Chapter 2. Installation

Install the Tomcat bundle
Startup
Shutdown
Startup scripts
Install the JBoss EARs
eXo Profiles

eXo Platform is packaged as a deployable enterprise archive defined by the Java EE specification, and as a configuration directory.

The easiest way to install eXo Platform is to take the default bundle. This is a ready-made package on top of Tomcat 6 application server, so you simply need to copy the bin/tomcat6-bundle/ directory to your server.

eXo Platform leverages the application server on which it is deployed. This means, to start and stop eXo Platform, you only need to start and stop your application with the default commands.

The server has started when you see the following message in your log/console:

INFO: Server startup in 353590 ms

If you have a similar message when you try to stop Tomcat:

Tomcat did not stop in time. PID file was not removed.

then you must stop the tomcat process by a Ctrl+C or kill 9 command. To perform a kill automatically, you can type: 

stop_eXo.sh -force

instead. It is available only on Linux and OS X systems.

The server has stopped when you see the following message in your log/console:

INFO: Stopping Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080

eXo comes with several builtin startup scripts:

start_eXo scripts launch eXo with the following JVM options:

-Xms256m 
-Xmx1024m 
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m 
-Djava.security.auth.login.config=../conf/jaas.conf  
-Dexo.conf.dir.name=gatein/conf 
-Dexo.profiles=default
-Xms Minimal heap size (defaults to 256 MB)
-Xmx Maximal Heap Size of (defaults to 1 GB)
-Djava.security.auth.login.config path to the JAAS security file where the security domains are and JAAS authentication modules are declared
-Dexo.conf.dir.name path where eXo will start looking at configuration.properties and configuration.xml
-Dexo.profiles the list of comma-separated exo profiles to activate

This is enough to start and run a demo, but you will need to adjust these values for a production setup.

gatein-dev scripts launch eXo in developer mode with a few more JVM options.

-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n 
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote 
-Dorg.exoplatform.container.configuration.debug 
-Dexo.product.developing=true
-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote activates the JMX remoting
-Xdebug Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n enables remote debugging
-Dorg.exoplatform.container.configuration.debug the container will log to the console what xml files it loads
-Dexo.product.developing=true deactivates javascript and css merging for easier debugging

We provide EARs packages to deploy in your existing JBoss application server. They are located in the folder bin/jboss5-eap-ears/.

To install eXo Platform on JBoss, follow these steps:

1. Copy files in jboss-root/server/default/deploy

2. Create a folder jboss-root/server/default/conf/gatein

Copy these files:

3. Copy these files in jboss-root/bin

4. Configure JVM parameters

On Linux, add these lines at the end of jboss-root/bin/run.conf:

# Platform environment variables
EXO_PROFILES="-Dexo.profiles=default"
EXO_OPTS="-Dexo.product.developing=false -Dexo.conf.dir.name=gatein -Dgatein.data.dir=../gatein"
REMOTE_DEBUG="-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dorg.exoplatform.container.configuration.debug"
EXO_XML="-Djavax.xml.stream.XMLOutputFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.ZephyrWriterFactory -Djavax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.ZephyrParserFactory -Djavax.xml.stream.XMLEventFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.events.ZephyrEventFactory"
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS $EXO_OPTS $EXO_PROFILES $EXO_XML"

On Windows, add these lines at the end of jboss-root/bin/run.conf.bat:

rem # Platform environment variables
set "EXO_PROFILES=-Dexo.profiles=default"
set "EXO_OPTS=-Dexo.product.developing=false -Dexo.conf.dir.name=gatein -Dgatein.data.dir=../gatein"
set "REMOTE_DEBUG=-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dorg.exoplatform.container.configuration.debug"
set "EXO_XML=-Djavax.xml.stream.XMLOutputFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.ZephyrWriterFactory -Djavax.xml.stream.XMLInputFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.ZephyrParserFactory -Djavax.xml.stream.XMLEventFactory=com.sun.xml.stream.events.ZephyrEventFactory"
set "JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %EXO_OPTS% %EXO_PROFILES% %EXO_XML%"

Adapt to your needs:

5. Add eXo logging categories in jboss-root/server/default/conf/jboss-log4j.xml 

   <!-- Limit the JSR170 categories -->
   <category name="exo.jcr">
      <priority value="INFO"/>
   </category>
   <!-- Limit the JSR-168 and JSR-286 categories -->
   <category name="org.exoplatform.services">
      <priority value="INFO"/>
   </category>

6. Start up

The server has started when you see the following message in your log/console:

INFO [org.jboss.bootstrap.microcontainer.ServerImpl] (main) JBoss (Microcontainer) [5.0.1 (build: ...)] Started in 3m:29s:259ms

7. Shut down

The server has stopped when you see the following message in your log/console:

INFO  [org.jboss.bootstrap.microcontainer.ServerImpl] (JBoss Shutdown Hook) Shutdown complete

eXo comes with different runtime profile, that you can use if you want to customize what modules you want to enable/disable in you eXo instance.

start_eXo commands accept a comma-separated list of profiles. The following profiles are supported :

Profile Description
collaboration enables eXo Collaboration module
knowledge enables eXo Knowledge module
social enables eXo Social module
workflow enables the Workflow add-on within the eXo Content module

Additionally, you can use these composite profiles:

Profile Description
minimal contains GateIn + WCM
default contains all except workflow (gatein,ide,wcm,collaboration,social,knowledge)
all all available modules

For example: 

./start_eXo.sh default,workflow #  start all modules including workflow
./start_eXo.sh collaboration,knowledge #  start exo with gatein,wcm, collaboration and knowledge enabled
./start_eXo.sh minimal,social # start with social, gatein and wcm