Chapter 2. Installer

2.1. Prerequisites
2.2. Download the installer
2.3. Demo setup
2.4. 10-Minute Tutorial: Using the Eclipse tooling
2.5. 10-Minute Tutorial: Using the jBPM Console
2.6. What to do if I encounter problems or have questions?
2.7. Frequently asked questions

This guide will assist you in installing and running a demo setup of the various components of the jBPM project. If you have any feedback on how to improve this guide, if you encounter problems, or if you want to help out, do not hesitate to contact the jBPM community as described in the "What to do if I encounter problems or have questions?" section.

2.1. Prerequisites

This script assumes you have Java JDK 1.6+ (set as JAVA_HOME), and Ant 1.7+ installed. If you don't, use the following links to download and install them:

Java: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

Ant: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi

2.2. Download the installer

First of all, you need to download the installer. There are two versions, a full installer (which already contains a lot of the dependencies that are necessary during the installation) and a minimal installer (which only contains the installer and will download all dependencies). In general, it is probably best to download the full installer: jBPM-{version}-installer-full.zip

You can also find the latest snapshot release here (only minimal installer) here:

https://hudson.jboss.org/jenkins/job/jBPM/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/jbpm-distribution/target/

2.3. Demo setup

The easiest way to get started is to simply run the installation script to install the demo setup. Go into the install folder and run:

ant install.demo

This will:

Download JBoss AS
Download Eclipse
Install the jBPM web tooling into JBoss AS
Install the jBPM and Drools Eclipse plugin
Install the BPMN2 Eclipse Modeler

This could take a while (REALLY, not kidding, we are downloading an application server, an Eclipse installation, etc. Even if you already downloaded the full installer you still need to download the right eclipse version for your operating system). The script however always shows which file it is downloading (you could for example check whether it is still downloading by checking the whether the size of the file in question in the jbpm-installer/lib folder is still increasing). If a download didn't succeed (for example due to a connection issue), delete the file in question from the jbpm-installer/lib folder and run the script again).

Once the demo setup has finished, you can start playing with the various components by starting the demo setup:

ant start.demo

This will:

Start the H2 database
Start the JBoss AS
Start Eclipse

After successfully installing and starting these components, you can optionally also download and install the dashboard web application, which can be used to monitor your process instances. To do so, run:

ant install.dashboard.into.jboss

Once everything is started, you can start playing with the jBPM Eclipse and web tooling, as explained in the next three sections.

If you only want to try out the Eclipse tooling in the demo setup (and not the web tooling), you can use the alternative commands:

ant install.demo.eclipse
ant start.demo.eclipse

If you only want to try out the web tooling in the demo setup (and not the Eclipse tooling), you can use the alternative commands:

ant install.demo.noeclipse
ant start.demo.noeclipse

2.4. 10-Minute Tutorial: Using the Eclipse tooling

The following screencast gives an overview of how to run a simple demo process in Eclipse. It shows you:

How to import a sample "performance evaluation" project into your workspace, containing
- a sample BPMN2 process for requesting a performance evaluation
- a sample JUnit test class to start the process
How to start the process