Category: Tips

This tip is valid for Linux and Windows and should be for Enterprise and Community as well. I have tried with last Enterprise build 4.2.0.3 on Ubuntu.

How to do an unattended installation of Alfresco with MySQL support with just one command, is as easy as running the command below (all in one line):

[bash]

sudo ./alfresco-enterprise-4.2.0.3-installer-linux-x64.bin –prefix /opt/alfresco \

–unattendedmodeui none –mode unattended –debuglevel 0 \

–enable-components javaalfresco,alfrescosharepoint,alfrescogoogledocs,libreofficecomponent \
–disable-components postgres \
–jdbc_url "jdbc:mysql://localhost/dbname?useUnicode=yes&characterEncoding=UTF-8" \
–jdbc_driver org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver –jdbc_database dbname –jdbc_username dbuser \
–jdbc_password dbpassword –alfresco_ftp_port 2121 \
–alfresco_admin_password alfrescoadminpassword –baseunixservice_install_as_service 0 \
–alfrescocustomstack_services_startup demand

[/bash]

Change “dbname”, “dbuser”,”dbpassword”, “alfrescoadminpassword” with yours.

MySQL Note: In the example above I’m using MySQL, in this case you must have the DB already installed and when the command ends, copy the MySQL JDBC connector (mysql-connector-java-5.1.18-bin.jar) into the tomcat/lib directory.

Posgresql Note: If you want to install Posgresql it will be installed automatically using the installer but the command should be like this:

[bash]

sudo ./alfresco-enterprise-4.2.0.3-installer-linux-x64.bin –prefix /opt/alfresco \
–unattendedmodeui none –mode unattended –debuglevel 0 \
–enable-components javaalfresco,postgres,alfrescosharepoint,alfrescogoogledocs,libreofficecomponent \
–jdbc_url "jdbc:postgresql://localhost/dbname?useUnicode=yes&characterEncoding=UTF-8" \
–jdbc_driver org.postgresql.Driver –jdbc_database dbname –jdbc_username dbuser \
–jdbc_password dbpassword –alfresco_ftp_port 2121 \
–alfresco_admin_password alfrescoadminpassword –baseunixservice_install_as_service 0 \
–alfrescocustomstack_services_startup demand

[/bash]

In case of Postgresql none library has to be copied to tomcat/bin because is done by the installer.

Remember that it takes 1 or 2 minutes to finish the unattended installation, be patient.

More information and options? “–help” is your friend

./alfresco-enterprise-4.2.0.3-installer-linux-x64.bin –help

Do you have a bottle neck on your transformations to PDF or any other format done by Libre or OpenOffice inside Alfresco?

This tip is thanks to a conversation with my colleague at Alfresco Antonio Soler. Due to the Alfresco Enterprise support for JodConverter this tip is not valid for the Community version.

Thanks to the JodConverter multiples LibreOffice or OpenOffice instances can be invoked to manage more transactions if needed. For example, one process can handle up to 200 transformations and then it is automatically restarted, if you need to manage more than this and add parallel processes  just add more ports comma separated in the JodConverter port option as seen below:

After apply this change you can see three soffice processes:

Remember, if you are using OpenOffice you will see “soffice.bin” process and “.soffice.bin” for LibreOffice.

If you want to know more about the new Admin Panel visit this blog post: http://blogs.alfresco.com/wp/kevinr/2013/09/30/alfresco-repository-admin-console/

Are you wondering about how to have full control on the Alfresco logs? If you are an Alfresco administrator I’m pretty sure you want to manage where the alfresco.log, share.log and solr.log are placed, right?

I asume you want to store all your alfresco logs in /opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs, which is the default logging directory for Tomcat and where you can find catalina.out log file as many other out-of-the-box logging files for this well known application server.

If you use the Alfresco installer or a default installation, logging files like alfresco.log, share.log and solr.log may be created where you run the “alfresco.sh start” script or where you start Tomcat. For example, in an installation placed in /opt/alfresco/, when you start Alfresco with ./alfresco.sh start (once you are in /opt/alfresco) those 3 files will be created in /opt/alfresco. If you are using the initd start/stop script for RedHat or Ubuntu you will see log files created in the root “/“ directory or maybe in the user home directory (it may depends).

Here you go how to manage all of these :
(Disclaimer: remember that after doing all said here, Alfresco will still logging some exception before override of the extension files take place).

• Alfresco repository logs:

Valid for for any Alfresco version. Copy the original log4j properties from the alfresco deployed war file to the extension directory renamed as custom-log4j.properties:

[bash]

cp /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties /opt/alfresco/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/extension/custom-log4j.properties

[/bash]

Edit the custom-log4j.properties file and modify “log4j.appender.File.File” as your needs or like here:

[bash]
###### File appender definition #######
log4j.appender.File=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.File.File=/opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/alfresco.log
log4j.appender.File.Append=true
log4j.appender.File.DatePattern=’.’yyyy-MM-dd
log4j.appender.File.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.File.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %-5p [%c] %m%n
[/bash]

• Alfresco Share logs:

At the moment there is no extension mechanism for Share logs, then we can not do it in the same way as for Alfresco repository. In this case you only can edit /opt/alfresco/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties file and modify appender line as shown below:

[bash]
log4j.appender.File.File=/opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/share.log
[/bash]

The bad news with this method is that you will need to do it again when you upgrade Alfresco Share or redeploy share.war again.

• Solr logs:

In Alfresco 4.2 (for previous versions see below): alf_data/solr/log4j-solr.properties you will find the configuration file, now change the line “log4j.appender.File.File” like below:

[bash]
# Set root logger level to error
log4j.rootLogger=WARN, Console, File

###### Console appender definition #######

# All outputs currently set to be a ConsoleAppender.
log4j.appender.Console=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.Console.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout

log4j.appender.Console.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ISO8601} %x %-5p [%c{3}] [%t] %m%n

###### File appender definition #######
log4j.appender.File=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.File.File=/opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs/solr.log
log4j.appender.File.Append=true
log4j.appender.File.DatePattern=’.’yyyy-MM-dd
log4j.appender.File.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.File.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %-5p [%c] %m%n

###### added Alfresco SOLR class logging #######
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.search.impl.solr=INFO
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.solr.tracker.CoreTracker=ERROR
[/bash]

In previous Alfresco versions just bear in mind to copy the log file into the “solr/home” value defined in “{tomcat}/conf/Catalina/{hostname}/solr.xml”. You also may need to reload the Solr log4j resource from the Solr admin panel: https://localhost:8443/solr/admin/cores?action=LOG4J&resource=log4j-solr.properties
Also remember to use  https://localhost:8443/solr/alfresco/admin/logging to manage your Solr logs.

More info about Solr logs here: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Alfresco_And_SOLR#Load_Log4J_Settings and here https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/MNT-5803

• Last step for any configuration about the logs configuration is to restart your application server.

If you want to see and manage the logging with a web tool, see the Alfresco Support Tools in action (for Alfresco Enterprise only) here: https://addons.alfresco.com/addons/support-tools-admin-console. This is just an example about the logging section:

If you want to know more about the new Admin Panel visit this blog post: http://blogs.alfresco.com/wp/kevinr/2013/09/30/alfresco-repository-admin-console/

UPDATE! Feb 20th

As Cesar mentioned in the comments, the easiest way to have control about where your logs are located just add this line to your init.d script (take care about these variables):

[bash]

su -c $ALF_USER “cd $ALF_LOGS && $ALF_HOME/alfresco.sh start”

[/bash]

Or even if you are using the alfresco.sh script directly add next lines just before the “ERROR=0” line:

[bash]

LOGSDIR=/opt/alfresco/tomcat/logs

cd $LOGSDIR

[/bash]

This is a quick tip to enable video thumbnail and transformations in Alfresco thanks to FFMPEG integration.  This feature can be integrated easily since Alfresco 4.X (for both Enterprise and Community).  The result on the thumbnail creation is something like this: Video format supported for the JPG thumbnail creation are: 3g2, 3gp, asf, avi, avx, flv, mov, movie, mp4, mpeg2, mpg, ogv and wmv. Other than that you will be able to create folder rules to transform between video formats, this is a sample rule to transform from MP4 to FLV: Thanks to the ffmpeg integration we will be able to transform video formats as shows below:

• from 3g2 to flv
• from 3gp to flv
• from asf to flv
• from avi to flv
• from avx to flv
• from mov to flv
• from movie to flv
• from mp4 to flv
• from mpeg2 to flv
• from mpg to flv
• from ogv to flv
• from wmv to flv
• from 3g2 to mp4
• from 3gp to mp4
• from asf to mp4
• from avx to mp4
• from mov to mp4
• from movie to mp4
• from mpeg2 to mp4
• from mpg to mp4
• from wmv to mp4

By default in Alfresco, ffmpeg also supports next audio transformations:

• from aiff to mp3
• from au to mp3
• from m4a to mp3
• from oga to mp3
• from wav to mp3

Now you may are wondering “does ffmpeg support mov to wmv video transformation?” No, it doesn’t do it by default with the out-of-the-box configuration. It only supports conversions TO mp4 and flv. You may add more formats using other tool than ffmpeg or customizing the existing transformers (see last paragraph of this post).

Installation: You already should have an Alfresco 4.2 up and running (it may works with 4.X and pretty similar for Windows and Linux). This procedure is very easy, just install ffmpeg, add some config lines to alfresco-global.properties, rename a couple of files and restart Alfresco:

• Install ffmpeg on your server. I have installed the static binary for 64 bits from http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html
• Copy the ffmpeg binary (if static) to a place like  /opt/alfresco/common/bin/
• Once you have this, run the command from the command line to see if it works correctly: ./ffmpeg
• Edit your alfresco-global.properties and add next lines:

[bash]
ffmpeg.exe=/opt/alfresco/common/bin/ffmpeg

### Needed for video thumbnails ###
# ffmpeg.thumbnail
# ================
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.priority=50
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.3g2.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.3gp.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.asf.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.avi.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.avx.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.flv.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.mov.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.movie.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.mp4.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.mpeg2.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.mpg.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.ogv.jpg.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.thumbnail.extensions.wmv.jpg.supported=true

### Needed for video transformations ###
# ffmpeg.flv
# ==========
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.priority=50
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.3g2.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.3gp.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.asf.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.avi.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.avx.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.mov.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.movie.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.mp4.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.mpeg2.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.mpg.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.ogv.flv.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.flv.extensions.wmv.flv.supported=true

# ffmpeg.mp4
# ==========
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.priority=50
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.3g2.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.3gp.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.asf.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.avx.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.mov.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.movie.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.mpeg2.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.mpg.mp4.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp4.extensions.wmv.mp4.supported=true
# The avi and ogv to mp4 transformations did not work with ffmpeg 0.8.6
# Please check the latest ffmpeg documentation for the latest information
# content.transformer.avi.mp4.extensions.mpg.mp4.supported=true
# content.transformer.ogv.mp4.extensions.wmv.mp4.supported=true

# ffmpeg.mp3
# ==========
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.priority=50
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.extensions.aiff.mp3.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.extensions.au.mp3.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.extensions.m4a.mp3.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.extensions.oga.mp3.supported=true
content.transformer.ffmpeg.mp3.extensions.wav.mp3.supported=true

[/bash]

• Find two files in your extension directory (tomcat/shared/clases/alfresco/extension) and rename them without the .sample extension: video-thumbnail-context.xml and video-transformation-context.xml
• Restart the application server and done!

And what about if I want to do conversions to other formats? How can I do  transformation for changing resolution, size, quality and so forth? Just take a look to “video-transformation-context.xml” you will se how easy is to create a new commands using different options in the ffmpeg command.

This forum thread could be also helpful for you.