LivingTalks v1.1

Installation guide

Falk Langhammer and Oliver Imbusch
Living Pages Research GmbH, Munich, Germany
Sep 19, 2000
livingtalks@livis.de

LivingTalks is a web-based tool which allows to administer the content of a conference (i.e. the talks, authors, sessions etc.), their scheduling (the “program-making”), and to eventually publish to different media such as web and print.

The LivingTalks homepage is: www.livis.de/projects/livingtalks

This version (v1.1) has been produced to both manage the Net.ObjectDays 2000 conference as well as to serve as an educational example (for Enterprise JavaBeans programming techniques) to visitors of this conference. The conference-CD contains this re-distributable version (under the GNU Public License).

Table of contents

1. Installation 1

1.1 Prepare and start the J2EE server: 1

1.2 Deploy the LivingTalks application: 2

1.3 Uninstall: 3

1.4 Configuration: 3

1.4.1 Adding users: 3

1.4.2 Changing the look of published web pages: 4

1. Installation

Installation consists of the following steps (Linux, Win32, or Solaris):

1.1 Prepare and start the J2EE server:

  1. Install the Java development kit JDK 1.2.2 (or higher), from java.sun.com

  2. Install the Java 2 Enterprise Edition software development kit J2EESDK 1.2.2 (or higher), from java.sun.com

    This J2EE SDK is Sun's reference implementation of the J2EE specification, typically referred to as “RI”. LivingTalks v1.1 has been tested to run with the RI. The RI contains a pure java database, Cloudscape.

    In the following, $J2EE_HOME refers to the installation directory and is the same as %J2EE_HOME under Windows and $J2EE_HOME under Unix. We also assume that You replace the file-separation-character (“/”) by “\” when working under Windows.

  3. Make sure you understand the deployment tool in the RI ($J2EE_HOME/bin/deploytool)

  4. Make the following change to file $J2EE_HOME/config/default.properties:

    change the line:

    jdbc.datasources=jdbc/Cloudscape|jdbc:cloudscape:rmi:CloudscapeDB;create=true

    into the single line:

    jdbc.datasources=jdbc/Cloudscape|jdbc:cloudscape:rmi:CloudscapeDB;create=true|jdbc/LivingTalks|jdbc:cloudscape:rmi:LivingTalksDB;create=true

    This makes the example run in its own separate database which you can easily delete from your hard drive when you feel so.

  5. Make the following change to file $J2EE_HOME/lib/security/server.policy:

    add the following three lines before the file's closing brace:

    // LivingTalks publish/export features need this:

    permission java.io.FilePermission "${com.sun.enterprise.home}${file.separator}public_html${file.separator}livingtalks${file.separator}publish${file.separator}-", "read,write,delete";

    permission java.io.FilePermission "${com.sun.enterprise.home}${file.separator}public_html${file.separator}datasets${file.separator}-", "read,write,delete";

    This is necessary in order to enable the tools publish, import and export features.

  6. Start the J2EE server (you may need two command windows under Windows):

    $J2EE_HOME/bin/cloudscape -start

    $J2EE_HOME/bin/j2ee -verbose

The J2EE server is now up and running. We assume that you proceed on the same machine with the following steps. If not, replace “localhost” by the hostname of the machine the J2EE server is running on.

1.2 Deploy the LivingTalks application:

  1. We assume that you unpack(ed) the archive file “livingtalks-v1.1.zip“such that a directory /usr/src/livingtalks-v1.1 was created.

  2. Start the deploytool:

    $J2EE_HOME/bin/deploytool

  3. Using the deploytool's graphical UI, do the following:

    1. Connect (Server/Add...) to and select the J2EE server (localhost), if this has not happened automatically yet.

    2. Open (File/Open Application...) the application archive “/usr/src/livingtalks-v1.1/livingtalks.ear

    3. Deploy the application (Tools/Deploy Application...). Go through the dialog boxes to complete the deployment. You can choose to use the default values, if you do not want to change any settings

    4. Exit the deploytool if you wish.

  4. Copy directory “/usr/src/livingtalks-v1.1/datasets” into “$J2EE_HOME/public_html/

  5. You are now ready to use the LivingTalks application.

    In your browser, open the following URL:
    http://localhost:8000/livingtalks

    When prompted for a user name and password, enter:

    user: j2ee
    password: j2ee

1.3 Uninstall:

Uninstall is simple:

  1. Stop servers

  2. Delete the four directories:

    1. $J2EE_HOME/repository/<HOSTNAME>
      (rather use the deploytool's undeploy function if you have deployed other applications as well...)

    2. $J2EE_HOME/repository/public_html/datasets

    3. $J2EE_HOME/repository/public_html/livingtalks

    4. $J2EE_HOME/repository/cloudscape/LivingTalksDB

  3. Undo changes to the two configuration files (if you care – the changes have no impact for other applications on the J2EE server).

  4. If you decide to uninstall the J2EE SDK: Skip steps 2.-3. and uninstall the J2EE SDK (and possibly the JDK) using your operating system's uninstall function.

1.4 Configuration:

The LivingTalks application runs “out of the box”. There is no configuration you can do without re-deploying the application.

However, the following configuration options may matter to you:

1.4.1 Adding users:

The tool comes configured with user “j2ee” (with password “j2ee”). This is the only user pre-configured in Sun's RI. This user got all rights. (There is another user preconfigured: “scott”. He got editing rights. However, you have to ask Scott for his password ;-).

The LivingTalks tool knows four rôles:

  1. master

  2. editor (may enter, change, or delete data of categories the master gave him permissions for; may also export and partially import data).

  3. publisher (may publish the content, e.g., to the web)

  4. any (may view data)

It may be best, to create a user group (e.g. “ltedt”), and create a number of users belonging to this group using RI's realmtool ($J2EE_HOME/bin/realmtool). Then, using the deploytool, map group ltedt to rôle editor, map some user to rôle master, and some user (e.g. the webmaster or the entire group ltedt) to rôle publisher. The users must have been created before doing the changes in the deploytool (it asks the server for users and groups...).

Re-deploy the application.

Later, when you want to add editors: create new users in group ltedt using the realmtool and restart the J2EE server. There is now no need to re-deploy the application.

There is no EJB standards-compliant way to add users within the tool. We have therefore omitted this feature... However, a version which would allow authors to register online and submit their draft only, one would have to program this feature in a vendor-specific way.

1.4.2 Changing the look of published web pages:

Published web pages are generated using XML style sheets (XSLT version 1.0) which, in turn make use of CSS style sheets (CSS version 2.0). You find all style sheets in /usr/src/livingtalks-v1.1/dev/webroot/publish/styles/. You may make changes to these files. You will then have to re-import web files in the deploytool and have to re-deploy the application (between successive reboots of the J2EE server may be sufficient to just copy files into $J2EE_HOME/repository/public_html/livingtalks/publish/styles/).

 

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Copyright © 2000 Living Pages Research GmbH, Munich, Germany www.living-pages.de
See full copyright notice. (the copyright terms are the same as those of The Apache Group).