30.01.2012

This documentation is meant for installation of the OpenOLAT pre-compiled binary as war-file. If you want to use the newest daily builds, go to the mercurial repository and download and compile OpenOLAT yourself.

The following steps should get you a working OpenOLAT with a basic configuration. The how-to is mostly based on a OpenSuSE 12.1 with tomcat6 from repository.

If you encounter any problems ask other OpenOLAT-users on the mailinglist, see www.openolat.org.

1. Prepare your system (based on a Linux environment)

a) install tomcat / jre.

You can use a standard Tomcat-application server that comes with your operating system (or download from http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi) for OpenSuSE, you can do a "sudo zypper in tomcat6 tomcat6-admin-webapps tomcat6-webapps"

b) mysql

you will need a running mysql-server. Either use your distro repositories or go to http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

c) Optional: it may be needed that you assign more memory to your tomcat, as your OpenOLAT might crash with too less memory.

edit /etc/tomcat6/tomcat6.conf and add or modify "CATALINA_OPTS=-Xmx512m"

2. get OpenOLAT release

Download the war-file with stable OpenOLAT 8.0.x

http://www.openolat.org/downloads.html

rename to openolat.war or whatever context you want to run OpenOLAT with.

3. prepare directory to persist OpenOLAT userdata:

mkdir -p /opt/openolat/olatdata

give permissions to tomcat user

sudo chown -R tomcat:tomcat /opt/openolat/olatdata

4. deploy OpenOLAT

a) use tomcat-manager application, access it by http://localhost:8080/manager/html

make sure you can login to it. Else follow the informations in the error-page.

b) upload your war-file in "WAR file to deploy"

5. Do OpenOLAT settings

a) prepare olat.local.properties, see http://hg.openolat.org/openolat/file/tip/olat.local.properties.sample

as long as you keep the proposed settings, you won't need to change the file content. Else use your favourite editor to change it.

cd /opt/openolat

wget -O olat.local.properties http://hg.openolat.org/openolat/file/tip/olat.local.properties.sample

b) symlink to them,

sudo ln -s /opt/openolat/olat.local.properties /usr/share/tomcat6/webapps/openolat/WEB-INF/classes/olat.local.properties

c) allow following symlinks, so you can keep your olat.local.properties even after updates of OpenOLAT

in /etc/tomcat6/context.xml

change "<Context>" to "<Context allowLinking="true">"

6. setup database.

a) you could use the helper-script in http://hg.openolat.org/openolat/file/tip/scripts/dbAndUserSetup.sh

wget http://hg.openolat.org/openolat/file/tip/scripts/dbAndUserSetup.sh

chmod +x dbAndUserSetup.sh

./dbAndUserSetup.sh

enter correct values in olat.local.properties should you have choosen others than "openolat" for database name, user and password

b) import initial database

cd /opt/openolat

wget http://hg.openolat.org/openolat/file/tip/src/main/resources/database/mysql/setupDatabase.sql

enter "openolat" or choosen database-password for user openolat when asked:

mysql -u openolat -p openolat < setupDatabase.sql

7. start (or restart) tomcat to also start your OpenOLAT

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

8. Login to your own OpenOLAT

visit http://localhost:8080/openolat/

username: administrator

password: openolat

enjoy and have fun!

Please let us know your ideas and comments on the mailinglist, any bug reports on jira.openolat.org