09 Jan

Step by step installation of Alfresco Community 4.2.c on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS minimal 64bit… please, no bundle!

In this post is shared the installation of Alfresco Community 4.2.c on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS minimal 64bit with Apache Tomcat 7.0.30 and PostgreSQL 9.0.4. The purpose installation is not the bundle installation but a more “robust” for an enterprise configuration. As we like and prefer the installation is a step by step list of commands and tasks… simpler to understand, to do and to test. Hope you’ll be agree.

Before stating…

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get purge openjdk-*
adduser alfresco

Enter new UNIX password: alfresco

adduser postgres

Enter new UNIX password: postgres

sudo adduser alfresco sudo
sudo adduser postgres sudo
su – alfresco
sudo mkdir -p /opt/alfresco
sudo chown alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco
sudo mkdir -p /opt/postgresql
sudo chown postgres:postgres /opt/postgresql

JDK 1.7u7

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/java
Get ‘jdk-7u7-linux-x64.tar.gz’ in ‘/opt/alfresco/java’ with owner alfresco (use chown command) and ‘execute’ permits (use chmod command).
tar xvzf jdk-7u7-linux-x64.tar.gz
chown -R alfresco:alfresco jdk1.7.0_07
rm -rf jdk-7u7-linux-x64.tar.gz
sudo nano /etc/profile.d/java.sh

export JAVA_HOME=/opt/alfresco/java/jdk1.7.0_07
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin

Exit
su – alfresco
java -version
javac -version

ImageMagick

sudo apt-get install ghostscript
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
whereis convert
convert –version

FFMpeg

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
whereis ffmpeg
ffmpeg

LibreOffice

sudo apt-get install libreoffice
whereis soffice
soffice –version (suggested v3.5)

SWFTools

sudo apt-get install libart-2.0-2 libjpeg62 libgif-dev
wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/43569089/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
chmod a+x swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
rm -rf swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
pdf2swf –version
whereis pdf2swf

PostgreSQL 9.0.4

su – postgres
cd /opt/postgresql
wget ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.0.4/postgresql-9.0.4.tar.gz
chmod a+x postgresql-9.0.4.tar.gz
gunzip postgresql-9.0.4.tar.gz
tar xvf postgresql-9.0.4.tar
rm -rf postgresql-9.0.4.tar
sudo apt-get install gcc libreadline-dev bison flex zlib1g-dev make
mkdir /opt/postgresql/9.0.4
cd /opt/postgresql/postgresql-9.0.4/
./configure exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
make exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
sudo make install exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
sudo chown -R postgres:postgres /opt/postgresql/9.0.4
mkdir /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data
mkdir /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/log
nano /home/postgres/.environment-9.0.4

#!/bin/sh

export POSTGRESQL_VERSION=9.0.4
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/lib
export PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/bin:${PATH}

chmod a+x /home/postgres/.environment-9.0.4
/home/postgres/.environment-9.0.4
/opt/postgresql/9.0.4/bin/initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data/ –encoding=UNICODE
nano /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4

#!/bin/sh -e

# Parameters: start or stop.
export POSTGRESQL_VERSION=9.0.4

# Check parameter.
if [ "$1" != "start" ] && [ "$1" != "stop" ]; then
  echo "Specify start or stop as first parameter."
  exit
fi

# Add stop switch.
__STOP_SWITCH=""
if [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
  __STOP_MODE="smart"
  __STOP_SWITCH="-m $__STOP_MODE"
  echo "Stop switch is: $__STOP_SWITCH"
fi

# Do it.
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/lib
~/.environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}
/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/bin/pg_ctl 
     -D /opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/data 
     -l /opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/log/postgresql.log 
     $1 $__STOP_SWITCH

The command ‘~/.environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}’ could not work. Use ‘. .environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}’ instead.
chmod a+x /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4
exit
sudo nano /etc/init.d/postgresql.9.0.4

#!/bin/sh -e

case "$1" in

 start)
  echo "Starting postgres"
  /bin/su - postgres -c "/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4 start"
  ;;
 stop)
  echo "Stopping postgres"
  /bin/su - postgres -c "/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4 stop"
  ;;
 * )
  echo "Usage: service postgresql-9.0.4 {start|stop}"
  exit 1

esac

exit 0

sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/postgresql.9.0.4
service postgresql.9.0.4 start

Schema creation (user: alfresco, password: alfresco, schema: alfresco)

su – postgres
. .environment-9.0.4
psql
CREATE ROLE alfresco WITH PASSWORD ‘alfresco’ LOGIN;
CREATE DATABASE alfresco WITH OWNER alfresco;
ctrl+d
psql -U alfresco -d alfresco
ALTER USER alfresco WITH PASSWORD ‘alfresco’;
ctrl+d
exit.

Tomcat 7.0.30

http://tomcat.apache.org/

cd /opt/alfresco
Download ‘Tomcat 7.0’ -> Quick Navigation -> Archives -> 7.0.30 -> bin -> apache-tomcat-7.0.30.tar.gz
wget http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.30/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.30.tar.gz
chmod a+x apache-tomcat-7.0.30.tar.gz
tar -xvf apache-tomcat-7.0.30.tar.gz
rm -rf apache-tomcat-7.0.30.tar.gz
mv apache-tomcat-7.0.30 /opt/alfresco/tomcat
/opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/startup.sh
ps -ef | grep java or http://localhost:8080 on the browser
/opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties.orig
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties
Add ‘shared.loader=${catalina.base}/shared/classes,${catalina.base}/shared/lib/*.jar’
cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml.orig
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml
Add ‘URIEncoding=”UTF-8″‘ to ‘<Connector port=”8080″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″…’.
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/context.xml
Add:

<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SSLAuthenticator" securePagesWithPragma="false" />

Alfresco 4.2.c

mkdir /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared
mkdir /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes
mkdir /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/lib
mkdir /opt/alfresco/tomcat/endorsed
wget http://dl.alfresco.com/release/community/build-04576/alfresco-community-4.2.c.zip
chmod a+x alfresco-community-4.2.c.zip
sudo apt-get install unzip
unzip alfresco-community-4.2.c.zip
mv web-server/endorsed/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/endorsed
mv web-server/shared/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared
mv web-server/lib/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/lib
mv web-server/webapps/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/
rm -rf README.txt
rm -R web-server/
rm -rf alfresco-community-4.2.c.zip
nano /opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh

#!/bin/sh -e

SOFFICE_ROOT=/usr/bin
"${SOFFICE_ROOT}/soffice" "--accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager" --nologo --headless &

chmod uga+x /opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh
/opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh
killall soffice.bin
nano /opt/alfresco/alfresco.sh

#!/bin/sh -e

# Start or stop Alfresco server

# Set the following to where Tomcat is installed
ALF_HOME=/opt/alfresco
cd "$ALF_HOME"
APPSERVER="${ALF_HOME}/tomcat"
export CATALINA_HOME="$APPSERVER"

# Set any default JVM values
export JAVA_OPTS='-Xms512m -Xmx768m -Xss768k -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -XX:NewSize=256m -server'
export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dalfresco.home=${ALF_HOME} -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote"

if [ "$1" = "start" ]; then
 "${APPSERVER}/bin/startup.sh"
 if [ -r ./start_oo.sh ]; then
  "${ALF_HOME}/start_oo.sh"
 fi
elif [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
 "${APPSERVER}/bin/shutdown.sh"
 killall -u alfresco java
 killall -u alfresco soffice.bin
fi

chmod uga+x /opt/alfresco/alfresco.sh
sudo nano /etc/init.d/alfresco

#!/bin/sh -e

ALFRESCO_SCRIPT="/opt/alfresco/alfresco.sh"

if [ "$1" = "start" ]; then
 su - alfresco "${ALFRESCO_SCRIPT}" "start"
elif [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
 su - alfresco "${ALFRESCO_SCRIPT}" "stop"
elif [ "$1" = "restart" ]; then
 su - alfresco "${ALFRESCO_SCRIPT}" "stop"
 su - alfresco "${ALFRESCO_SCRIPT}" "start"
else
 echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/alfresco [start|stop|restart]"
fi

sudo chmod uga+x /etc/init.d/alfresco
sudo chown alfresco:alfresco /etc/init.d/alfresco
mkdir /opt/alfresco/alf_data
cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties.sample /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties

dir.root=/opt/alfresco/alf_data
#IMPORTANT: comment dir.keystore

db.username=alfresco
db.password=alfresco

db.schema.update=true

db.driver=org.postgresql.Driver
db.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/alfresco

index.recovery.mode=AUTO

authentication.chain=alfrescoNtlm1:alfrescoNtlm

alfresco.rmi.services.host=0.0.0.0

service alfresco start
tail -f /opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/catalina.out -c 10000

Configure optional (but important) services

service alfresco stop
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties

#
# External locations
#-------------
# OpenOffice
ooo.exe=/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin
ooo.enabled=false
jodconverter.officeHome=/usr/lib/libreoffice
jodconverter.portNumbers=8100
jodconverter.enabled=true
# ImageMagick installation
img.root=/usr/share/doc/imagemagick
img.exe=/usr/bin/convert
# SWFTools exe
swf.exe=/usr/bin/pdf2swf

118 thoughts on “Step by step installation of Alfresco Community 4.2.c on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS minimal 64bit… please, no bundle!”

Pat - 5th Apr 2013 at 4:26 pm

It appears that there are some missing steps in the PostgreSQL install section. The directories are created, but the unzipped/untarred source code is never moved, built, or installed. The rest of the postgresql steps won’t work until it is installed in the custom /opt/postgresql/X.X.X directory.

Have you installed the sharepoint protocol manually before? That is the next step on my setup so I can test with MS office support for clients.

Once the alfresco server is built, an upgrade/maintenance guide would be really helpful to patch all of the manually installed/configured software and services that aren’t maintained by ubuntu/apt.

I would be happy to test it out and help debug.

Great guide and thanks for the help on your site.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 6th Apr 2013 at 6:29 am
  
  Hi Pat,
  
  Thank you for your feedback.
  
  Why you say “…the unzipped/untarred source code is never moved, built, or installed…”?
  If I understand what you say, should be these commands:
  ./configure exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
  make exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
  sudo make install exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.0.4
  
  Your it’s a good idea to develop the guide to install the sharepoint protocol module and the upgrade/maintenance guide. Why don’t you help me also in the production of the guide? If interested, write me privately.
  
  Reply
  - Pat - 7th Apr 2013 at 3:59 am
    
    Sorry – I missed those commands for some reason. I got them working but am double-checking some of the service configurations as my system won’t start it properly – I will have to restore my snapshot and give it another go.
    
    If I get a chance to figure out the SPP module, I will let you know. I’m going to dig into the specific configurations using the bundle and copy them into the custom configuration.
    
    Thanks for the correction.
    
    Reply
  - Elio - 3rd Feb 2014 at 2:32 pm
    
    Hi Francesco,
    
    I folllow up the step by step for my 32 bits ubuntu.
    Everything is OK and funtioning at the end of the tutorial but wen I restart the server the postgresql and alfresco services didn’t start automatically also when starting from the console, they always ask me the password.
    
    Any help will be very appreciated 😉
    
    Best Regards,
    Elio
    
    Reply
    - Francesco Corti - 3rd Feb 2014 at 2:37 pm
      
      Hi Elio,
      
      This is correct.
      To start Postgres and Alfresco at reboot you have to set the file in /etc/rc.local with ‘service postgres start’ and ‘service alfresco start’.
      Starting it using the console, it’s correct to digit the password.
      
      I hope this help you.
      
      Reply
Mahardhika Gilang - 10th Apr 2013 at 4:17 am

I should make it clear on line
/opt/postgresql/9.0.4/bin/initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data/ –encoding=UNICODE
it used double stript –encoding not -encoding
since i’ve got stuck in this, just to make it clear, cheers

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 10th Apr 2013 at 6:48 am
  
  Thank you for the contribution Mahardhik.
  
  Reply
Bigbrovar - 15th May 2013 at 1:29 pm

Thanks for the doc. Just wondering. Why not use the postgres in the repo why did you have to compile one from source? can this guide work with installing posgres from the repos? I can understand that the version of tomcat shipped with ubuntu is always skewed but never know the same to be the case with postgres

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 15th May 2013 at 2:08 pm
  
  Hi Bigbrovar,
  
  Thank you for the feedback.
  You are not the first with this question and of course is a good question.
  The answer is my preference for the postgresql’s installation starting from the sources because I feel more “control” over it.
  Alfresco works perfectly even with the apt-get installation.
  
  Reply
Juan - 31st May 2013 at 8:06 pm

Tanks!!
Notes:
You need execute . .environment-9.0.4 in the postgres home directory (/home/postgres)
after you need initialite the bd with: initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data/ to create the configuration file. (this location is the defined in script)
The logs are crated in /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/log/postgresql.log

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 31st May 2013 at 8:31 pm
  
  Thank you Juan.
  
  Reply
sweet_geek - 17th Jun 2013 at 1:50 pm

hi
i got two error:
1.when i type /home/postgres/.environment,nothing happen.is it normal?even when i am trying to use ‘. .environment-9.0.4’ it isn’t working.
2.when i type psql,i have tis error:
psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
Is the server running locally and accepting
connections on Unix domain socket “/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432”?
help!

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 17th Jun 2013 at 2:41 pm
  
  Hi,
  
  1. Yes, it’s ok if you don’t receive any result on the terminal. This is because the script “only” set the environment.
  
  2. Please check you are connected as postgres user when you execute the psql command. Did you init the postgresql database with the initdb command?
  
  Please, let us know how you will solve the problem.
  
  Reply
  - sweet_geek - 17th Jun 2013 at 4:21 pm
    
    thx for the quick answer!
    i am connected as postgres user
    when i type /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/bin/initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data/ –encoding=UNICODE
    i have this :
    
    The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user “postgres”.
    This user must also own the server process.
    
    The database cluster will be initialized with locale fr_FR.UTF-8.
    The default database encoding has accordingly been set to UTF8.
    The default text search configuration will be set to “french”.
    
    initdb: directory “–encoding=UNICODE” exists but is not empty
    If you want to create a new database system, either remove or empty
    the directory “–encoding=UNICODE” or run initdb
    with an argument other than “–encoding=UNICODE”.
    (sorry for my english,i speak french)
    
    Reply
    - Francesco Corti - 17th Jun 2013 at 4:28 pm
      
      Hi,
      
      Seems you have the postgres database already created.
      Before launch the initdb, please remove it (or rename it). 🙂
      
      (don’t worry for your english, I’m italian 😉 )
      
      Reply
- elvis - 29th Apr 2014 at 5:16 pm
  
  Hi, I have also this error (psql: could not connect … …PGSQL.5432). With pgAdminIII I can correcty connect to DB but from localhost I always have this error.
  Log file is empty.
  In postgresql.conf I have:
  unix_socket_directories = ‘/opt/postgresql/9.3.4/data’
  
  Reply
sweet_geek - 17th Jun 2013 at 4:52 pm

how?i am new 🙂

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 17th Jun 2013 at 5:57 pm
  
  🙂
  I suggest you to install the pgadmin3 that is a graphical interface to administer postgresql. Is the easiest way. 😉
  
  Reply
Vic Berdin - 17th Jul 2013 at 8:56 am

Hi everyone,

Not sure if it’s only me but, where’s the part where alfresco DB tables were created? I am expecting “an import from dump” step. But there’s no such step! How are you guys able to create all of the system DB schema and tables?
I have installed the Windows variant and its running. Is it Ok if I just create a dump and import from it?
TIA for any info!

– vic

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 17th Jul 2013 at 9:28 am
  
  Hi Vic,
  
  During its installation, Alfresco needs only the empty DB schema. During the very first bootstrap it creates everything is requested to work properly.
  
  This is the reason why in the ‘alfresco-global.properties’ file the ‘db.schema.update’ is set to ‘true’. Usually, after the installation with success, this property is set to ‘false’ to prevent from unexpected modification of the DB schema.
  
  Thank you for the question, Vic, because I believe that is a very common doubt.
  
  PS: Of course this is valid for all the supported versions of Operating Systems and Databases.
  
  Reply
MorgzIQ - 17th Jul 2013 at 10:31 am

Hi Francesco,

I’ve followed all the instructions …and managed to set everything up.

However, I get the following error when trying to shutdown tomcat:

alfresco@athena:/opt/alfresco$ /opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
Using CATALINA_BASE: /opt/alfresco/tomcat
Using CATALINA_HOME: /opt/alfresco/tomcat
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/alfresco/tomcat/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /opt/alfresco/java/jdk1.7.0_25
Using CLASSPATH: /opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Jul 16, 2013 5:18:02 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina stopServer
SEVERE: Catalina.stop:
java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:339)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:200)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:182)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:579)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:528)
at java.net.Socket.(Socket.java:425)
at java.net.Socket.(Socket.java:208)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.stopServer(Catalina.java:499)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.stopServer(Bootstrap.java:371)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:453)

Any Advice on how I can solve this?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 17th Jul 2013 at 1:12 pm
  
  Hi MorgzIQ,
  
  Seems to be the alfresco schema not reachable.
  I suggest you to try to connect from the alfresco user on the server from the command line. I think the connection will be refused and you have to modify the postrgres’s permissions.
  
  Hope this will help you.
  
  Reply
MorgzIQ - 17th Jul 2013 at 1:30 pm

Hi Francesco,

Thanks for the prompt response.

I haven’t really used postgresql that extensively…

I used the command below which signed me into the db server:
“psql -U alfresco -d alfresco”

However, I’m a bit sceptical about my “Access privileges” settings…

The following code is a result of a “list” command (so that I can view my access privileges)… Is there anything that I’m missing? (Thanks in advance)

Should my “access privileges” have any values?

alfresco=> list
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding | Collate | Ctype | Access privileges
———–+———-+———-+————-+————-+———————–
alfresco | alfresco | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 |
postgres | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 |
template0 | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | =c/postgres +
| | | | | postgres=CTc/postgres
template1 | postgres | UTF8 | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | =c/postgres +
| | | | | postgres=CTc/postgres
(4 rows)

alfresco=>

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 17th Jul 2013 at 2:24 pm
  
  Hi,
  
  Yes, I see that everything is well set.
  Did you run the ‘psql’ command as alfresco user in Ubuntu?
  Most of the times it’s because the alfresco user that run the service has not the right permits.
  
  If you want to go ahead with the discussion (and I’ll support you), please, move the request into the Alfresco forum and post the thread here… I’ll follow you. 😉
  
  Thank you again MorgzIQ. 🙂
  
  Reply
Gonçalo Gusmão - 22nd Jul 2013 at 8:33 pm

I’m very new to ubuntu, and linux
I’m getting this error w
root@ubuntu:/opt/postgresql/postgresql-9.2.4# /opt/postgresql/9.2.4/bin/initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.2.4/data/ -encoding=UNICODE
/opt/postgresql/9.2.4/bin/initdb: invalid option — ‘e’
Try “initdb –help” for more information.

do you any idea what’s going on, everything else seemed to go along fine

Nice how to, thanks a lot

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 22nd Jul 2013 at 8:43 pm
  
  Hi Gonçalo,
  
  Thank you for your feedback.
  For sure your problem is a typing error in the command.
  For example, please check if some spaces are present between the minus and the ‘e’ character.
  
  Reply
Jean-Pierre Buttet - 26th Aug 2013 at 6:17 pm

Hi Franceso,

First of all, let me thank you for this tutorial. It’s really of information that I appreciate.

Please find hereafter some of my comments that I hope will be helpful at least for beginners:

*Before starting*
You wrote: ” su – alfresco ” y suggest ‘su – alfresco’

*PostgreSQL9.0.4*

You wrote:
/opt/postgresql/9.0.4/bin/initdb -D /opt/postgresql/9.0.4/data/ –encoding=UNICODE

If one copy and paste this command into a terminal, it leads to an error. For me it made a new directory called –encoding=UNICODE in /home/postgres/ directory. This is the reason my database did not start at all.

I suggest to replace ‘ –encoding=UNICODE’ with –encoding=UNICODE’

You wrote: CREATE ROLE alfresco WITH PASSWORD ‘alfresco’ LOGIN;

I suggest to replace ‘alfresco’ with ‘alfresco’ … it looks the same but it is not. It’s easy to see the difference when you copy and past into a terminal. Beginner who copy and paste the command into a terminal will have errors without this correction.

You wrote: ALTER USER alfresco WITH PASSWORD ‘alfresco’;

Same comment replace ‘alfresco’ with ‘alfresco’

*Tomcat 7.0.30*

You wrote : Add ‘URIEncoding=”UTF-8″‘ to ‘<Connector port=”8080″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″

I suggest to replace ”UTF-8″ with "UTF-8" and ”8080″ with "8080"

Last comment: My Catalina.out mentioned that some office process couldn't start .. this was due to the fact that in the the owner of the file /home/alfresco/.config was root and not alfresco. I changed the owner back to alfresco (chown -vR) and the process could start properly.

Now I could manually install and start alfresco server properly thanks to you tutorial. Thanks again.

Jean-Pierre Buttet
Greetings from Switzerland.

Reply
- Jean-Pierre Buttet - 26th Aug 2013 at 6:56 pm
  
  be careful, looks like the website doesn’t display correctortely the characters like ‘ or ” or — that are used in the commands. If one copy and paste these commands into a terminal, its better to check those characters. For instance if you write a double – the website displays one long – instead.
  
  Best regards.
  JP Buttet
  
  Reply
  - Francesco Corti - 27th Aug 2013 at 9:58 pm
    
    Hi Jean-Pierre,
    
    Thank you for your feedback.
    I’m sure that the junior skilled audience will definetely appreciate your comments.
    Unfortunately, as you can see, wordpress.com does not permit a full control and I plan to move the blog in a private installation to solve even those problems.
    Until then, you comments will help for sure… thanks again.
    
    Reply
traductionbiz - 20th Sep 2013 at 10:16 am

Hi Francesco,

Thanks for your really-useful Alfresco coverage.

What ports on the IP address does one need to open in the firewall for everything to work OK? (Notably, for the SharePoint extension to work.)

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 20th Sep 2013 at 10:23 am
  
  Hi,
  
  Thank you for the feedback.
  
  In this tutorial Alfresco runs on the port 8080 but you can easily manage this from the configuration files.
  
  This configuration causes the url to be http://myserver.com:8080/share so I always configure this from the server using those commands.
  
  sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 80 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 8080
  sudo sh -c “iptables-save > /etc/iptables.rules”
  sudo nano /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/iptablesload
  #!/bin/sh
  iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.rules
  exit 0
  sudo chmod +x /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/iptablesload
  
  With this configuration, the used port is the 80 (the default one). This configuration causes the url to be http://myserver.com/share, more standard.
  
  Finally, in your firewall you can open the port 80 to make everything work correctly.
  
  Hope this help.
  
  Reply
tqwhite - 9th Oct 2013 at 11:16 pm

Huge compliments on this tutorial. I just executed the entire process and have nothing but praise and appreciation.

I would like to ask you for one more thing, though, a final startup and demonstration correct function section.

As it is, the instructions end with alfresco stopped, tomcat stopped, postgresql stopped. I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t have any idea what it takes to get the whole thing running. I don’t know how to get alfresco and this setup, to say, Hello World.

In the meantime, though, thank you very much for this. It was clearly took a lot of work and generosity.

best,
TQ White II

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 10th Oct 2013 at 7:58 am
  
  Hei, thank you for your (appreciated) feedback.
  
  To make everything run and have a first approach you can execute ‘service alfresco start’.
  
  After that, you can execute ‘tail -f /opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/catalina.out’ to see the process running until the final message is shown (you recognize because will be something like ‘INFO: Server startup in XXXX ms’).
  
  Please, check you have no errors in the log because otherwise I suggest you to understand, solve and remove them.
  
  If everything is correct, Alfresco is up and running and you can access to the ‘http://localhost:8080/share’ to start to use it.
  
  Hope this help.
  
  Reply
  - tqwhite - 10th Oct 2013 at 5:28 pm
    
    Let me add to your final startup note…
    
    Step One: log in as user ‘alfresco’
    Step Two: service alfresco start
    
    Verify with: tail -f /opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/catalina.out
    
    (I know. I’m an idiot but I was logged in as root and the errors do not make the solution obvious.)
    
    Thanks a ton, though. Your instruction was very helpful.
    
    Reply
Francesco Corti - 10th Oct 2013 at 5:37 pm

You are welcome… 🙂
Beware of executing Alfresco as root… this causes lots of problems because generates some misconfigurations in the server. 😉
Thank you again for your feedback.

Reply
Tiziano - 22nd Oct 2013 at 10:14 am

Hello! Francesco, thank you very much for this tutorial.
Now i have a problem installing postgresql. I’ve followed all the steps but, when i try to start postgresql with “service postgresql.9.0.4 start” the terminal return me:
Starting postgres
/home/postgre/postgresql-9.0.4: 7: /home/postgre/postgresql-9.0.4: if[start : not found
Specify start or stop as first parameter

I’ve checked all path, they are correct. Is there some missing part in the postgresql configuration like a start switch or the problem is caused by something else?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 22nd Oct 2013 at 10:22 am
  
  Ciao Tiziano,
  
  The problem you have seems to be in the script syntax. In particular before an ‘if’ command.
  Please, double check the content of the ‘/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4’ script.
  
  Hope this will help you.
  
  Reply
Tiziano - 22nd Oct 2013 at 5:45 pm

Thank you very much! You are very helpfull! 🙂

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 22nd Oct 2013 at 5:48 pm
  
  Thank you for the feedback.
  
  Reply
tqwhite - 29th Oct 2013 at 4:11 pm

I executed your script from root on a freshly created (DigitalOcean) server instance. When I started alfresco, I got severe errors that I fixed by changing permissions and ownerships in a few places. IE,

chown alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps
chown alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco/tomcat/work/Catalina/localhost
chmod 777 /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/Catalina

I actually tried ownership on the last item, too, and it did not work. That makes me think it should be owned by someone I don’t know.

Once done, I got no more severe errors but it appears that the startup is hung. The last message that shows in the log is:

Oct 28, 2013 11:53:02 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext

I suspect that whatever was trying to happen next tried to access something but wasn’t smart enough to issue a severe warning.

I am going to execute your procedure from the alfresco account since changing to that ownership helped. That’s going to take some time and, considering that you’re on the other side of the planet, I thought I’d see if any of this information inspired you with advice.

As always, thanks for your help here. It’s a very generous thing to do.

Sincerely,
TQ White II

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 29th Oct 2013 at 4:54 pm
  
  Hi TQ,
  
  Your is always a problem of permits on the folders or of the executing account.
  I recommend you to follow the tutorial in terms of users used for the execution of the several commands because this is very important.
  
  Hope this help you.
  
  Reply
  - tqwhite - 29th Oct 2013 at 11:32 pm
    
    Definitely it was permissions. Whatever it is about the WordPress and hyphens screwed me good on the “su – alfresco”.
    
    I’m still not up (listeners trouble) so I may ask again after I’ve debugged for awhile but, thanks.
    
    Reply
- tqwhite - 29th Oct 2013 at 4:58 pm
  
  New detail from doing it all again.
  
  I am using copy/paste for most of these commands. When I copied
  
  su – alfresco
  
  My shell replied with:
  
  Unknown id: –
  
  I don’t think I noticed the error before. When I typed it by hand, it worked fine.
  
  Reply
  - Francesco Corti - 29th Oct 2013 at 9:48 pm
    
    Thank you for the information.
    Something else told me about this issue and this is because of wordpress… unfortunately I cannot do nothing to avoid this.
    
    Reply
Pedro Maldonado - 1st Nov 2013 at 11:04 pm

Francesco, thank you for a very thorough step by step.. Had some trouble with permissions but now it seems running perfect. Only problem is I can’t login as admin… Any suggestions? I’ve tried admin, admin still, nothing.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 2nd Nov 2013 at 10:34 am
  
  Hi Pedro,
  
  Thank you for the feedback.
  
  Unfortunately, even if you see the login page it doesn’t means that Alfresco is working correctly.
  Infact, you can’t login into the system because Alfresco doesn’t run correctly.
  
  In these cases you can look at the log with the command:
  tail -f -c 10000 /opt/alfresco/tomcat/log/catalina.out
  And I suppose there you will find many SEVERE errors inside.
  
  Pay a lot of attention to the permissions because they are always a reason of problems.
  
  Hope this will help you.
  
  Reply
Martin Dunn - 14th Nov 2013 at 7:42 pm

Do you have a startup script for this installation? Mine is running very nicely, but I’d prefer everything to auto start on boot.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 14th Nov 2013 at 8:36 pm
  
  Hi Martin,
  
  Are you talking about the script that starts Alfresco at bootstrap?
  
  If yes, you can add the lines below to the ‘rc.local’ file:
  service postgresql.9.0.4 start
  service alfresco start
  
  Alternatively you can create a new file named ‘/etc/init.d/rebootAlfresco.sh’ with inside the same two lines described before.
  
  Reply
gopei77 - 8th Jan 2014 at 11:59 am

hallo, Francesco …. I am henry from Indonesia. I have studied the alfresco of July 2013. But I’ve installed from the bundled version 4.2.c at 12:04 ubuntu server 64-bit. Once I found this blog, and before I follow this guide, is for version alfresco-community-4.2.c.zip can be changed with version 4.2.e??? thanks … cheers (sory my bad english)

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 8th Jan 2014 at 12:13 pm
  
  Hi Henry,
  
  Your is a good question!
  
  The installation process of Alfresco 4.2.e is the same, so you can follow this post. For sure the versions of the packages are changed but I think this you will not find some kind of problems.
  
  I would like to update this post to the newest Alfresco version… I hope in the next future.
  
  Cheers.
  
  Reply
  - gopei77 - 16th Jan 2014 at 1:43 pm
    
    hi Fran,… i’ve got stuck in here ….
    
    alfresco@develop-01:~$ service postgresql.9.0.4 start
    Starting postgres
    Password:…..
    /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: 22: /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: ..environment-9.0.4: not found
    
    nano /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4 :
    
    # Do it.
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/lib
    ..environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}
    /opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/bin/pg_ctl
    
    is this oke ?? ( ..environment-bla bla bla bla ) ? why ..environment-9.0.4: not found ??? thanks Fran
    
    Reply
Francesco Corti - 16th Jan 2014 at 1:47 pm

Hi gopey77,

Pay attention to the space between the two dots in the ‘. .environment-9.0.4’ command.

Reply
- gopei77 - 16th Jan 2014 at 4:12 pm
  
  thank a lot Fran,… i’ll try this at home….
  
  Reply
- gopei77 - 2nd Jul 2014 at 11:51 am
  
  Hai Fran,… did you ever been installed your own SSL Certificate (like geotrust, comodo, verisign, or etc..) in alfresco ???… how can i get to this step by step tutorial for install and configuration ???? thanks a lot… sory my bad english. thanks again.
  
  Reply
  - Francesco Corti - 2nd Jul 2014 at 7:07 pm
    
    Yes, sure.
    It’s easy: I suggest you to install the SSL Certificate in the Apache Servlet as usual. You can find several tutorial in internet to understand how.
    I hope this will help you.
    
    Reply
Andre - 21st Jan 2014 at 1:19 pm

Thx Francesco! After 5 Days with Different Docu´s i have finally found one which is working! Greets from Germany 😉

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 21st Jan 2014 at 1:25 pm
  
  Thank you Andre!
  Keep calm and use Alfresco. 😉
  Greetings from Italy. 🙂
  
  Reply
matthew - 21st Jan 2014 at 1:20 pm

Hi There

I am using ubuntu server 12.04, 64 bit.
I assume that all of this will work on my, 64 bit, version.

But I cannot install the i386 version of swftools. Is there a url I could use to get a 64 bit version, from the same launchpad librarian directory?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 21st Jan 2014 at 1:28 pm
  
  Hi Matthew,
  
  The problem you have is the most common because swftools are quite old releases.
  Always check the pdf2swf executable is installed.
  
  Coming to your question; I always use the link you read in the article. An alternative is to search in google.
  If you will find something that works, please share.
  
  Reply
Elio - 3rd Feb 2014 at 2:39 pm

Hi Francesco !

I followed the steps and it have a happy end 😉 so my alfresco is running but…
When I rebooted the server the postgres and alfresco services di not start automatically also when starting from the console, they always ask me the password.
There is a way to make the service start at boot time and they do not ask for password ?

Any help will be very appreciated !

Best regards and many thanks…

Reply
Elio - 3rd Feb 2014 at 5:54 pm

Hi Francesco !

Problem solved :-)) I added a LSB init script to alfresco and postgresql to start on init and run a update-rc.d.

Thanks again for the tutorial !

Regards,
Elio

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 3rd Feb 2014 at 5:59 pm
  
  Good job Elio!
  
  Reply
  - Elio - 5th Feb 2014 at 11:28 am
    
    Hi Francesco !
    
    I need to secure your (mine too?) alfresco installation with a self signed ssl cert.
    Could you put me some guidelines to make it happens ? May be you have done before and wrote some notes about it 😉
    
    Thanks a lot !
    
    Regards,
    Elio
    
    Reply
Francesco Corti - 5th Feb 2014 at 11:33 am

You have to add the SSL cert to the tomcat application server in the way you usually do it for other web app.

Reply
Elio - 20th Feb 2014 at 4:07 pm

Hi Francesco !

I did the SSL integration and after that I can login to https://IP/alfresco but not to https://IP/share (the login page appear but after submit the admin credentials I get Server Error page)

Do you have any clue, advice, tip, solution ?

Any help will be appreciated !

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,
Elio

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 20th Feb 2014 at 11:10 pm
  
  Hi Elio,
  
  I have installed SSL several times without the problem you have.
  HTTPS is not related to the path alfresco or share.
  
  I suggest you to check the alfresco-global.properties file in the share…. params.
  Take a look here: http://svn.alfresco.com/repos/alfresco-open-mirror/alfresco/HEAD/root/projects/repository/config/alfresco-global.properties.sample
  
  Reply
Giuseppe Castellani - 24th Feb 2014 at 12:12 pm

Hi Francesco,

Many thanks for your great tutorials both on Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64bit and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS minimal 64bit. Everything is working just fine apart for a problem I had on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS minimal 64bit with “File Server Errors – BindException: Permission denied” which I fixed by following the related troubleshooting on https://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Troubleshooting.

Kind regards,

G.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 24th Feb 2014 at 12:24 pm
  
  Ciao Giuseppe,
  
  Thank you for the feedback.
  
  Reply
Erick Mendonça - 25th Feb 2014 at 10:21 pm

After some trouble, I did it! Thanks Francesco 🙂
Some erros are showing up on the log, I’ll study and comment about it later.

Reply
Lorenzo Gaggini - 27th Feb 2014 at 5:20 pm

Hi Francesco,

heavily inspired by your great tutorial, but for rpm-based distributions only (for the moment), I make an Ansible playbook to install an alfresco environment, no bundle 🙂

It’s currently under testing and debugging but it could works, available on Github at: https://github.com/libersoft/ansible-alfresco

Best regards.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 27th Feb 2014 at 5:48 pm
  
  Grande Lorenzo!
  (this is an italian comment)
  
  Let me know when it will be released and I’ll write a post on it.
  I would like to use it! 😉
  
  Reply
elvis - 2nd Apr 2014 at 3:06 pm

Hi,
I have read somewhere that Lucene is a better choice against solr and that this installation mode is more stable.
I have installed Alfresco yet with all in bundle .deb file but I’m trying to reinstall following these instructions.
Is there a tutorial about installation of Lucene and integratation of Ms Office?
Thank you (for this tutorial too)

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 2nd Apr 2014 at 6:46 pm
  
  Hi elvis,
  This tutorial include the installation with lucene.
  If you want to change the engine you can follow lots of tutorials, for example this: http://deepak-keswani.blogspot.it/2012/12/how-to-disable-solr-enable-lucene-on.html
  The integration with MS Office is using the Sharepoint protocol.
  Cheers.
  
  Reply
  - elvis - 3rd Apr 2014 at 9:46 am
    
    I will try (I’m not a programmer).
    Many thanks, for now…
    
    Reply
elvis - 9th Apr 2014 at 9:49 am

Ciao,
I’m installing all required programs but FFMpeg is deprecated…

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 9th Apr 2014 at 9:51 am
  
  Ciao Elvis,
  Let’s wait the answer from Alfresco on that topics. 😉
  If you find some kind of news, let us know.
  
  Reply
elvis - 9th Apr 2014 at 3:05 pm

Continuing installation I had same difficulties with swftools. I solved it installing from synaptic. I hope it isn’t a problem but… I don’t know where found pdf2swf…
And now I’m stopped at ./configure for installing Postgresql after download and unzip tar.gz file (version 9.3.4).
If I install with standard procedure the default intallation directory is on /etc… Is it good too?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 9th Apr 2014 at 9:48 pm
  
  Synaptic? But Alfresco requires FFMpeg… don’t worry about that.
  
  Reply
elvis - 9th Apr 2014 at 3:40 pm

if I type:
root@debian:/opt/postgresql/9.3.4# ./configure exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.3.4
I obtain:
bash: ./configure: File o directory non esistente
Why? (sto diventando matto!)

Reply
elvis - 9th Apr 2014 at 5:46 pm

Yahooooo!!! I succeeded….
About Postgresql I have copied contents of the unzipped directory of postgresql in the /opt/postgresql/9.3.4 because command “./configure exec_prefix=/opt/postgresql/9.3.4” wasn’t able to try files: they was stored in /opt/postgresql/9.3.4/postgresql-9.3.4.
I don’t know if I was clear…

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 9th Apr 2014 at 9:52 pm
  
  🙂 Good job!
  
  Reply
elvis - 11th Apr 2014 at 3:33 pm

Hi to all,
<>
🙁 This is the error that appear when I try to stop service Alfresco. Any idea about to solve this?

Reply
elvis - 11th Apr 2014 at 3:36 pm

the string is vanish in the previous post! It was:
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Initial heap size set to a larger value than the maximum heap size

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 11th Apr 2014 at 6:24 pm
  
  Hi Elvis,
  Probably you are running a virtual machine with Alfresco on board.
  Probably the memory of the virtual machine is not enough… I suggest you to give at least 2Gb to the virtual machine.
  
  Reply
  - elvis - 11th Apr 2014 at 6:47 pm
    
    It’s correct, but virtual machine have 4096MB of ram memory…
    And now, others problems:
    community@SRV005:~$ sudo service alfresco stop
    
    Using CATALINA_BASE: /opt/alfresco/tomcat
    Using CATALINA_HOME: /opt/alfresco/tomcat
    Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/alfresco/tomcat/temp
    Using JRE_HOME: /opt/alfresco/java/jdk1.8.0
    Using CLASSPATH: /opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
    Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: ignoring option MaxPermSize=256m; support was removed in 8.0
    apr 11, 2014 6:36:16 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester fatalError
    GRAVE: Parse Fatal Error at line 143 column 1: Il contenuto non è consentito nella sezione finale.
    org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml; lineNumber: 143; columnNumber: 1; Il contenuto non è consentito nella sezione finale.
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:203)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:177)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:441)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:368)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(XMLScanner.java:1436)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$TrailingMiscDriver.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:1433)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1457)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.stopServer(Catalina.java:434)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.stopServer(Bootstrap.java:400)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:487)
    apr 11, 2014 6:36:16 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina stopServer
    GRAVE: Catalina.stop:
    org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml; lineNumber: 143; columnNumber: 1; Il contenuto non è consentito nella sezione finale.
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1239)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1457)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.stopServer(Catalina.java:434)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.stopServer(Bootstrap.java:400)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:487)
    Impossibile trovare l’utente alfresco
    Impossibile trovare l’utente alfresco
    community@SRV005:~$
    
    On installation I have replace name user alfresco with community.
    
    Reply
salmanmaskuri - 19th Apr 2014 at 4:49 pm

Hi Fransesco,

I am having a problem when i try to run the initdb command:-
/opt/postgresql/9.0.
the system returns with this error message : no such file or directory

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 21st Apr 2014 at 6:46 pm
  
  Hi Salman,
  Please check the postgres folder because probably you are using a different version of postgres and so… a different folder.
  
  Reply
Pablo Vásquez - 24th Apr 2014 at 3:37 pm

Hi Francesco,

Thanks for the tutorial, I got a clean installation of Alfresco :).

I have a question: using this same installation, How to create and deploy a new workflow in Alfresco Share?

Greetings,
Pablo.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 24th Apr 2014 at 3:43 pm
  
  Hi Pablo,
  You can reach your goal following a general tutorial or process.
  For example, you can follow this: http://docs.alfresco.com/4.2/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.alfresco.enterprise.doc%2Ftopics%2Fwf-howto.html
  
  Reply
Bauke Okkema - 1st May 2014 at 3:34 pm

Hi Fransesco,

I followed your guide to install alfresco. Now I would like to upgrade to alfresco 4.2.f (from 4.2.c)
What is the best way to do this?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 1st May 2014 at 5:22 pm
  
  Hi Bauke,
  Congratulations!
  To upgrade the community version: stop alfresco, replace the alfresco.war and share.war files with the new version, start alfresco again… and pray! 🙂
  Of course the upgrade process could not be so easy but I suggest you to try and take a look around in the web if fails.
  Good luck!
  PS: If your goal is to have the installation of the v4.2.f, you can follow the tutorial directly for the 4.2.f version. The tasks are the same and only the versions of the modules changes. 😉
  
  Reply
okkemab - 1st May 2014 at 3:37 pm

Hi Fransesco,

I followed your install guide and now I would like to upgrade alfresco to version 4,2,f. What is the best way to do this?

Thank you!

Reply
Nguyen Tuan Phong - 23rd May 2014 at 9:48 am

Hi francesco ! first of all :thank for this great guide.
Actually I have to deploy alfresco on an Ubuntu 14.04 server.
But with the pdf2swf package i found tfhis error:
Preparing to unpack swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb …
Unpacking swftools (0.9.0-0ubuntu2) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of swftools:
swftools depends on libart-2.0-2 (>= 2.3.18).
swftools depends on libc6 (>= 2.7).
swftools depends on libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0).
swftools depends on libfreetype6 (>= 2.2.1).
swftools depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1).
swftools depends on libgif4 (>= 4.1.4).
swftools depends on libjpeg62.
swftools depends on libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1).
swftools depends on zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4).
swftools depends on gsfonts.

dpkg: error processing package swftools (–install):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1) …
Errors were encountered while processing:
swftools

I’ve try to install all dependencies one by one wit apt but no rfessult:( could you gvive me an advice?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 24th May 2014 at 9:01 am
  
  Hi Nguyen,
  With Ubuntu 14.04 I usually use ‘swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb’ downloaded from internet. Prerequisite for the installation, the ‘libjpeg62’ package you can install using apt-get.
  I hope this will help you.
  
  Reply
Eric - 23rd Jun 2014 at 4:45 am

Francesco, I’ve been going over quite a few places for installing Alfresco manually. Yours is by far the most digestible. However, I’m curious of a couple of choices in your tutorial.

1. What reason do you choose Oracle’s JDK over OpenJDK? Are there specifics?

2. What reason do you choose PostgreSQL over MySQL?

3. I noticed that you’re installing the entire LibreOffice (seemingly so anyway) and was wondering if there are specific components that I could install rather than the whole suite to save space?

4. Is it possible to NOT have Tomcat under /opt/alfresco? I’d like to know if it’s alright to use a pre-existing Tomcat install?

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 23rd Jun 2014 at 8:06 am
  
  Thank you Eric for the feedback.
  Coming to your questions: the most parts of the questions could be answered taking a look at the Alfresco release note (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_Community_4.2.f_Release_Notes) but I’ll reply you more strictly.
  1. No, it’s my choice. Alfresco does not requests JDK of specific version.
  2. Alfresco Community is certified on both but, as you know, PostgreSql is considered today the “pure” open source project. 😉
  3. I did not test a subset of the LibreOffice installation.
  4. Yes, you need a tomcat not a tomcat installed in specific place. Of course I suggest you to pay attention to the specific customizations of the tomcat you already have. In some cases could be not compatible with the Alfresco requests.
  Cheers.
  
  Reply
  - Eric - 28th Jun 2014 at 1:52 am
    
    Wonderful response, Francesco. I have to agree with you on PostgreSQL.
    
    Reply
bhupathyap - 14th Jul 2014 at 10:58 am

HI, please help me out with this error

Starting PostgreSQL 9.3 database server * The PostgreSQL server failed to start. Please check the log output:
2014-07-14 14:24:32 IST FATAL: could not access private key file “/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key”: Permission denied

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 14th Jul 2014 at 12:40 pm
  
  Hi Bhupathyap,
  It’s a problem of permissions.
  Try to take a look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12087683/postgresql-wont-start-server-key-has-group-or-world-access
  I hope this help you.
  
  Reply
  - bhupathyap - 14th Jul 2014 at 1:34 pm
    
    Another ERROR………………………. 🙁 🙁
    Helpppppppppppppppp
    
    postgres@foss-X550CA:/opt/postgresql/postgresql-9.0.4$ service postgresql.9.0.4 start
    Starting postgres
    Password:
    server starting
    postgres@foss-X550CA:/opt/postgresql/postgresql-9.0.4$ su – postgres
    Password:
    postgres@foss-X550CA:~$ . .environment-9.0.4
    postgres@foss-X550CA:~$ psql
    psql: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
    Is the server running locally and accepting
    connections on Unix domain socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432”?
    postgres@foss-X550CA:~$
    
    Reply
elvis - 14th Jul 2014 at 3:44 pm

Hi, I do so…
1)su – postgres
2)service postgresql.9.3.4 start
3). .environment-9.3.4
4)psql

Reply
BHUPATHY A P - 15th Jul 2014 at 12:32 pm

i m using ubuntu 14.04
when i try to install SWFTools i got dependencies error.but the thing is when i use apt-get i was informed that a latest version is already installed

Error message as follows

alfresco@foss-X550CA:~$ sudo dpkg -i swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
Selecting previously unselected package swftools.
(Reading database … 213556 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_i386.deb …
Unpacking swftools (0.9.0-0ubuntu2) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of swftools:
swftools depends on libart-2.0-2 (>= 2.3.18).
swftools depends on libgif4 (>= 4.1.4).
swftools depends on libjpeg62.
swftools depends on gsfonts.

dpkg: error processing package swftools (–install):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1) …
Errors were encountered while processing:
swftools

And thanks for this famous tutorial………..

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 15th Jul 2014 at 2:45 pm
  
  Hi Bhupathy,
  Please take a look before in the page, the same problem of ‘Nguyen Tuan Phong’.
  I hope this help you.
  
  Reply
  - Ismaelius Oktavius IV - 17th Jul 2014 at 3:29 pm
    
    Thanks you soooo much for this amazing tutorial, i had the problem Nguyen Tuan Phong had , but now i’m facing other problem when i type “pdf2swf –version” it says
    “NOTICE Output filename not given. Writing to –version.swf
    Error: Couldn’t open file ‘–version’
    xpdf reports document as broken.
    ERROR Couldn’t open –version”
    and when i type whereis pdf2swf it says
    “pdf2swf: /usr/bin/pdf2swf /usr/bin/X11/pdf2swf /usr/share/man/man1/pdf2swf.1.gz” is really a problem? and how to fix it?.
    merci d’avance.
    
    Reply
Francesco Corti - 18th Jul 2014 at 12:53 pm

Hi,
Thank you for the feedback.
The pdf2swf is used to preview the document with the flash addon.
If you don’t install it, Alfresco will work in every case but without the flash preview.

Reply
Moise - 14th Sep 2014 at 2:31 am

Hi Francesco,
I saw your response about Vic’s comments above, so based on that, there is no way to recreate alfresco db tables unless we script all those tables manually.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 15th Sep 2014 at 2:15 pm
  
  Hi Moise,
  Alfresco creates (and updates) the tables for you.
  I don’t understand in detail your goal but the development of your personal script is not a good idea.
  I hope this is the answer to your question.
  
  Reply
Wong Wei Lun - 22nd Sep 2014 at 11:14 am

Hi Francesco, thank you very much for this tutorial.
I have a problem when starting postgresql by executing “service postgresql.9.0.4 start”.
I get the following error message in return:

Starting postgres
/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: 7: /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: [start: not found
/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: 22: .: .environment-9.0.4: not found

Can you please kindly help me out with this?
Thank you in advance.

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 22nd Sep 2014 at 12:05 pm
  
  Hi Wong,
  The message is clear: the script is not able to find the “.environment-9.0.4”.
  Please, double check the script exists and it’s executable.
  I hope this help you.
  
  Reply
maradona - 1st Oct 2014 at 6:19 am

Hi Francesco
Thank you for the tutorial. Would you mind explaining why it’s better to follow your tutorial than installing the wizzard? What changes?
Thanks

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 1st Oct 2014 at 8:07 am
  
  Hi,
  Thank you for your feedback.
  This strategy to install Alfresco is not “better” than the wizard it’s only a little bit more “under your control”. Why? Because you are going to install and control separately each module, software, dependency. That’s all.
  Someone says it’s the wizard is developed directly from the vendor so it’s preferable. Someone says that with the wizard you use a sort of black box that you don’t know how to maintain in detail.
  Which one do you prefer? 🙂
  
  Reply
  - maradona - 1st Oct 2014 at 9:10 am
    
    thank you…. Do you know of an easy to follow tutorial to install the whole Pentaho suite. There are several components and I can only find the odd tutorial to install a single component but not all of them. Tx
    
    Reply
Francesco Corti - 1st Oct 2014 at 9:20 am

Pentaho is a suite, not a single product so you have to install all and only the application you need. I can suggest you those tutorial for BI Server and PDI:
http://fcorti.com/2014/01/07/how-to-install-pentaho-business-analytics-platform-5/
http://fcorti.com/2014/01/03/how-to-install-pentaho-data-integration-5-kettle/

Reply
maradona - 2nd Oct 2014 at 12:58 am

Once again, thank you so much

Reply
Mehmet Demirel - 11th Nov 2014 at 10:05 pm

Hi Francesco Corti ! Thank you very much this information. I dont know alfresco download.
How is download? I dont execute! Can you help me please?

What is means following:
Get ‘jdk-7u7-linux-x64.tar.gz’ in ‘/opt/alfresco/java’ with owner alfresco (use chown command) and ‘execute’ permits (use chmod command).

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 12th Nov 2014 at 4:06 pm
  
  Hi Mehmet,
  To understand how to install java you can follow this easy tutorial.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTN5uDCkag
  
  Reply
Ana - 17th Apr 2015 at 12:53 pm

Hi!

I’m stuck in the same part as another commment,

I replace this:
~/.environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}

With this

~/.environment-${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}

In: /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4

But I still have the following problem:

postgres@me:~$ nano /home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4
postgres@me:~$ service postgresql.9.0.4 start
Starting postgres
Contraseña:
/home/postgres/postgresql-9.0.4: 22: .: .environment-9.0.4: not found
postgres@me:~$

I went to check that, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong

postgres@me:~$ ls -lrat
total 40
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 abr 17 10:43 ..
-rw-r–r– 1 postgres postgres 675 abr 17 10:43 .profile
-rw-r–r– 1 postgres postgres 8445 abr 17 10:43 examples.desktop
-rw-r–r– 1 postgres postgres 3486 abr 17 10:43 .bashrc
-rw-r–r– 1 postgres postgres 220 abr 17 10:43 .bash_logout
-rwxrwxr-x 1 postgres postgres 170 abr 17 12:25 .environment-9.0.4
drwxr-xr-x 2 postgres postgres 4096 abr 17 12:27 .
-rwxrwxr-x 1 postgres postgres 674 abr 17 12:42 postgresql-9.0.4
postgres@me:~$

Could you pleas help??

Thanks.

PS:
postgres@me:~$ cat .environment-9.0.4
#!/bin/sh

export POSTGRESQL_VERSION=9.0.4
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/lib
export PATH=/opt/postgresql/${POSTGRESQL_VERSION}/bin:${PATH}
postgres@me:~$

Reply
- Francesco Corti - 19th Apr 2015 at 9:54 am
  
  Hi Ana,
  I suggest you to check the file’s permits or try with and absolute path (/home/postgres/…/environment-9.0.4).
  
  Reply