JBoss Portal 2.0 Beta

Of course you will need to install JBoss Application Server prior to install JBoss portal, if you didn't do so yet, please go get JBoss 4.0.1 SP1 from Sourceforge.

You can download JBoss portal in different ways, packaged in binaries, sources or from the CVS.

You will need a database to store the data of the system, you can use any database supported by Hibernate. In this document we will consider that you are using MySQL, you can download it at http://www.mysql.com

Last but not least, you also need to get the JDBC connector for your database, the MySQL JDBC connector is available at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/3.1.html, the postgreSQL JDBC connector is available at http://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html.

If you need a custom setup of JBoss AS, you should read the documentation about JBoss application server. In our case, we will use the default configuration shipped with JBoss AS 4.0.1.

At this stage you should have the jboss-4.0.1.zip or any other archive of the same version. First you need to setup JBOSS_HOME environment variable otherwise you won't be able to compile JBoss Portal. To do so go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables, and add the JBOSS_HOME environment variable. Or do export JBOSS_HOME=/path/to/your/jboss/directory on a Unix-like system.

The downloaded archive contains the following files:

The first step is to setup the default data for the portal, this is done in 2 steps. First you have to execute the content of the file setup.ddl in the database.

>mysql -u portal -p
mysql> use jbossportal
Database changed
mysql> source setup.ddl
Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.06 sec)
...
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> exit
Bye

Then you should populate the database to create two users, one with login user and password user who is a regular user and one administrator with admin as username and admin as password.

To do so type the following command: root# mysql -u portal -p jbossportal < jboss-portal-2.0\core\output\resources\setup\setup.sql

The second step is to unarchive the content of the file cms-content.zip into the directory $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/data, this setup the default content of the CMS. If this is the first time you use that JBoss instance, the directory data may not exist, in that case you have to create it. You should have the following structure for the CMS:

$JBOSS_HOME/server/default/data
 +-portal
  +-webdav
   +-store
   +-work>

Now it is time to deploy the rest in JBoss. Just copy the files portal-core.sar and portal-ds.xml into the directory $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy

First define which database you want to use by specifying it in $PORTAL_HOME/build/local.properties. By changing the value of portal.database JBoss Portal will be ready to use the specified one. As of today only mySQL and postreSQL are accepted values but to add any Hibernate supported database you just need to add a file into $PORTAL_HOME/build/etc with your database information. See below.

Check and modify if needed the file corresponding to your database in $PORTAL_HOME/build/etc. Here is what it looks like for mySQL:

hibernate.dialect=net.sf.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect
portal.datasource.driver=org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver
portal.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/jbossportal?useServerPrepStmts=false
portal.datasource.username=portal
portal.datasource.password=portalpassword

Adding another database would be as easy as adding such a file, specifying the Hibernate dialect, the datasource url, the username and the password.

Now is time to build the sources, go to jboss-portal-2.0/build and type sh build.sh, you should read BUILD SUCCESSFUL at the end of the operation.

Now you will need to build the DDL file to be able to create the required tables in your database. To do so go to jboss-portal-2.0/core and type sh build.sh ddl. It will create the file jboss-portal-2.0\core\output\resources\setup\setup.ddl.

To feed your database just type the following line and enter portalpassword as password when asked (or whatever you used while setting up your database): C:\mysql\bin> mysqladmin -u portal -p jbossportal < jboss-portal-2.0\core\output\resources\setup\setup.ddl then you should populate the database to create two users, one with login user and password user who is a regular user and one administrator with admin as username and admin as password. To do so type the following command: root# mysql -u portal -p jbossportal < jboss-portal-2.0\core\output\resources\setup\setup.sql

Before you deploy the application by itself, you will need to have the database deployment descriptor (portal-ds.xml) in the $JBOSS_HOME\server\default\deploy directory. To do so copy in that directory the file $PORTAL_HOME\core\output\resources\setup\portal-ds.xml:

You will also need to put the jar file of your database connector in $JBOSS_HOME\server\default\lib.

Then copy $JBOSS_HOME\server\all\lib\jboss-remoting.jar, $JBOSS_HOME\server\all\lib\jgroups.jar and $JBOSS_HOME\server\all\lib\jboss-cache.jar into $JBOSS_HOME\server\default\lib

Finally, you can deploy JBoss Portal by going into the core directory and by typing build deploy. It will deploy JBoss Portal in the default configuration of JBoss.

It is common to have a server running on the port number 80 instead of the default port 8080, to change that you will need to change it at two levels, to change it at the portal level, you need to edit the file $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat50.sar/server.xml and change the port value of the HTTP Connector to the same value as you defined in the portal.

Now you can restart JBoss and use the new port that you defined. On systems like Linux, you need privileges to be able to run a server on a port lower than 1000, starting JBoss on the port 80 as a regular user will not work, for testing you can log as root but is not recommended if the server is public as it could be a security breach in your system.

By default, the "main" page of JBoss portal will be accessible at http://localhost:8080/portal/index.html. You may want to change that either to a different name or to http://localhost:8080/index.html.

Now you can rebuild JBoss portal and redeploy it to change the context path.