Sakai 12 install guide (source)

1. Java 1.8
2. Git
3. Maven 3.0 or later
4. Tomcat 8

Sakai 12.0 was QA tested with Java 1.8.0_111, maven-3-2.5 (though maven-3.3.9 should also work), Apache Tomcat 8.5.28

To confirm that Java is both installed on your system and is the correct version for Sakai, run java -version from the command line:

java -version

If Java is installed, basic version and build information will be displayed. Example output:

java version "1.8.0_111"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_31-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.31-b07, mixed mode)

Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the base directory of your Java installation and add Java's /bin directory to the PATH environment variable.

 If the variable JRE_HOME is already set or if you want to use a particular JRE if you have more than one JRE installed on your machine then you'll want to set the JRE_HOME variable as well. JRE_HOME is what Apache Tomcat uses when it starts up, but it defaults to use JAVA_HOME if JRE_HOME is not set. In most cases, setting JAVA_HOME should cover both cases sufficiently.

 Windows: append the string to the end of the Path system variable

Set JAVA_OPTS

The default Java virtual machine (JVM) settings are insufficient for an application of Sakai's size. As a result several JVM parameters must be increased for Sakai to run, while others may need to be adjusted for optimal performance.

 We recommend that you define these settings in Tomcat's /bin directory in a file named setenv.sh (Unix/Mac) or setenv.bat (Windows). See the "Install Tomcat 8" section below for more details. 

Specify a Language and Locale (optional)

You can define the default language/locale when starting Sakai by setting the system properties -Duser.language and -Duser.region. For information on supported languages see the release notes or visit the i18N Work Group space.

-Duser.language=pt 
-Duser.region=PT

In the case your locale is not fully supported in Java (as it happens with Basque or Mongolian languages) you should read this information:
Endorsed I18n Project 

Specify an HTTP Proxy (optional)

In environments where local network policy or firewalls require use of an upstream HTTP proxy/cache, Sakai needs to be configured accordingly. Otherwise components or services which use HTTP requests, such as the BasicNewsService for RSS feeds in the News tool, cannot retrieve data from the target URLs. This can be fixed with the following JAVA_OPTS arguments:

-Dhttp.proxyHost=cache.some.domain 
-Dhttp.proxyPort=8080

https://github.com/sakaiproject/sakai

It is recommended to use Maven 3.2.5 through 3.3.9.

You can download Maven at

http://maven.apache.org/download.html

Extract the distribution archive into your installation directory of choice, e.g. /usr/local/apache-maven-3.2.2. Confirm that you have installed the correct version of Maven and can start it by issuing mvn --version from the terminal. At this point your environment is prepared to build and deploy the Sakai source code.

mvn --version

Apache Maven 3.2.5 (45f7c06d68e745d05611f7fd14efb6594181933e; 2014-06-17T09:51:42-04:00)
Maven home: /usr/local/apache-maven-3.2.5
Java version: 1.8.0_111, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "3.13.0-30-generic", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

Set the MAVEN_HOME environment variable to point to the base directory of your Maven installation and add the Maven /bin directory to your PATH variable:

 Windows: append string to the end of the Path system variable

MAVEN_OPTS

Maven does not read JAVA_OPTS on start up, resulting occasionally in "Out of Memory" errors when building Sakai. To assure sufficient memory allocation during builds, you should add a MAVEN_OPTS environment variable as defined below. For UNIX operating systems one typically modifies a startup file like ~/.bash_login to set and export shell variables while Mac users typically set and export environment variables in .bash_profile. For Windows, go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables and set MAVEN_OPTS via the GUI.

export MAVEN_OPTS='-Xms512m -Xmx1024m'

• Apache Tomcat - http://tomcat.apache.org/
• Note: Always do a fresh install of Tomcat
• Note: For Sakai versions prior to 11.4 please use Tomcat 8.0.34 or earlier. Later versions of Tomcat may cause problems. example: SAK-31608 - Sakai has startup warnings on Tomcat 8.0.39+ CLOSED
• Note: Windows users should ensure that there are no spaces in the complete tomcat path as this causes errors with JSF tools in Sakai
  GOOD: C:\opt\tomcat\, C:\sakaistuff\installs\tomcat\
  BAD: C:\program files\tomcat\, C:\opt\apache tomcat 8.0.43\

1. Download Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org/
   
   

   • Windows users should get the zip file instead of installing a service
     It makes viewing the tomcat logs easier and it is easier to configure

     
     

2. Extract to /opt (symlink the apache-tomcat-x.y.z directory to tomcat after extracting)

   • Example (assuming you have saved the file as /opt/apache-tomcat-8.0.x.tar.gz)

     cd /opt tar xzvf apache-tomcat-8.0.x.tar.gz ln -nsf apache-tomcat-8.0.x tomcat

   • Windows users should either rename the directory or, if comfortable, create a directory junction using an elevated cmd prompt:

     mklink /J C:\apache-tomcat-8.0.x C:\tomcat

3. Modify conf/server.xml for international character support
   
   1. Add URIEncoding="UTF-8" to the Connector element
      
      • <Connector port="8080" URIEncoding="UTF-8" ...
4. Set environment variable: CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat
5. Add $CATALINA_HOME/bin to PATH

6. Setup the SETENV file in the tomcat/bin directory with JAVA_OPTS (from Install Java 1.8).

   Populate Database With Demo Data

   Instead of starting with an empty database you can add the flag -Dsakai.demo=true in addition to the others shown here. During your first Tomcat launch it will populate your database with test data (students, courses, etc). Once the data has been created remove this flag for subsequent Tomcat launches. Be advised that this flag will not trigger on a database with data already in it so you must make this choice during the initial setup. It should also be noted that without this flag one will not be able to create any course sites in Sakai unless Academic Term, Subject, Course, and Section data is manually added to the "cm_" tables in the database.

   Note: Because the test users are 'provided', they do not appear in the Users tool. To get started, log in as "instructor" with the password: "sakai". Then you can add various rosters, including mega sections.

   Alternatively test data can be populated by running "Create sites, users and content for testing." in jobscheduler. This generates many sites, but the class sizes are smaller which is less optimal for performance testing.

   We recommend using -Djava.util.Arrays.useLegacyMergeSort=true until this issue can be resolved -  SAK-31707 - Broken Equality Comparators in Gradebook RESOLVED

   
   

   1. Sakai 21 and prior:

      1. Mac/Linux: Create a file called setenv.sh with the following (alternately, you can put this into your .bashrc file so they're automatically executed):

         Tomcat 8 Mac/Linux

         export JAVA_OPTS="-server -d64 -Xms1g -Xmx2g -Djava.awt.headless=true -XX:+UseCompressedOops -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+DisableExplicitGC" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dhttp.agent=Sakai" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.STRICT_QUOTE_ESCAPING=false" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dsakai.security=$CATALINA_HOME/sakai/" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Duser.timezone=US/Eastern" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dsakai.cookieName=SAKAI2SESSIONID" JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=8089 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.local.only=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false"

      2. Windows(PC): Create a file called setenv.bat with the following:

         Tomcat 8 Windows

         set JAVA_OPTS=-server -Xmx1028m -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=512m -Dorg.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.STRICT_QUOTE_ESCAPING=false -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dhttp.agent=Sakai -Djava.util.Arrays.useLegacyMergeSort=true -Dfile.encoding=UTF8

   2. Sakai 22+ (I.e. on Java 11)

      1. Mac/Linux: Create setenv.sh with the following:

         # Append -Dsakai.demo=true as necessary # Specify -Dsakai.security to specify a location for security.properties # Some other configuration from the Sakai 21 and prior example may also be relevant export JAVA_OPTS="-server -Xmx1028m -Dorg.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.STRICT_QUOTE_ESCAPING=false -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dhttp.agent=Sakai -Dsakai.component.shutdownonerror=true \     --add-exports=java.base/jdk.internal.misc=ALL-UNNAMED \     --add-exports=java.base/sun.nio.ch=ALL-UNNAMED \     --add-exports=java.management/com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver=ALL-UNNAMED \     --add-exports=jdk.internal.jvmstat/sun.jvmstat.monitor=ALL-UNNAMED \     --add-exports=java.base/sun.reflect.generics.reflectiveObjects=ALL-UNNAMED \     --add-opens jdk.management/com.sun.management.internal=ALL-UNNAMED \     --illegal-access=permit"

      2. Windows: If you use Windows, please update this document with a suitable setenv.bat

   3. [OPTIONAL] Delete the default webapps from the webapps dir (Note: this may not be desirable - webapps/ROOT contains the favicon, etc.)

      rm -rf webapps/*
      

Improve startup speed

You can significantly improve Tomcat's startup speed by modifying conf/context.xml to scan for TLDs only in jars of interest.

For Sakai 21 and earlier: Add this JarScanFilter block to the <Context>

For Sakai 22 and later: In Java 11, Java EE has moved to Jakarta EE which includes JSF. Add this JarScanFilter block to the <Context>

11 release tag

To checkout a stable release tag, clone the git repo and then checkout the tag (in this case 11.0):

git clone https://github.com/sakaiproject/sakai.git

cd sakai && git checkout 11.0

11.x maintenance branch

The latest bug fixes for a particular release can be found in our maintenance branches. Please note that certain maintenance branch fixes require database schema changes. You can check out the maintenance branch by issuing the following command from the terminal:

git clone https://github.com/sakaiproject/sakai.git

cd sakai && git checkout 11.x

If you all ready have cloned the repository, skip step the clone step above.

1.0 Create a sakai.properties file

sakai-src/config/configuration/bundles/src/bundle/org/sakaiproject/config/bundle/default.sakai.properties

-Dsakai.home=/path/to/desired/sakai/home/

 For list of sakai.properties settings see the Sakai Properties Reference; for detailed documentation on the full variety of possible sakai.properties settings, see the sakai_properties.doc in /reference/docs/architecture/sakai_properties.doc.

2.0 Configure home page tool set per site

Tool collections for the home page can be configured for each site type. However, if the wsetup.home.toolids.* property is not set, the Worksite setup tool will default to the following set of tools for the home page: sakai.iframe.site, sakai.summary.calendar, sakai.synoptic.announcement, sakai.synoptic.chat, sakai.synoptic.messagecenter. Synoptic tools will be added or dropped from home page depending on whether their linked tool exists in the site or not. See SAK-15504 - Upgraded site: editing My workspace leads to duplicate Home CLOSED and SAK-16747 - tools are not auto-added into Home tool page CLOSED for more details.

wsetup.home.toolids.count=5
wsetup.home.toolids.1=sakai.privacy
wsetup.home.toolids.2=sakai.iframe
wsetup.home.toolids.3=sakai.synoptic.announcement
wsetup.home.toolids.4=sakai.synoptic.chat
wsetup.home.toolids.5=sakai.synoptic.messagecenter

3.0 Work site setup group helper

A new group helper is enabled by default (see SAK-13413 - Group creation enhancement CLOSED for more details). Site maintainers can now create groups based on sections and roles. To switch back to the old 2.5 style of group helper (ad-hoc only), one needs to add following setting in sakai.properties:

wsetup.group.helper.name = sakai-site-manage-group-helper 

4.0 Session timeout warning

Sakai includes a property called inactiveInterval@org.sakaiproject.tool.api.SessionManager, which dictates the length of inactive time before a users session times out and allows for the enabling of a session timeout warning. Session status is now checked by the Sakai portal. If the remaining session time is less than the warning time (say 10 minutes). When a session expires, the any page requests are redirected to the URL indicated by the loggedOutUrl sakai property. See SAK-13987 - Session Timeout Popup Utilizing Polling data from entity broker CLOSED SAK-8152 - Sakai should warn a user before the user's session times out and data is inadvertently lost CLOSED for more details.

To enable the session timeout warning, set the following properties in your local sakai.properties with a time interval of your choosing:

timeoutDialogEnabled=true
timeoutDialogWarningSeconds=600

5.0 Configure email

smtp@org.sakaiproject.email.api.EmailService=some.smtp.org

# flag to enable or disable SMTP service for incoming email (true | false)
#Default=false.
smtp.enabled=true

# dns addresses used by SMTP service for incoming email. (only supported on versions <= Sakai 10)
smtp.dns.1=255.255.255.1
smtp.dns.2=255.255.255.2

# SMTP port on which incoming SMTP service listens.  
# Recommend running on 8025, and using a standard mailer on 25 to forward mail to Sakai.
# Default=25.
smtp.port=8025

# Email support address used in incoming email rejection messages.
mail.support=address@somedomain
# A variation on this that's used in some places instead of the one above! Best to set both of them
support.email
 
#To change the postmaster address in general
smtpFrom@org.sakaiproject.email.api.EmailService
# Email address to send errors caught by the portal, and user bug reports in response.
portal.error.email=address@somedomain

# Email address used as the "from" address for any email sent by Worksite Setup tool or Site Info tool.
setup.request=address@somedomain

# Send an email to the user when the user is added.
notifyNewUserEmail=true

 
#For msgcntr notifications
msgcntr.notification.from.address
 
#Whether or not to send the real address as msgcntr notifications
msgcntr.notification.user.real.from=true (false)
 
 

6.0 Configure logging

log.config.count=3
log.config.1 = ALL.org.sakaiproject.log.impl
log.config.2 = OFF.org.sakaiproject
log.config.3 = DEBUG.org.sakaiproject.db.impl

log4j.logger.org.sakaiproject=INFO

log4j.logger.org.sakaiproject=INFO
log4j.logger.org.sakaiproject.component.framework.sql.BasicSqlService=DEBUG

enabled@org.sakaiproject.log.api.LogConfigurationManager = false

bin/startup.sh; tail -f logs/catalina.out

7.0 Managing temporary files

Depending on usage, Sakai may create many large temporary files in the system temporary file storage location (e.g. /tmp). It is a good practice to routinely remove temporary files older than a day, especially if you have a lot of users or have heavy usage of mail sending with attachments. Note that you should not simply remove all temp files on a schedule as some of them may be in active use (also be careful about removing temp files which are used by other processes).

Make sure to include a MySql connector jar in your CATALINA_HOME/lib. 

Create a Sakai database with a default character set of UTF-8. Create a user account to which you will assign all permissions.

Use any database name and username you wish and then update your sakai.properties file (or even better, create a local.properties file, which has precedence).

In the example below the database is named "sakaidatabase" and the user account is "sakaiuser".

Excerpt from sakai.properties

username@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=sakaiuser
password@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=sakaipassword

## MySQL settings
vendor@org.sakaiproject.db.api.SqlService=mysql
driverClassName@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect
url@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=jdbc:mysql://127.0.0.1:3306/sakaidatabase?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8
validationQuery@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=
defaultTransactionIsolationString@javax.sql.BaseDataSource=TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED

mysql -u root -p
Enter password: 
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 272

Copyright (c) 2000, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL v2 license

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
mysql> create database sakai  default character set utf8;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> grant all on sakai.* to sakaiuser@'localhost' identified by 'sakaipassword';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec

mysql> grant all on sakai.* to sakaiuser@'127.0.0.1' identified by 'sakaipassword';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> flush privileges;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> quit

Install the Sakai master project

Sakai makes use of Maven's Project Object Model to provide an XML representation of basic project information covering dependency management, build targets, external repositories, issue tracking, mailing lists, reporting plugins, developer bios, etc. A top-level master pom.xml file located in the /master project acts as a parent for other Sakai pom.xml files. If you are building Sakai for the first time you should install the master project first by issuing the clean and install goals from the /master project folder.

cd master
mvn clean install
cd ..

Install and deploy Sakai

Once you have built the master pom, issue the following Maven goals from the top-level Sakai source directory:

 -Dmaven.tomcat.home specifies Tomcat's location. -Dsakai.home specifies the location of the sakai properties file(s) within Tomcat. -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack can help resolve issues with Maven hanging while attempting to pull from certain repositories. These can be omitted if specified in Maven's settings.xml file (version 2.x) or in MAVEN_OPTS (version 3.x).

mvn clean install sakai:deploy -Dmaven.tomcat.home=/pathto/tomcathome -Dsakai.home=/pathto/tomcathome/sakai -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

Your first Sakai build will take some time as Maven downloads and stocks your local .m2/repository with missing dependencies while performing the build and deploying .war and .jar files to Tomcat's $CATALINA_HOME/webapps, $CATALINA_HOME/components and $CATALINA_HOME/shared/lib folders. If during this process Maven reports that the build failed read the accompanying error message carefully to troubleshoot the issue (see the Troubleshooting section).

You can also issue mvn clean install sakai:deploy from any sakai project module top-level folder in order to build and deploy portions of Sakai such as individual tools.

Maven Goal Options

There are a number of other ways to build and deploy Sakai using Maven:

Print debug output

mvn -X clean install sakai:deploy

Build and Deploy in offline mode

If your local repository contains all Sakai project dependencies, you can run Maven "offline" by adding the -o option:

mvn -o clean install sakai:deploy

Skip unit tests

There may be occasions when you want to build and deploy Sakai without executing the set of unit tests that accompany many of the Sakai modules. If so add -Dmaven.test.skip=true to the goals you issue:

mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip=true sakai:deploy

Perform a "framework" build

The framework build profile triggers a Sakai build minus it's tool set.

mvn -Pframework clean install sakai:deploy

Perform a "cafe" build

The programmers' cafe build profile is favored by many developers new to Sakai as well as those developing or testing new capabilities.

mvn -Pcafe clean install sakai:deploy

Unix/Mac

sh startup.sh
sh shutdown.sh

Windows

startup.bat
shutdown.bat