TKLPatch for Alfresco 3.3g Community Edition

I'm unable to help you get started without some more info (e.g., /var/log/apache2/alfresco.log and /var/log/apache2/catalina.out)?

I must warn you Alfresco takes a lot of time to start, as Alfresco is a heavy app. Also, its very important the memory, this TKLPatch is memory-optimized for 768MB. How much memory did you assign to the VM? Less memory than that would result in memory allocation errors and Alfresco won't start.

This is a TKL Patch. It is designd to patch the TKL Core beta ISO (which is based on Ubuntu 10.04). You then install the ISO which should basically be Alfresco pre-installed and configured as documented above.

To patch the ISO you will need to have TKLPatch installed on another machne (TKL Core is suggested as a base system but should run on most Linux distros - personally I use an Ubuntu 10.04 desktop). Theoretically it should probably still work on an installed 10.04 server system but as you have discovered it may run into problems when you have MySQL or other services already installed and running. It may be hard to troubleshoot as there are too many unknowns when your system is already operational.

I would assume that Adrian tested before posting but I haven't tested this patch yet, so I guess there is still a possibility that there is a bug. If so then Adrian (and/or others) will probably need some more info to track it down, like the exact steps you have taken, the exact place where the patch/install/boot fails and the exact error messages you are getting.

Hi;

I can't get this to work. I don't understand how to run this script. Trying to install Alfresco on bare metal Intel Quad Core 1.6 G, 4 Gig RAM, 500GB HD.

This is NOT a virtual machine.

I tried to make Alfresco work several years ago and just gave up on it. Nobody seemed to have a way to consistently get it installed. I often wonder why they don't just STOP trying to develop a new trick pony  and just get the install fixed.

Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
Ken Jameson
kmj@mahlan.com
(813) 305-1399

Ken, as JedMeister explained clearly, this patch is not to be run on an installed system, but to patch TKL Core. Once the TKL Guys (Liraz or Alon) validates it, it could become an official Appliance, and you would be able to download and install an Alfresco in just a few clicks. 

As I'm installing alfresco wars on ubuntu's tomcat, there's no need for alfresco.sh (which basically it's an script to start Alfresco bundled tomcat). In this case alfresco starts when the system's tomcat start, and stops when tomcat stops. No /var/www as this would be Apache's HTTP server home and not Tomcat's home. (Which is in /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/). 

I would recommend you to download and install Alfresco-Community-3.3g-Linux-x86-Install (138 MB) if you need a production system right now, as this TKLPatch and TKL Core are in beta state. Basically you need to:

mkdir -p /opt/alfresco && cd /opt/alfresco
wget <alfrescolinuxinstallurl>
tar xf alfresco.tar.gz
mysql -u root #and create database alfresco with user/pass
nano tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties  #to set your config
./alfresco.sh start

You can follow this guide http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-install-alfresco-community-3.3-on-ubuntu-server-10.04-lucid-lynx and if you run into any issue, you can send me a message and I'll help you get it running. 

I've been there where you are, Alfresco is not nice to install and configure, and it's easy to finish frustrated. But they are working to make things easier. At least this last release it's easier to install that 3b Lab edition. 

Keep an eye on turnkey linux as this project will help you build an infrastructure fast and easy, and if the patch gets aproved, you'll have an instant alfresco appliance to use!

P.S.: I must add that I tested this TKLPatch several times before posting, but if there's something I missed, I'm open for making corrections. But I really need feedback from community.

It's called a patch because it is designed to patch an ISO not run as a script! It does contain a configuration script, but it is more than that.

Seriously you're making this way harder than it needs to be! Adrian's patch is for Turnkey Linux (TKL), to create a TKL Alfresco appliance ISO. The explanation is for transparency. Please ensure you are patching a TKL ISO and installing from that patched TKL ISO before making any further complaints about the patch "not working".

Not being able to run an Afresco instalation script is probably better suited to the Instalation section of the Alfresco forums. I repeat: this is not an Alfresco instalation script, it is a TKL patch, to be applied to a TKL ISO using the TKLPatch application! It is not intended to be run as a script.

If you wish to try Adrian's patch please follow these instructions:

1) Install TKLPatch on a compatible system - let's assume Ubuntu 10.04 (I use desktop but server is fine) running as root. Note: if you are using a 64 bit system as a base then you will need to install from source (git or tarball), otherwise add the repo and use apt.

2) Download TKL Core Lucid beta ISO - this is the minimalist base (Core) Turkey Linux OS (based on Ubuntu Lucid). Let's assume you use home as your working directory ie /root

3) Download Adrian's TKL Alfresco patch (again working in /root).

4) Patch the ISO. At the command prompt (still in /root) type:

tklpatch turnkey-core-beta-lucid-x86.iso alfresco.tar.gz

5) Burn the patched ISO to CD (if planning to install to bare metal - although personally I'd advise testing in a VM first). Don't mistakenly burn the original ISO, the patched one will have 'patched' added to the ISO name.

6) Install TKL Alfresco from CD (or from ISO in a VM) following the prompts (very similar to installing Ubuntu 10.04 Server), reboot when required and you should be greated with the TKL Config Console (it won't look exactly the same, but similar).

IMO it doesn't get much easier than that! Adrian stated that he has tested it numerous times so it should work fine (your point about the required components becoming unavailable in the future is redundant assuming TKL devs release this as an appliance).

If you want further help please post the exact steps you have taken, the exact place where the patch/install/boot fails and the exact error messages you are getting.

I still can't get this script to work on a naked Ubuntu 10.04 system.

Hi Rudiger, I did look up if Alfresco had a package in the partner repos, as I've heard of it some time ago. This would be a prefered approach for the appliance, yes, but it seems that the package is not there. At least not for me:

apt-cache show alfresco-community
W: Unable to locate package alfresco-community
E: No packages found

PS: I did found right now a PPA containing this package https://launchpad.net/~alfresco-isv/+archive/ppa/+packages . I could update the TKLPatch with this version but I would have to test it first. Have you test the patch I posted? What issues do you have with the one you are proposing?

Sorry about the irrelevant post I just made above, I've been working on it for a while and only just realised you'd got it working and posted back.

Assuming this patch is accepted by the TKL Devs it will be added to the TKL library and released as a standalone appliance like the others.

To attach your notes you will need to start a new thread. Or cut and paste into a new post on this thread.

Thanks guys. I've got Alrefsco 3.3g up and running and it once it loads it screams.

TurnKey Core system has saved me a load of time. Installs in less than 15 minutes. Getting Alfresco up using this method takes another hour. I'll get my notes together in case someone needs them.

A few questions:

• How is the best way to forward a Word doc / PDF , etc.?
• Is there a reason not to leave this sitting on top of TKL?
• Should I wait until the next version of TKL is released? Move to a full Ubuntu 10.4?

What a treat to to see Adrian released the TKLPatch for Alfresco. I'll be playing with it later, but I've taken a quick look and this looks very impressive. This is probably one of the most complex TKLPatches that have been submitted to date.

Everybody give Adrian a big round of applause. Thanks to him Alfresco will make it into the next release batch.

PS: I took the liberty to clean up the confusing train wreck that had become of this thread. Ken, glad you got Alfresco working, but it was really hard to follow your stream of consciousness posts. It would be easier to help you if you kept future posts short and to the point.

Don't be discouraged by the delays on our end, especially since you seem to know what you're doing. Rest assured we are very excited and grateful to have you on board helping to push the project forward. Competent developers from the community are like gold dust for an open source project like TurnKey.

I was worried that no official TKL members commented the thread! I've worked on this one a lot, to make it work as expected. I hope you can try it and give some feedback. I'm preparing some other interesting patchs for the weekend ;)

Please if you get into any issue, feel free to post it here. 

Hello Adrian,

Thank you for this. All is well. I created my patched iso. Booted a new vm from the iso. Choose the install option rebooted and logged into Alfresco. Excellent!

Thanks again,

Pierre

Just to be clear, I doubt the WCM error message has anything to do with broken IMAP functionality, but one way to find out would be to enabe WCM and see if it has any effect.

I googled around a bit for "is WCM enabled" and the error message looks like a known issue:

You will notice the following error message in the application server stack
User:admin WARN [component.evaluator.BaseEvaluator] Error during ActionInstanceEvaluator evaluation of org.alfresco.web.action.evaluator.RegenerateRenditionsEvaluator@1397d6: 04280002 No root 'Web Projects' folder exists (is WCM enabled ?)

To be noticed after installing WCM on the same instance the warning disappears.

It's been fixed in the development version (3.4.0) but for the stable release (3.3.0) you may need to enable WCM (short for Web Content Management) which is an add-on to Alfresco's core Document Management capabilities.

http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Downloading_and_Installing_WCM

Thanks Liras! I used netstat -atnp and noticed:
127.0.1.1:1143 and
:::2121

I assumed ::: means any ip address while 1143 was attaching to 127.0.1.1 only!

I had noticed 127.0.1.1 in the /etc/hosts file. So I remmed it out and added the .58 below.

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost
#127.0.1.1 alfresco
192.168.55.58 alfresco alfresco.fcn.local

tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 967/sshd
tcp6 0 0 192.168.55.58:1143 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::8443 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50500 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 127.0.0.1:8005 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::1445 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50501 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50502 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50503 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50504 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::2121 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50505 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50506 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::50508 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 :::34189 :::* LISTEN 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 192.168.55.58:1143 192.168.55.51:50265 TIME_WAIT -
tcp6 0 0 127.0.0.1:34977 127.0.0.1:3306 ESTABLISHED 1043/java
tcp6 0 0 192.168.55.58:1143 192.168.55.51:50259 TIME_WAIT -
tcp6 0 0 127.0.0.1:34978 127.0.0.1:3306 ESTABLISHED 1043/java
 

Stumbling around blindly in the dark is no fun. Issues like these are much easier to get a handle on once you understand what is going on.

Use netstat: Try to use netstat to see if Alfresco is listening on 1143 and on what IP address. It shouldn't be localhost, otherwise you're not going to be able to access it from the outside:

netstat -atnp

Use a sniffer: If the service is up and running and Thunderbird still doesn't work, try running a sniffer like wireshark on the client to see its communications with the server. Right click on a packet and select "Follow TCP stream" to see the session back and forth. I use Wireshark a lot when I'm debugging stuff. A nice alternative you can use on the server is tcpick, which can save network traffic to files:

tcpick -wRub -i eth0

Or to the console / stdout (you'll want to be more selective to reduce the noise, hence the port):

tcpick -yP -i eth0 "port 1143"

Logging level: I'm not familiar with how to do this for Alfresco specifically but many applications have the ability to increase the logging level so you're getting verbose debugging messages that help shed light into what's going on.

Hi Adrian,

I tried, no go. With all the changes I made yesterday in my efforts to get it working I thought it best to reinstall from iso for a clean start. I then made the suggested iptables changes but it still did not work. I tried Outlook Express imap client and Thunderbird from two different machines on my lan.

I don't know if it's related but this error is repeating in the log:

16:17:05,124 WARN  [org.alfresco.web.ui.common.component.evaluator.BaseEvaluator] Error during ActionInstanceEvaluator evaluation of org.alfresco.web.action.evaluator.RegenerateRenditionsEvaluator@1f6ad64: 08160051 No root 'Web Projects' folder exists (is WCM enabled ?)

There are no Alfresco log entries for the failed imap connections.

Searching the web it looks like Alfresco imap support is buggy but I did have it working somewhat when I tried running Alfresco server on windows, but I don't want to go back there!

Any other idea's that I might try?

Thanks,

Pierre

Sorry for the late response. You're close on your assumption, as I explained in step 11, only root user can bind to ports under 1024, and we're not running alfresco as root for security reasons. So, you should:

1. Bump the port setting in alfresco-global.properties to a higher value. A suggest 1143 so that it's easy to remember. 

2. Add a new iptables rule for port redirection, redirecting all petitions from port 143 to 1143. Issue the following commands as root:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 143 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1143
iptables-save > /etc/iptables.rules

3. Config you're email client using port 143 and try again. 

I've never used this feature of Alfresco. Please try this settings and comment if they worked for you. If not, I'll check alfresco docs to see if I can help.

I am not able to get imap working. All I can find is that I need to enable the feature in:

alfresco-global.properties
 

I found these:

/opt/alfresco/extensions/extension/alfresco-global.properties
/var/lib/tomcat6/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco-global.properties.sample
/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/module/test/alfresco-global.properties
/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/module/tests/alfresco-global.properties
 

I think this is the one:

/var/lib/tomcat6/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties
 

I changed this:

#imap.server.enabled=true
#imap.server.port=143
#imap.server.host=localhost
 

to this:

imap.server.enabled=true
imap.server.port=143
imap.server.host=alfresco

and I also tried:

imap.server.enabled=true
imap.server.port=143
imap.server.host=192.168.55.58

And rebooted but I still can't get Thunderbird to see the imap folders.

Can someone tell me what to do please.

Thanks,

Pierre

EDIT: I think it may have something to do with iptables but I don't understand how they work.

So I am able to use Outlook Express and Thunderbird imap clients to access Alfresco. I'll let alone the WCM issue for the time being. Time to see what Alfresco can do!

My fix was to modify /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 localhost
#127.0.1.1 alfresco  <--- rem this
192.168.55.58 alfresco alfresco.fcn.local  <-- add this

modify /var/lib/tomcat6/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties

imap.server.enabled=true
imap.server.host=alfresco
imap.server.port=1143

and then run:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 143 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 1143
iptables-save > /etc/iptables.rules

It means if you ever move around your installation? (e.g., recover a backup to a development box with TKLBAM) you'll need to reconfigure /etc/hosts.

A generic host setting might be a better idea if it works:

imap.server.host=0.0.0.0

Could you try that? 0.0.0.0 is an IP wildcard meaning any address. If it works it will be easier to turn on IMAP by default in the upcoming TurnKey Alfresco appliance...

I changed:

imap.server.host=alfresco

to:

imap.server.host=0.0.0.0

rebooted, and it still works.

So...

Add iptables rule 143 -> 1143

Remove 127.0.1.1 alfresco from /etc/hosts

add 192.168.55.58 alfresco to /etc/hosts

modify /var/lib/tomcat6/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties

imap.server.enabled=true
imap.server.host=0.0.0.0
imap.server.port=1143
imap.server.attachments.extraction=true

Note: Further testing and I find Thunderbird --> Alfresco imap not very stable.

I didn't setup this setting for the appliance as I feel it's not very popular. I don't even know what it does! :P Also, WCM is an addon if you don't have a website in place with any of other popular CMS. So for the appliance, I felt of setting the most useful features, as CIFS and FTP access, and the repository itself. The rest can find a place in the appliance wiki, on how to set up extra features.

I commented about the WCM error in the log under "Know issues" in the main post. There are other issues you may find, and urls pointing to some information. 

Thanks for testing and sharing your experiences!

The first time it failed, where you applying the patch to the lucid core beta?

But assuming nothing significant has changed about the way it installs it may be as easy as changing the downloaded file.

Only one way to know! If you modify the conf script inside the patch you'll soon know. If you are familiar with bash scripting then TKLPatches are pretty basic. It just consists of a conf script (basically just a install bash script) and often a set of files to overlay on top of the standard file system. Although having said that they can be quite complex for some apps.

If you do manage to get it all working with the new version perhaps bundle your modified patch. create a new thread and attach it (you can only attach stuff to the first post of a thread). Be good to post a link here to your new thread if you get that far.

But was wondering if a Alfresco 3.4g patch is possible anytime soon.  I don't know if it will be as simple as updating the downloaded tarball ??

Never created a patch - buy I might try myself.

  Scott

I'm sure that'll be useful for someone else and even the devs may find it useful when they go to make the official TKL Alfresco appliance.

When I say success - it looks like it works now - but I haven't tested much.

Ok - don't know what was going on but..

1.  I checked /var/lib/tomcat6/logs/alfresco.log
I found error saying that "A previous schema upgrade failed.  Revert to the original database before attempting the upgrade again."

This url explained it (http://forums1.man.alfresco.com/en/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8843&start=0) - so dropped the alf_bootstrap_lock table.

2.  That seemed better but then it complained about a table missing > alf_content_url.

3.  So dropped the alfresco db and deleted the users.

4.  Re-ran the db setup (see Adrians step 7 above).

5.  Restarted tomcat just to make sure and bingo!

So really not sure what happened originally but got there.  For anyone elses reference you should have 88 tables when initally setup.

  Scott

Hi all,

Tried to patch the iso (with the current patch 3.3 - thought I should test that out first) - failed the first time, but lets ignore that - it appearred to work the second time.  I am patching the latest TKL core iso.

Boot the patched iso in Virtualbox and was looking good - for access links on the TKL console menu it was showing alfresco and cif shares - thought I had it.

But alas, no - tomcat returns a 404 error when trying to access http://192.168.28.202/alfresco  (and same result on port 8080)

Webmin works find, tomcat is running, alfresco.xml is there, /opt/alfresco is there with the war, /srv/alfresco (the data directory I presume is there).

Interesting I cannot get to the tomcat app manager - guessing that isn't installed.

Beyond that I haven't really gone delving into the set-up - kinda hoping that someone might know whats up :-)

Any ideas ,  Scott

Adrian,

Thank you for your work.  As someone who has spent long hours getting Alfresco properly installed and configured, your work is so helpful.

I did have a problem with segmentation fault when I tried to move it to my home ESXi server.  Fortunately others have had similar problems with other programs, and by following the suggestion in another thread, I was able to get things fully up and running.

/forum/general/20101216/call-suggestions-bug-...

This is some great work.