installing alfresco 3.2r2 on ubuntu 9.10 karmic koala


had some free time on my hands and thought i’d use it to practice more on linux and stuff. so, here i’m going to share what i did to have alfresco up and running. it’s pretty straightforward actually.

first off, alfresco requirements:

  • alfresco installation files with pre-configured tomcat bundle
  • sun java jdk (jdk6 required)
  • mysql database server

the requirements i listed above are the least, which means you can get alfresco up and running by having only those three. also note that i did this on a fresh ubuntu installation.

1. install sun java jdk

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk

2. set environment variable for JAVA_HOME

verify if it has been set

echo $JAVA_HOME

if not,

sudo nano /etc/environment

append to a new line

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/

3. install mysql server

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

4. create alfresco database

login to mysql database and perform the following

CREATE DATABASE alfresco DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON alfresco.* TO alfresco@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'alfresco';
GRANT SELECT,LOCK TABLES on alfresco.* TO alfresco@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'alfresco';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

take note of the database name, username and password, it’ll be needed in the alfresco configuration later on.

5. download alfresco installation files

create alfresco directory

sudo mkdir /opt/alfresco

download alfresco community 3.2r2 with pre-configured tomcat bundle and store it in the above directory. wget doesn’t work on this so i had to download it on my host machine and transferred it using winscp.

6. extract alfresco installation files

cd /opt/alfresco
sudo tar xvf alfresco-community-tomcat-3.2r2.tar.gz

7. configuring alfresco installation

modify alfresco global properties file

cd /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes
sudo nano alfresco-global.properties

locate dir.root and set to

dir.root=/opt/alfresco/alf_data

set mysql database settings

db.name=alfresco
db.username=alfresco
db.password=alfresco
db.host=localhost
db.port=3306

8. start alfresco

cd /opt/alfresco
sudo bash alfresco.sh start

note that this start/stop script can also be added as an init script, so you’ll have something like /etc/init.d/alfresco start. verify if java process has been started by using the top command.

9. browse alfresco and alfresco share

open web browser and point to http://[your server ip]:8080/alfresco or http://[your server ip]:8080/share

whala! alfresco repository site should load by now, as well as alfresco share. you can login as admin/admin. this installation is very basic, and other modules may be installed to extend the features of alfresco. i’ll see if i can also experiment on installing other alfresco modules.

next goal, apply this on our new alfresco server. :)

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  1. #1 by j on February 19, 2010 - 4:27 am

    Thanks for this tutorial! it works! It took me forever to get this working before finding this.
    There is one thing I notice, I guess it was just my old test PC, it took a while for alfresco to start the service.

    • #2 by shane on February 19, 2010 - 11:39 pm

      you’re welcome j! i’m glad that it helped.

      if it’s the first time to start the app, then it should take a while, since it has to create the necessary files and database tables.

  2. #4 by Patrick on March 6, 2010 - 4:10 am

    Thank you for this awesome guide, I am mostly a complete beginner and I was able to almost get everything going.

    I don’t think I have everything working though.. When I try to browse to my alfresco server it gives me a 404 error.

    Do you have any idea what I might have done wrong?

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