How to install Alfresco 5.0.a Community Edition on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
After the development of my most viewed post sharing how to install Alfresco 4.2.c on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (more than 35.000 views) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (more that 13.000 views), it’s time to update the tutorial to the newest major version of Alfresco: Alfresco Community Edition 5.0.a. Even if the 5-th version is quite different from the 4-th version, the installation process is more or less the same… but let’s describe exactly the differences. The operating system choosen for the tutorial is Ubuntu 14.04.01 LTS.
Differently from the other post, the tutorial is separated in two parts: the installation of the dependencies and the Alfresco installation. 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.
Part 1 – Installation of the dependencies
Starting from a vanilla installation of Ubuntu O.S. 14.04.01 LTS, let’s update the libraries and configurations.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get purge openjdk-*
Now it’s time to add a new user called alfresco, we will use for the installation (password: alfresco).
adduser alfresco Enter new UNIX password: alfresco
To make the alfresco user able to run the administrator commands, we have to add it to the so called ‘sudoers’. If you think this is a security risk (and you are probably right from a strict point of view), no matter but the following commands will be a little bit different.
adduser alfresco sudoThe change will take effect the next time the user logs in. Starting from now we will work as alfresco user.
su – alfresco
JDK 1.7u67
Even if Alfresco 5.0.a is certified with Java1.7U60, we use Java1.7U67 (nothing serious will happen). You can download the package from Oracle Java SE Downloads. In our case the package is ‘jdk-7u67-linux-x64.tar.gz’.
sudo mkdir -p /opt/java
Unzip the package in it. In our case in the ‘/opt/java/jdk1.7.0_67’. Please remember to set the permits to the folder to ‘execute’ (use can use chmod command).
sudo nano /etc/profile.d/java.sh
export JAVA_HOME=/opt/java/jdk1.7.0_67 export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin
Save and exit.
java -version
ImageMagick
sudo apt-get install ghostscript imagemagick convert --version
Using the command ‘whereis convert’, please check the result is ‘/usr/bin/convert’. If not, copy and use it in the ‘img.exe’ parameter into the alfresco-global.properties file.
FFMPeg
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jon-severinsson/ffmpeg sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
For the Ubuntu 14.10 users, the commands to be used are the ones described below. Rumors says that for Ubuntu 15.04 the package will restored in the standard repository. 😉
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kirillshkrogalev/ffmpeg-next sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ffmpeg-real
SWFTools
sudo apt-get install libjpeg62 libgif4 libart-2.0-2 wget http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/pool/partner/s/swftools/swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb chmod a+x swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb sudo dpkg -i swftools_0.9.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb
Using the command ‘whereis pdf2swf’, please check the result is ‘/usr/bin/pdf2swf’. If not, copy and use it in the ‘swf.exe’ parameter into the alfresco-global.properties file.
LibreOffice
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
Using the command ‘whereis soffice’, please check the result is ‘/usr/bin/soffice’. If not, copy and use it in the ooo.exe’ and ‘jodconverter.officeHome’ parameters into the alfresco-global.properties file.
PostgreSql
Even if Alfresco 5.0.a is certified with PostgreSql 9.2.4, we use PostgreSql 9.3.5 (nothing serious will happen).
sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib sudo passwd postgres postgres
Now it’s time to prepare the (empty) database schema for Alfresco.
sudo -u postgres psql postgres CREATE ROLE alfresco WITH PASSWORD 'alfresco' LOGIN; CREATE DATABASE alfresco WITH OWNER alfresco; <ctrl+d> sudo -u alfresco psql alfresco ALTER USER alfresco WITH PASSWORD 'alfresco'; <ctrl+d>
Tomcat
Even if Alfresco 5.0.a is certified with Tomcat 7.0.53, we use Tomcat 7.0.55 (nothing serious will happen). You can download the package from Apache Tomcat. In our case the package is ‘apache-tomcat-7.0.55.tar.gz’.
sudo mkdir -p /opt/alfresco sudo chown alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco
Unzip the package in ‘/opt/alfresco’ renaming the apache-tomcat folder in ‘tomcat’.
sudo chown -R alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco/tomcat /opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/startup.sh ps -ef | grep java
You can check the existence of the java process. Alternatively you can access to http://localhost:8080/ using your browser.
/opt/alfresco/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
Part 2 – Installation of Alfresco
Now that everything is ready, we can proceed to install Alfresco into the environment.
Alfresco 5.0.a
cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties.orig nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/catalina.properties
Set the ‘shared.loader’ parameter with the value described below.
shared.loader=${catalina.base}/shared/classes,${catalina.base}/shared/lib/*.jar
Save and exit.
cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml.orig nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/server.xml
Add ‘URIEncoding=”UTF-8″‘ to ‘<Connector port=”8080″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″…’.
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/conf/context.xml
Add the line below:
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SSLAuthenticator" securePagesWithPragma="false" />
And then:
mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/lib mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/tomcat/endorsed # Used from Solr4. mkdir -p /opt/alfresco/alf_data/keystore
Download Alfresco Community Edition from Sourceforge. The package is named ‘alfresco-community-5.0.a.zip’. Unzip the package in a temporary folder and you will find a folder named ‘alfresco-community-5.0.a’.
cd .../alfresco-community-5.0.a cp -R bin /opt/alfresco cp -R web-server/endorsed/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/endorsed cp -R web-server/shared/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared cp -R web-server/lib/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/lib cp -R web-server/webapps/* /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/
You can remove the folder named ‘alfresco-community-5.0.a’.
nano /opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh
#!/bin/sh -e
SOFFICE_ROOT=/usr/bin
"${SOFFICE_ROOT}/soffice" "--accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager" --nologo --headless &
Save and exit.
chmod uga+x /opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh /opt/alfresco/start_oo.sh ps -ef | grep soffice
You can check the existence of the soffice process.
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
Below the lines to replace or add to the properties file.
dir.root=/opt/alfresco/alf_data ... db.username=alfresco db.password=alfresco ... # OpenOffice ooo.exe=/usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin ooo.enabled=true 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 ... db.schema.update=true ... db.driver=org.postgresql.Driver db.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/alfresco ... index.recovery.mode=AUTO ... authentication.chain=alfrescoNtlm1:alfrescoNtlm
Now everything is ready to start alfresco but, please, pay attention now. Check very carefully the log during the first run. Pay attention to the ERRORS and the reasons why the errors are thrown.
service alfresco start tailf /opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/catalina.out
For example, the lines below are caused by the missing configuration of FTP and CIFS. Enjoy!
2014-09-22 22:01:32,203 ERROR [org.alfresco.fileserver] [FTP Server] [FTP] FTP Socket error : java.net.BindException: Permission denied ... 2014-09-22 22:01:32,210 ERROR [org.alfresco.fileserver] [CIFS Server] [SMB] Server error : org.alfresco.jlan.server.config.InvalidConfigurationException: Error initializing TCP-IP SMB session handler, Permission denied
Once that Alfresco is up and running, the last task is to switch off the database update.
nano /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
Below the lines to replace or add to the properties file.
... db.schema.update=false ...
I think the “Using the command ‘whereis ” for convert and pdf2swf should be switched.
Thanks for the cargo!
I had an issue with :URIEncoding=”UTF-8″‘ to ‘<Connector port=”8080″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″…’"
Apache Tomcat/7.0.56 will not accept this in the conf/server.xml
I get various issues including:
Open quote is expected for attribute "{1}" associated with an element type "URIEncoding"
If I remove UTF, then it starts correctly.
Hi Jim,
Thank you for sharing your hints.
You can also use https://github.com/loftuxab/alfresco-ubuntu-install script.
I appreciate your effots in producing this install but: there are always some people that are not command line or fully conversant with some of the linux rules. I for on cannot get my head around tar.gz etc files si I do not understand how to (JDK 1.7u67) Unzip the package in it. In our case in the ‘/opt/java/jdk1.7.0_67′. Please remember to set the permits to the folder to ‘execute’ (use can use chmod command).
If you can spare the time with this old aged newbie I would appreciate your guidance. Alfresco Community Edition will be of considerable help to my charity and other charities I work with.
Regards,
SyMartin
Hi Syd Martin,
Thank you for the interest in this post but unfortunately some basic knowledge is necessary to develop this… we have also to consider that Alfresco is not so “simple” to manage from a sysadmin point of view.
Why don’t you consider the wizard as tool for installation?
I strongly suggest you this way as the best way for you and your target in your Organization.
This is not working for 5.0b because of the solr change. I cant figure out where to put what folder in alf_data there is some solr folder and another folder called solr4 but where to put it?
Hi Sebastian,
Thank you for the feedback.
I didn’t try on 5.0.b but I think the one you submit is one the small changes.
Please, let us know if you find the correct settings.
Thank you in advance.
When install SWFTOOLS you must install libart-2.0-2 with libjpeg62 libgif4:
sudo apt-get install libjpeg62 libgif4
become:
sudo apt-get install libjpeg62 libgif4 libart-2.0-2
Thank you Francesco for the hint.
Today is ready for download 5.0.c too.
If someone install it on linux pleas posts changes in the installation path.
Tks in adv
Hi, when start alfresco in catalina.out file i see these errors:
log4j:ERROR setFile(null,true) call failed.
java.io.FileNotFoundException: alfresco.log (Permission denied)
I’ve tried :
# sudo mkdir /var/log/alfresco
# sudo nano /opt/alfresco-3.4.d/tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties
— change “log4j.appender.File.File=alfresco.log” to “log4j.appender.File.File=/var/log/alfresco/alfresco.log”
With restart Alfresco but no luck.
Hi Francesco,
This happens when the user that performs the start of the service has not the right permits on the folders/files.
I suggest you to pay lot of attention to the users and permits during installation process… and please: avoid root user! 😉
Hi farnsesco
thanks for your post.
For alfresco fast startup better to use below memory setup.
it will allot 2 gb ram and makes it much faster.
JAVA_OPTS=”-XX:MaxPermSize=160m -XX:NewSize=256m -Xms512m ”
JAVA_OPTS=”$JAVA_OPTS -Xmx2048m -Xss512K “
Hi Ayoub,
Thank you for sharing it, infact Alfresco best practice suggest 2Gb in such way.
Hello Johanne,
yes this the link from where I pretty successfully installed alfresco 🙂
but I cannot remember or was pretty sure that I’ve not been asked to generate credentials for alfresco (I I cannot remember at all 🙁
So now I’ve git problem logging in … what is initial username & pwd ? the only link I can get something from would be : http://x.x.x.x/share/page/ Alfresco community login and system responded with : Your authentication details have not been recognized or Alfresco may not be available at this time. (so maybe alfresco is not running ?
Thank you very much in advance for your help
and
BR
Tonci
Hi Tonci,
You can access to Alfresco using admin/admin.
If you will not access with it, there is an installation issue somewhere.
In this case I suggest you to look carefully to the catalina.out.
Cheers.
Hi Francesco
which RDMS will you recomend for alfresco 5 postgresql or mysql.
i have tried both but am not sure which one will be better for
alfresco 5 on debian linux .can you please share your thoughts on this.
Hi Ayoub,
Alfresco CE is certified with both the RDBMS and in every case it uses the DB in a “standard way” without particular commands or tricky queries.
If you take a look to the wizard, it is able to install only PostgreSql.
I don’t think they are closing this choice but in every case I usually prefer PostgreSql… IMHO I think it’s “more open source” and in every case stable. 😉
Hi Francesco,
I installed alfresco 5.0c on a 32bit Ubuntu 14.04 LTS following your instructions. Thanks a lot for your work. I had some issues with: ERROR [solr.core.CoreContainer] [coreLoadExecutor-5-thread-1] Unable to create core: collection1 … maybe the same problem as Sebastian.
But in general it’s working 🙂 on a little bit outdated server pc: 4 core xeon cpu (32bit) / 4 gb ram. But it’s only for evaluation and learning. Ok, regards from Aachen, Germany
Good job Roland!
About the errors… Alfresco 5 has to work a little bit more on it because I have heard a lot of issues on that. 😉
hi Francesco
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jon-severinsson/ffmpe
is not working
and i don’t know in which step the java is installed ??
thnx
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jon-severinsson/ffmpeg (is no longer avalable)
http://www.noobslab.com/2014/12/ffmpeg-returns-to-ubuntu-1410.html
thnx
Great tutorial!
Also works with 5.0.d.
For ffmpeg I used ppa:mc3man/trusty-media
Great work, Francesco!
My two pennies worth of discovery is that you need to make sure you have no errors in catalina.out before you set “db.schema.update=false” in alfresco-global.properties. Although I have rectified all the insufficiency, I could not get rid of an error message like below whenever I start the alfresco service (“service alfresco start”):
Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException:
ERROR: current transaction is aborted, commands ignored until end of
transaction block
I stopped the service, re-instated the db.schema.update and re-started the service. It started to work like a charm. Without knowing a great deal, I figured the update variable allows the Alfresco to run a check and facilitate the db access somehow.
Thank you for the suggestion, kotoponus.
Great share Francesco Corti,
I have installed Alfresco 5.0.d Community Edition with the help of your guide.
Below changes I have modified before starting the alfresco
1. Removed folders alfresco/ ROOT/ share/ solr4/ from /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/
cd /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/
rm -Rf alfresco/ ROOT/ share/ solr4/
2. Added cifs parameters in /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
cifs.enabled=true
cifs.serverName=XXXXXXXX (Servername)
cifs.domain=XXXXXXXXX.com (Domain Name)
cifs.hostannounce=true
cifs.sessionTimeout=1800
cifs.ipv6.enabled=false
cifs.tcpipSMB.port=1445
cifs.netBIOSSMB.namePort=1137
There were no issues after adding those parameters.
Thank you
added
Good job Surendra!
Hi Francesco
I have installed Alfresco 5.0.a Community Edition with the help of your guide but I have a problem. I can’t access to Alfresco using admin/admin. There are another username and password to access?
Please help me
Hi Zonas,
This means that something went wrong in the installation, please go through the catalina.out to discover the problem.
Cheers.
Hi Francesco,
The following steps also helps,
/opt/alfresco/tomcat/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.37-bin.jar (MySQL Database)
chown -R alfresco:alfresco /opt/alfresco (as a final step)
Regards,
Jojan Paul
Hello Francesco Corti,
I have installed alfresco-community-5.0.a.
The following steps are mandatory as a final step.
chmod 755 /opt/alfresco/tomcat/lib/mysql-connector-java-5.1.37-bin.jar (for MySQL database)
chown -R alfresco:alfresco alfresco
Regards,
Jojan Paul
Excelente, muchas gracias funciono todo bien
Ahora necesito aprender a hacer bakcup y luego voy por AAAR
Enjoy! 😉