.sh

iii) But in the Libreoffice startup script, sometimes I had to remove "slashes" in the next variable:

SOFFICE="$SOFFICEWRAPPER --nofirststartwizard --nologo --headless --accept=socket,host=localhost,port=$SOFFICE_PORT;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager"

Once this is done, you can run start|stop libreoffice with alfresco.sh script 

$ alfresco.sh stop libreoffice
/opt/alfresco52g/libreoffice/scripts/ctl.sh : libreoffice not running

And when starting Alfresco service you are going to see Libreoffice service startup

$ alfresco.sh stop
/opt/alfresco52g/tomcat/scripts/ctl.sh : tomcat not running
/opt/alfresco52g/libreoffice/scripts/ctl.sh : libreoffice not running

This is more or less the links that you are giving.

- Tip for Libreoffice script in Alfresco 5.0.c - zylk 

Libreoffice watchdog addon and useful scripts &tips - Watching your Libreoffice process for Alfresco... 

Hope this helps.

Regards.

--C.

[cesarista]

And answering to the question, once this is done, libreoffice starts automatically with Alfresco script.

[mfoster]

Ok, great. Thanks for the responses.