Installation Instructions: Release 0.9.1 for Production

Prerequisites/Preparation

Note: If you want the application's capabilities to notify users about issues and changes enabled, you have to configure a mail server, which the application can use to send mails to the users (see Configuring the mail host). If you're testing standalone, you can install James from the Apache Jakarta project for example.

Database

  1. Start MySQL.
  2. Run InstallDb.bat (Windows) or InstallDb.sh (Linux) in the expanded scripts\MySql directory. For to run this script you have to add as parameters the path to your MySQL executable and the database manager's password (e.g. InstallDb c:\programs\mysql\bin myPassword).
    This script creates the VIF database, adds a suitable user and grants user rights and eventually adds the tables and indexes needed for the application.
    Note1: If you have mysql on the system's PATH, you can provide a dummy as first parameter, e.g. InstallDb dummy myPassword.
    Note2: If you didn't assign a password to the database manager, you can skip the password parameter.
  3. Configure the database user the application uses to connect to the database (see Configuring the database user).

Application

Deployment
Place the Web Application Archive vifapp.war into $TOMCAT_HOME/webapps where $TOMCAT_HOME is the root of the Tomcat installation directory.
Start Tomcat
Be sure that Tomcat's base directory (aka TOMCAT_BASE or CATALINA_BASE) points to the parent of the /webapps directory you're using for the application. This is important because the application tries to read the application's configuration in ./webapps/vifapp/WEB-INF/conf/vif.properties relative to Tomcat's base directory.
Note: You can test your installation by submitting http://localhost:8080/vifapp/admin?requestType=smoke. Read the value for Tomcat Base and check whether the application finds vif.properties starting from the specified place.
Create Super User
Start your web browser and enter the following URL:
http://localhost:8080/vifapp/admin?requestType=createSU&userId=suId&passwd=suPasswd
This creates a new user with the user id suID having super user privileges and the password suPasswd. Provide for suID and suPasswd values suitable in your case.
Start VIF administration
Enter the following URL to start the VIF administration application:
http://localhost:8080/vifapp/admin/.
Set up forum
A login page is displayed. Log in as super user with your newly created user id and password. You're able now to add new members and discussion groups and to edit permissions. The next thing you have to do is to create or add member entries for the forum administration.

Note: The port your Tomcat installation is listening may vary according to the configuration in your Tomcat's server.xml.

Starting the forum application

You can start the application simply by calling http://localhost:8080/vifapp/forum.

Tailoring the application

See the Forum Administration part of this documentation for further information how to set up and tailor the forum application.