| There are a few things you need to figure out to install RAMADDA:
|
- How are you going to run RAMADDA?
RAMADDA can run stand alone or under
a servlet container like Tomcat.
- Where is RAMADDA going to store files?
RAMADDA needs a home directory on your server to store files, databases, etc.
When RAMADDA first starts up it will create a number of directories and files in this home directory.
- What database are you going to use?
RAMADDA comes with its own built-in database (Java Derby) but
can be easily configured to use other databases.
- Configure https (SSL) access.
- Do the final configuration steps through the browser
- Do further site configuration.
- During the installation process you can install a common set of plugins to RAMADDA that provide additional functionality.
There are other plugins available as well.
We have developed an installer script that does a complete installation of Postgres and RAMADDA.
Right now this has just been tested for an Amazon AWS Linux AMI.
See
aws.html for further details.
RAMADDA can run on Windows. However the RAMADDA development team does not have
ready access to a Windows machine to test on so there may be some rough edges.
There have been problems reported running under Tomcat so we would suggest
running
standalone.
To run on Windows you will need to first install
Java.
Once you have Java installed consult the section on Windows in the
README
in the RAMADDA standalone zip file. The standalone release contains a
ramadda.bat.
As described in the ramadda.bat file you set up the JAVA_HOME, RAMADDA_HOME and RAMADDA_PORT environment variables.
Try running the .bat from the command line. If it all works then you can just fire up RAMADDA by running the
.bat when you want to.
If you want to add the .bat as a service so that RAMADDA is always running you can use the NSSM application to install and
run the .bat as a
service-
https://nssm.cc/
You can run RAMADDA stand-alone from the command line. This requires Java 1.8 or greater.
- Download the ramaddaserver.zip from the Geode Systems site.
- Unzip the file and consult the README.
- The minimal thing you have to do is to determine where you want the RAMADDA
home directory to be.
The default is <your home dir>/.ramadda. To run RAMADDA there must
be a home directory already created. When RAMADDA first runs it writes an install.properties file
in the home directory that contains an install password as below. This needs to be entered in your browser for the final configuration.
ramadda.install.password=<some password>
Just run the script:
sh ramaddaserver/ramadda.sh -home </your/ramadda/home/dir>
This runs with the built-in Java Derby database which work just fine. If you want to use an external database (e.g., Postgres, MySQL)
then go and read the documentation.
- The rest of the RAMADDA configuration is done through the web at
http://localhost:8080/repository.
- By default the server is on port 8080. To change the port do:
sh ramadda.sh -home </your/ramadda/home/dir> -port <some port>
This assumes you have Tomcat or some other servlet (e.g., Glassfish) container already installed.
- First, download the repository.war from the Geode Systems site.
- Specify the location of the RAMADDA home directory by setting the property ramadda_home=/home/dir.
Either set this as an environmental or Java run time variable as a property
in a repository.properties in the ${CATALINA_HOME}/conf directory.
- To run under Tomcat just place the repository.war in the tomcat webapps directory.
- Go to the /repository page in your browser to continue the installation process, e.g.:
http://<server>/repository
- By default the repository is accessed at /repository on the web server.
With Tomcat the top-level path can only be a single level and
corresponds to the name of the war file.
If you change the top-level path for Tomcat then you also need to tell
RAMADDA what this path is. You do that in a properties file (see below) with:
ramadda.html.urlbase=/repository
- If you get a memory error - something like "Permgen ..." then you need to increase the
memory allocation. in your Tomcat start up script.
Add or modify the following arguments of the JAVA_OPTS environment
variable in the catalina start script (catalina.sh or catalina.bat):
-Xmx1024m
to set the memory and permgen size. Consult the Tomcat documentation for
more information.
RAMADDA uses a local home directory on the server.
This is where RAMADDA looks for properties files and other resources, where the
Java derby database is stored (if its used) and where any uploaded data files are stored, etc.
Note: the home directory needs to be owned or writable by the process that the server is running under. So, if you are running Tomcat then the home directory should be owned by the Tomcat process.
By default ramadda will use:
<server process home directory>/.ramadda
i.e., the home directory of the process that is running the server (.e.g., "~", "tomcat").
You can override this by setting a ramadda_home property. You can do this in a number of ways:
- When running stand-alone just pass the home directory as a command line argument:
sh ramadda.sh -Dramadda_home=<home dir>
Or:
sh ramadda.sh -home <home dir>
- As a process environment variable.
Environment variables can be set for the tomcat process
Just define:
ramadda_home=/home/dir
- As a Java environment variable
Wherever you define the arguments that are passed to java when starting Tomcat include:
-Dramadda_home=/home/dir
e.g.:
java -Xmx1024m -Dramadda_home=/home/dir
- RAMADDA looks for a repository.properties file under the Tomcat "conf" directory.
It looks for any of the environment variables
CATALINA_HOME (or CATALINA_BASE, catalina.base, catalina.home)
and looks for a file under them, e.g.:
${CATALINA_HOME}/conf/repository.properties
if found then RAMADDA looks for the property:
ramadda_home=/home/dir
For other configuration options RAMADDA looks in its home directory for any .properties files.
While most of the RAMADDA configuration is accomplished through the web ADMIN interface there
are a number of configuration options that can be placed in a properties file, e.g.
database configuration,
ssl options, etc.
When loading properties files the first one that is loaded (if it exists) is "repository.properties".
RAMADDA will then load any
other .properties file in the home directory. It then loads any properties files found in the
plugins directory.
To configure RAMADDA copy this example and
rename it repository.properties.
By default, for an additional layer of system security RAMADDA will require the user's password before a
site administration change or password change.
You can disable this behavior by setting the following property in your repository.properties
file
ramadda.auth.dopassword=false
Under the home directory RAMADDA will create the following subdirectories:
- htdocs
This is where RAMADDA will first look for any static web content that it is serving. If it cannot find the file here
it looks in its internal system area. So, if you want to change the system style sheet, the logo.png file or any other web
content just place it here.
Note: Files here are relative to the top-level repository path. For example, if you have a URL:
http://yourserver.edu/repository/somefile.gif
Then RAMADDA will strip off the "repository" prefix and look for a file in the RAMADDA home dir:
htdocs/somefile.gif
If you had a URL:
http://yourserver.edu/repository/somedir/somefile.gif
Then RAMADDA looks in:
htdocs/somedir/somefile.gif
- logs
Holds the log files.
- plugins
RAMADDA has a plugin mechanism and it looks in this directory for the plugins.
- resources
This is where RAMADDA will first look for any internal resources (e.g., html template files, etc.)
- storage
This is where the uploaded files are stored. The directory strucuture is:
y<the year>/m<the month>/d<the day>/the files
There is also an upload directory that holds any anonymously uploaded files.
- entries
This is where any attachments or any other file associated with an entry (except for the actual entry file) is held.
- tmp
A temporary file space. RAMADDA manages the scouring ,etc., of old files.
- derby
If you are running with the Derby database this directory holds the database
RAMADDA for the most part can be configured through the
Admin pages. When you are logged in to
RAMADDA as an administrator there should be a "Admin" on the left side of the page.
Common tasks include:
Changing the Main Page
To change the presentation of the main entry page (the top-level RAMADDA page) you simply change the name and description
for the Entry. You do this with the
Edit->Edit Entry menu.
Configuring SSL under Tomcat
If you have your Tomcat server configured for SSL access all you need to do is to tell RAMADDA what port it is running under. Add the property:
ramadda.ssl.port=<the ssl port>
to a properties file in the RAMADDA home directory (See
above).
Note: When you define an SSL port then RAMADDA will automatically redirect all login and admin requests
to that port. If your Tomcat server is not really configured for SSL then you will not be able to access RAMADDA.
See the
FAQ for how to fix this.
Configuring SSL when running standalone
To configure secure SSL access to a stand-alone version of RAMADDA you need to
generate a keystore.
Since you are running stand-alone you must already have Java installed on your machine. Java provides
a command line tool -
keytool for generating a keystore.
There is more information
here.
From the command line run:
keytool -genkey -keystore keystore
Once you have your keystore file generated you can copy it to the RAMADDA home directory as
file "keystore". You then need to specify some configuration options for RAMADDA
through a .properties file that you place in the RAMADDA home directory. e.g., ssl.properties:
ramadda.ssl.password=<the password>
ramadda.ssl.keypassword=<the keystore password>
ramadda.ssl.port=<the ssl port>
#You can override the location of the keystore. The default is:
#<repository dir>/keystore
#ramadda.ssl.keystore=alternative path to keystore
#If you want to skip ssl for now set this to true
#ramadda.ssl.ignore=true
It is easy to build and run RAMADDA from Github.
The RAMADDA Gihub site is at
https://github.com/geodesystems/ramadda.
To build RAMADDA you need to have GIT, ANT and a Java compiler (1.7 or greater) installed on your machine.
To build RAMADDA: