Installation and Conguration [ 22 ] Component Recommendation OpenOfce.org Alfresco uses OpenOfce for transforming documents from one format to another, for example, a text le to a PDF le. If you do not install OpenOfce, you will not have access to the transformation functionality. Flash Player Version 10.x Alfresco Share requires Flash Player Version 10.x to upload multiple les and view Flash previews. If you do not install Flash, you see the upload screen for single les. SWFTools Alfresco Share uses the pdf2swf utility for previewing PDF les. If you do not install SWFTools, you will not see PDF previews, but image previews will still be available. Alfresco runs within an instance of the Tomcat application server. The installers and the Tomcat bundles are precongured with Tomcat. If you wish to install Alfresco within another application server, use the Alfresco WAR le. Installing a JDK A Java SE Development Kit (JDK) must be installed on your system before you install Alfresco. Some Alfresco installation wizards will detect whether you have a JDK on your machine and, if not, install a version for you. This task explains how to install JDK manually: 1. Browse to the Sun Microsystems Java download website: http://java.sun.com. 2. Select and download Java Development Kit (JDK) 6 for your platform. 3. If prompted, specify a location in which to download. 4. Navigate to where you downloaded the JDK. 5. Install the JDK on your system. After the JDK is installed on your system, verify that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Chapter 2 [ 23 ] Verifying the JAVA_HOME environment variable location The JAVA_HOME environment variable location must be set to where the JDK is installed. This is done as follows: 1. Open the command prompt. 2. Enter the following: Windows: echo %JAVA_HOME% Linux: echo $JAVA_HOME Installing MySQL This section describes how to set up a MySQL open source Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) to use with Alfresco. Some of the Alfresco installation wizards install an embedded instance of MySQL that is congured with the correct settings. If you prefer to install MySQL database independently, this section describes the conguration settings that you should use: 1. Browse to the MySQL download site: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads. 2. Locate and select the appropriate package for your platform. Alfresco requires MySQL 5.0.67 or higher. 3. If prompted, specify a location on your system in which to download and install MySQL. 4. Browse to the location where you downloaded MySQL and double-click on the installer le. 5. The MySQL Server Setup wizard guides you through the MySQL installation, followed by the Conguration wizard. Verifying the MySQL installation Once you have installed MySQL, this task describes how to verify that it was installed correctly: 1. Open the command prompt. 2. In the prompt, enter: mysql -u root -p Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Installation and Conguration [ 24 ] 3. Type the password that you set during the installation and press Enter. Information about the installed MySQL version displays. If no errors are reported, MySQL is installed and running. 4. In the mysql> prompt, type exit to exit MySQL. You have veried that the MySQL installation was successful. Alfresco WCM Alfresco is built on state-of-the-art open source components such as Spring, Hibernate, Lucene, and JSF—often the components of choice for website developers today. It offers one repository for the whole team. This repository is a modern platform for Web Content Management 2.0 with a variety of user and technical benets as described and discussed through the course of this book. The web development framework comprises: Java JSF, Struts, Wicket, among others Ruby Ruby on Rails .NET ASP.NET PHP Zend, CakePHP, Codelgniter Python Django Alfresco can be used by all of the previously mentioned frameworks. Each of them has different capabilities and often requires different implementation strategies. Using Alfresco WCM, you can provide a wealth of exibility and choices when designing scalable web architecture. The following diagram shows a possible physical architecture for a WCM solution: Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Chapter 2 [ 25 ] WCM can be recommended to be used when: • The authors are comfortable using the Alfresco Web Client and web forms • Minimal time should be spent creating a robust presentation tier • You need the ability to roll back change sets • You only need to link to WCM content and basic URLs • You need to have a staging environment where content is reviewed before it is published • Simple "submit for approval" workow is sufcient Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Installation and Conguration [ 26 ] Installation option that is suitable for you Alfresco is a 100 percent open source software developed using open standards. It can be operated on various operating systems, relational databases, application servers, web browsers, portals, and supports various languages. We shall examine all of the choices and determine which option is right for you. Enterprise and Community Editions Alfresco currently provides two types of product download options: • Alfresco Community Lab Network • Alfresco Enterprise Network The latest release of Alfresco has an Enterprise Edition as well as a Labs edition. Both the options have the same code base and features, and are 100 percent open source. For both the options, you can use Alfresco documentation (wiki), community support (forums), and community-contributed add-on products. The Alfresco Community Lab Network is free. The Alfresco Enterprise Network includes a per CPU license fee. The Alfresco Community Labs Network is an unsupported product and is mainly designed for developers and technical enthusiasts. It is designed in non-critical environments. Alfresco Community Lab releases Early and Often and renders a daily build, offering the latest functionality. It doesn't provide scalability and high-availability certications. I would recommend this to be used as the research vehicle for new features and as the platform for the Alfresco Community. And consider it as a test drive before you install. If you are implementing Alfresco for a major corporation, nancial, insurance, government, or healthcare organization, I would recommend you go for Alfresco Enterprise Network support. The primary benet is that with the support of Alfresco and its certied partners you will get a stable, reliable, certied, and supported application with warranty and indemnity. Your Alfresco version will be certied on all available stacks such as Linux, Windows, MySQL, Oracle, and many more. You will benet from Alfresco support, which includes problem resolution, compatibility advice, migration advice, and upgrade support. For mission-critical applications, you will get 24/7 support from Alfresco experts. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Chapter 2 [ 27 ] Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, Unix, MacOS Choosing an operating system to run Alfresco will be based on various factors. For some companies it depends on in-house expertise. For example, if you have administrators and IT staff who can easily manage business applications running on a Microsoft Windows platform, then your choice could be to go with a Windows operating system. For some companies it is based on the integration requirements with the existing systems. If you do not have any preferences, I would recommend you to go with the Linux operating system for production use. Linux source code is freely distributed. Tens of thousands of programmers have reviewed the source code to improve performance, eliminate bugs, and strengthen security. No other operating system has ever undergone this level of review. The key advantages of Linux are listed below: • The best technical support available • No vendor lock-in • Runs on a wide range of hardware • Exceptionally stable • Supports many tools and applications you need • Interoperates with many other types of computer systems • Low total cost of ownership Databases: MySQL, Oracle, MS SQL Server, PostgreSQL The data access layer of Alfresco is implemented using an open source software component and ORM (Object Relational Mapping) tool called Hibernate. Hibernate abstracts the database layer and provides seamless integration between the Alfresco repository and any relational database. If the Microsoft Windows operating system is the OS of choice, then the natural choice for you can be MS SQL Server. If you already have an Oracle license, then Oracle database is also an option. Alfresco also supports the PostgreSQL database. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Installation and Conguration [ 28 ] If you do not have any database preference, it is recommended that you go with the MySQL database, which costs nothing if you go with the open source version. The MySQL database has become the world's most popular open source database because of its consistency, fast performance, high reliability, and ease of usability. It's used in more than 10 million installations ranging from large corporations to specialized embedded applications. MySQL runs on more than 20 platforms, including Linux, Windows, OS/X, HP-UX, AIX, and Netware, giving you the kind of exibility that puts you in control. Application Servers: Tomcat, JBoss Alfresco runs on any J2SE 5.0-compliant application server. Hence there are no application server-specic dependencies. However, it is important to make a choice of application server before moving into production. Alfresco uses the Spring framework and not the Enterprise Java Beans (EJB) framework. So there is no dependency on JBoss or any other application server, which provides EJB container. Spring is an open source application framework for Java/JEE. The Alfresco repository uses the Spring Framework as the core foundation of its architecture. If you are developing a standalone application, then Tomcat might be a good option. Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale and mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations. It is the most widely-accepted web application server in the market. On the other hand you must consider using the JBoss application server, which has the highest market capture (> 35 percent) in J2EE-based application servers in the world. JBoss internally uses Tomcat and hence you get the benets of Tomcat servlet engine as well. Alfresco utilizes JBoss cache's ability to distribute and maintain data caches, making it possible to build large-scale systems that outperform traditional enterprise content management systems. Alfresco also utilizes the clustering, failover, and load balancing facilities of the JBoss application server to increase scalability. Alfresco's business process management features are powered by the JBoss jBPM tool. If you have already invested in JBoss, then Alfresco provides complementary industry-leading enterprise content management technology to the JBoss enterprise middleware system suite. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Chapter 2 [ 29 ] Portals (optional): JBoss portal, Liferay It is optional for you to go with a portal of your choice; if you already have an enterprise portal, you can integrate Alfresco with it. If you do not have a portal in place and you would like to leverage the portal framework, then you can consider using either JBoss portal or Liferay portal. Both of these are based on J2EE technology; both of them are open source and open standards-based and both of them have Alfresco built-in support. JBoss Portal provides an open source platform for hosting and serving a portal's web interface, publishing and managing its content, and customizing its experience. Although most packaged portal frameworks help enterprises launch portals more quickly, only JBoss Portal delivers the benets of a zero-cost, open source license combined with a exible and scalable underlying platform. Liferay is the most downloaded and popular open source portal with 40,000 downloads per month. It runs on top of any J2EE servlet such as Tomcat. So a full installation of JBoss is not required, but it can run against most full application servers out of the box, including JBoss, JRun, BEA, WebLogic, and Orion. It has a full set of web service interfaces to the portal. Liferay supports more than 800 portlets (products) and has a wider adoption in the market. Choosing a suitable software for your installation You need to make the best choice of software to install Alfresco. If you do not have any specic requirements, you might consider a complete open source stack for production usage and go with Alfresco Enterprise Edition on the Linux operating system with a MySQL database running on a JBoss application server with Liferay Portal. The examples in this book were created and tested with the following choice of Alfresco installation: • Eclipse • Alfresco Community Edition • Operating System: Windows XP • Database: MySQL 5 • Application server: Tomcat 6 • JDK 5 • Portal: None Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Installation and Conguration [ 30 ] Eclipse installation As we will be using Eclipse as a development tool for this book, in this section we will talk about the installation of Eclipse. Download the Eclipse Europa for Java/ J2EE developers from: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/ downloads/release/europa/winter/eclipse-java-europa-winter-win32.zip . Conguring the project for development In this section, we will learn to set up the development environment for any Alfresco WCM project. We will see how we can congure a project in Eclipse. Open Eclipse by double-clicking on the Eclipse icon. It will ask you to select the workspace. Create a new folder called bookworkspace and browse to that folder when asked for the workspace. Eclipse will now start. Now we need to set up a new project for the book in Eclipse. Go to File | New | Project. 1. Select Java | Java Project in the New Project wizard. Click on Next. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> Chapter 2 [ 31 ] 2. In the next screen, provide the Project name as wcmbook and choose the Create new project in workspace option. Click on Next. 3. Make sure you have wcmbook/bin in the Default Output folder in the next screen and then click on Finish. Download from Wow! eBook <www.wowebook.com> . Tomcat powers numerous large-scale and mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations. It is the most widely-accepted web application server in the. successful. Alfresco WCM Alfresco is built on state-of-the-art open source components such as Spring, Hibernate, Lucene, and JSF—often the components of choice for website developers today. It offers one. from: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/ downloads/release/europa/winter/eclipse-java-europa-winter-win32.zip . Conguring the project for development In this section, we will learn to