DSpace System Documentation: Installation

Back to contents

Prerequisites

The list below describes the third-party components and tools you'll need to run a DSpace server. These are simply recommendations based on our setup at MIT; since DSpace is built on open source, standards-based tools, there are numerous other possibilities and setups.

Also, please note that the configuration and installation guidelines relating to a particular tool below are here for convenience. You should refer to the documentation for each individual component for complete and up-to-date details. Many of the tools are updated on a frequent basis, and the guidelines below may become out of date.

  1. UNIX-like OS (Linux, HP/UX etc)

  2. Java 1.4 or later (standard SDK is fine, you don't need J2EE)

  3. Apache Ant 1.6.2 or later (Java make-like tool)

  4. PostgreSQL 7.3 or later, an open source relational database, or Oracle 9 or higher.

  5. Jakarta Tomcat 4.x/5.x or equivalent, such as Jetty or Caucho Resin.

    Note that DSpace will need to run as the same user as Tomcat, so you might want to install and run Tomcat as a user called 'dspace'.

    You need to ensure that Tomcat has a) enough memory to run DSpace and b) uses UTF-8 as its default file encoding for international character support. So ensure in your startup scripts (etc) that the following environment variable is set:

    JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx512M -Xms64M -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8"

    You also need to alter Tomcat's default configuration to support searching and browsing of multi-byte UTF-8 correctly. You need to add a configuration option to the <Connector> element in [tomcat]/config/server.xml:

    URIEncoding="UTF-8"

    e.g. if you're using the default Tomcat config, it should read:

    <!-- Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080 -->
<Connector port="8080"
           maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
           enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" acceptCount="100"
           connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true"
           URIEncoding="UTF-8" />

    Jetty and Resin are configured for correct handling of UTF-8 by default.

Quick Installation Steps

But First, a Word on Directories and Path Names

DSpace uses three separate directory trees. Although you don't need to know all the details of them in order to install DSpace, you do need to know they exist and also know how they're referred to in this document:

For details on the contents of these separate directory trees, refer to directories.html. Note that the source directory and install directory should always be separate!

  1. Create the DSpace user. This needs to be the same user that Tomcat (or Jetty etc) will run as. e.g. as root run:

    useradd -m dspace

  2. Download the latest DSpace source code release and unpack it:

    gunzip -c dspace-source-1.x.tar.gz | tar -xf -

  3. Database Setup

    Postgres:

    1. Copy the PostgreSQL JDBC driver (.jar file) into [dspace-source]/lib. If you compiled PostgreSQL yourself, it'll be in postgresql-7.x.x/src/interfaces/jdbc/jars/postgresql.jar. Alternatively you can download it directly from the PostgreSQL JDBC site. Make sure you get the driver for the version of PostgreSQL you're running and for JDBC2.

    2. Create a dspace database, owned by the dspace PostgreSQL user:

      createuser -U postgres -d -A -P dspace ; createdb -U dspace -E UNICODE dspace

      Enter a password for the DSpace database. (This isn't the same as the dspace user's UNIX password.)

    Oracle:

    1. Copy the Oracle JDBC driver into [dspace-source]/lib.

    2. Create a database for DSpace. Make sure that the character set is one of the Unicode character sets. DSpace uses UTF-8 natively, and it is suggested that the Oracle database use the same character set. Create a user account for DSpace (e.g. dspace,) and ensure that it has permissions to add and remove tables in the database.

    3. Edit the config/dspace.cfg file in your source directory for the following settings:

      db.name   = oracle
db.url    = jdbc.oracle.thin:@//host:port/dspace
db.driver = oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver

    4. Go to [dspace-source]/etc/oracle and copy the contents to their parent directory, overwriting the versions in the parent: 

      cd dspace_source/etc/oracle
cp * ..

      You now have Oracle-specific .sql files in your etc directory, and your dspace.cfg is modified to point to your Oracle database.

  4. Edit [dspace-source]/config/dspace.cfg, in particular you'll need to set these properties:
    dspace.dir -- must be set to the [dspace] (installation) directory.
    dspace.url -- complete URL of this server's DSpace home page.
    dspace.hostname -- fully-qualified domain name of web server.
    dspace.name -- "Proper" name of your server, e.g. "My Digital Library".
    db.password -- the database password you entered in the previous step.
    mail.server -- fully-qualified domain name of your outgoing mail server.
    mail.from.address -- the "From:" address to put on email sent by DSpace.
    feedback.recipient -- mailbox for feedback mail.
    mail.admin -- mailbox for DSpace site administrator.
    alert.recipient -- mailbox for server errors/alerts (not essential but very useful!)

    NOTE: You can interpolate the value of one configuration variable in the value of another one. For example, to set feedback.recipient to the same value as mail.admin, the line would look like: 

        feedback.recipient = ${mail.admin}
    See the dspace.cfg file for examples.

  5. Create the directory for the DSpace installation. As root, run:

    mkdir [dspace] ; chown dspace [dspace]

    (Assuming the dspace UNIX username.)

  6. As the dspace UNIX user, compile and install DSpace:

    cd [dspace-source] ; ant fresh_install

    The most likely thing to go wrong here is the database connection. See the common problems section.

  7. Copy the DSpace Web application archives (.war files) to the appropriate directory in your Tomcat/Jetty/Resin installation. For example:

    cp [dspace-source]/build/*.war [tomcat]/webapps

  8. Create an initial administrator account:

    [dspace]/bin/create-administrator

  9. Now the moment of truth! Start up (or restart) Tomcat. Visit the base URL of your server, e.g. http://dspace.myu.edu:8080/dspace. You should see the DSpace home page. Congratulations!

In order to set up some communities and collections, you'll need to access the administration UI. To do this, append 'admin' to your server's URL, e.g. http://dspace.myu.edu:8080/dspace/dspace-admin.

Advanced Installation

The above installation steps are sufficient to set up a test server to play around with, but there are a few other steps and options you should probably consider before deploying a DSpace production site.

'cron' Jobs

A couple of DSpace features require that a script is run regularly -- the e-mail subscription feature that alerts users of new items being deposited, and the new 'media filter' tool, that generates thumbnails of images and extracts the full-text of documents for indexing.

To set these up, you just need to run the following command as the dspace UNIX user:

crontab -e

Then add the following lines:

# Send out subscription e-mails at 01:00 every day
0 1 * * * [dspace]/bin/sub-daily
# Run the media filter at 02:00 every day
0 2 * * * [dspace]/bin/filter-media
# Run the checksum checker at 03:00
0 3 * * * [dspace]/bin/checker -lp
# Mail the results to the sysadmin at 04:00
0 4 * * * [dspace]/bin/dsrun org.dspace.checker.DailyReportEmailer -c

Naturally you should change the frequencies to suit your environment.

PostgreSQL also benefits from regular 'vacuuming', which optimizes the indices and clears out any deleted data. Become the postgres UNIX user, run crontab -e and add (for example): 

# Clean up the database nightly at 4.20am
20 4 * * * vacuumdb --analyze dspace > /dev/null 2>&1

In order that statistical reports are generated regularly and thus kept up to date you should set up the following cron jobs:

# Run stat analyses
0 1 * * * [dspace]/bin/stat-general
0 1 * * * [dspace]/bin/stat-monthly
0 2 * * * [dspace]/bin/stat-report-general
0 2 * * * [dspace]/bin/stat-report-monthly

Obviously, you should choose execution times which are most useful to you, and you should ensure that the -report- scripts run a short while after the analysis scripts to give them time to complete (a run of around 8 months worth of logs can take around 25 seconds to complete); the resulting reports will let you know how long analysis took and you can adjust your cron times accordingly.

Note that Perl needs to be installed in order to run the statistical reports.

For information on customising the output of this see configuring system statistical reports.

DSpace over HTTPS

If your DSpace is configured to have users login with a username and password (as opposed to, say, client Web certificates), then you should consider using HTTPS. Whenever a user logs in with the Web form (e.g. dspace.myuni.edu/dspace/password-login) their DSpace password is exposed in plain text on the network. This is a very serious security risk since network traffic monitoring is very common, especially at universities. If the risk seems minor, then consider that your DSpace administrators also login this way and they have ultimate control over the archive.

The solution is to use HTTPS (HTTP over SSL, i.e. Secure Socket Layer, an encrypted transport), which protects your passwords against being captured. You can configure DSpace to require SSL on all "authenticated" transactions so it only accepts passwords on SSL connections.

The following sections show how to set up the most commonly-used Java Servlet containers to support HTTP over SSL.

To enable the HTTPS support in Tomcat 5.0:

  1. For Production use: Follow this procedure to set up SSL on your server. Using a "real" server certificate ensures your users' browsers will accept it without complaints.

    In the examples below, $CATALINA_BASE is the directory under which your Tomcat is installed.

    1. Create a Java keystore for your server with the password changeit, and install your server certificate under the alias "tomcat". This assumes the certificate was put in the file server.pem:

       $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -import -noprompt -v -storepass changeit -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -alias tomcat -file myserver.pem

    2. Install the CA (Certifying Authority) certificate for the CA that granted your server cert, if necessary. This assumes the server CA certificate is in ca.pem:

       $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -import -noprompt -storepass changeit -trustcacerts -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -alias ServerCA -file ca.pem

    3. Optional -- ONLY if you need to accept client certificates for the X.509 certificate stackable authentication module See the configuration section for instructions on enabling the X.509 authentication method. Load the keystore with the CA (certifying authority) certificates for the authorities of any clients whose certificates you wish to accept. For example, assuming the client CA certificate is in client1.pem:

       $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -import -noprompt -storepass changeit -trustcacerts -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore  -alias client1 -file client1.pem

    4. Now add another Connector tag to your server.xml Tomcat configuration file, like the example below. The parts affecting or specific to SSL are shown in bold. (You may wish to change some details such as the port, pathnames, and keystore password)

          <Connector port="8443"
               maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
               enableLookups="false" disableUploadTimeout="true"
                 acceptCount="100" debug="0"
                 scheme="https"
                 secure="true"
               sslProtocol="TLS"
                 keystoreFile="conf/keystore"
               keystorePass="changeit"
                 clientAuth="true" - ONLY if using client X.509 certs for authentication!
                 truststoreFile="conf/keystore"
                 trustedstorePass="changeit" />
      Also, check that the default Connector is set up to redirect "secure" requests to the same port as your SSL connector, e.g.: 
      <Connector port="8080"
                 maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25" maxSpareThreads="75"
                 enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443"
                 acceptCount="100" debug="0" />

  2. Quick-and-dirty Procedure for Testing:
    If you are just setting up a DSpace server for testing, or to experiment with HTTPS, then you don't need to get a real server certificate. You can create a "self-signed" certificate for testing; web browsers will issue warnings before accepting it but they will function exactly the same after that as with a "real" certificate.

    In the examples below, $CATALINA_BASE is the directory under which your Tomcat is installed.

    1. Optional -- ONLY if you don't already have a server certificate. Follow this sub-procedure to request a new, signed server certificate from your Certifying Authority (CA):

      • Create a new key pair under the alias name "tomcat". When generating your key, give the Distinguished Name fields the appropriate values for your server and institution. CN should be the fully-qualified domain name of your server host. Here is an example: 

        $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA -keysize 1024 \
  -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -storepass changeit -validity 365 \
  -dname 'CN=dspace.myuni.edu, OU=MIT Libraries, O=Massachusetts Institute of Technology, L=Cambridge, S=MA, C=US'

      • Then, create a CSR (Certificate Signing Request) and send it to your Certifying Authority. They will send you back a signed Server Certificate. This example command creates a CSR in the file tomcat.csr 

         $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -storepass changeit \
   -certreq -alias tomcat -v -file tomcat.csr

      • Before importing the signed certificate, you must have the CA's certificate in your keystore as a trusted certificate. Get their certificate, and import it with a command like this (for the example mitCA.pem):

         $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -storepass changeit \
     -import -alias mitCA -trustcacerts -file mitCA.pem

      • Finally, when you get the signed certificate from your CA, import it into the keystore with a command like the following example: (cert is in the file signed-cert.pem)

         $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -storepass changeit \
     -import -alias tomcat -trustcacerts -file signed-cert.pem
        Since you now have a signed server certificate in your keystore, you can, obviously, skip the next steps of installing a signed server certificate and the server CA's certificate.

    2. Create a Java keystore for your server with the password changeit, and install your server certificate under the alias "tomcat". This assumes the certificate was put in the file server.pem:

       $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore -storepass changeit

      When answering the questions to identify the certificate, be sure to respond to "First and last name" with the fully-qualified domain name of your server (e.g. test-dspace.myuni.edu). The other questions are not important.

    3. Optional -- ONLY if you need to accept client certificates for the X.509 certificate stackable authentication module See the configuration section for instructions on enabling the X.509 authentication method. Load the keystore with the CA (certifying authority) certificates for the authorities of any clients whose certificates you wish to accept. For example, assuming the client CA certificate is in client1.pem:

       $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -import -noprompt -storepass changeit -trustcacerts -keystore $CATALINA_BASE/conf/keystore  -alias client1 -file client1.pem

    4. Follow the procedure in the section above to add another Connector tag, for the HTTPS port, to your server.xml file.

To use SSL on Apache HTTPD with mod_jk:

If you choose Apache HTTPD as your primary HTTP server, you can have it forward requests to the Tomcat servlet container via Apache Jakarta Tomcat Connector. This can be configured to work over SSL as well.

First, you must configure Apache for SSL; for Apache 2.0 see Apache SSL/TLS Encryption for information about using mod_ssl.

If you are using X.509 Client Certificates for authentication: add these configuration options to the appropriate httpd configuration file, e.g. ssl.conf, and be sure they are in force for the virtual host and namespace locations dedicated to DSpace: 

        ##  SSLVerifyClient can be "optional" or "require"
        SSLVerifyClient optional
        SSLVerifyDepth  10
        SSLCACertificateFile  path-to-your-client-CA-certificate
        SSLOptions StdEnvVars ExportCertData

Now consult the Apache Jakarta Tomcat Connector documentation to configure the mod_jk (note: NOT mod_jk2) module. Select the AJP 1.3 connector protocol. Also follow the instructions there to configure your Tomcat server to respond to AJP.

To use SSL on Apache HTTPD with mod_webapp consult the DSpace 1.3.2 documentation. Apache have deprecated the mod_webapp connector and recommend using mod_jk.

To use Jetty's HTTPS support consult the documentation for the relevant tool.

The Handle Server

First a few facts to clear up some common misconceptions:

If you want to use the Handle system, you'll need to set up a Handle server. This is included with DSpace. Note that this is not required in order to evaluate DSpace; you only need one if you are running a production service. You'll need to obtain a Handle prefix from the central CNRI Handle site.

A Handle server runs as a separate process that receives TCP requests from other Handle servers, and issues resolution requests to a global server or servers if a Handle entered locally does not correspond to some local content. The Handle protocol is based on TCP, so it will need to be installed on a server that can broadcast and receive TCP on port 2641.

The Handle server code is included with the DSpace code in [dspace-source]/lib/handle.jar. Note: The latest version of the handle.jar file is not included in the release due to licensing conditions changing between the provided version and later versions. It is recommended you read the new license conditions and decide whether you wish to update your installation's handle.jar. If you decide to update, you should replace the existing handle.jar in [dspace-source]/lib with the new version and rebuild your war files.

A script exists to create a simple Handle configuration - simply run [dspace]/bin/make-handle-config after you've set the appropriate parameters in dspace.cfg. You can also create a Handle configuration directly by following the installation instructions on handle.net, but with these changes:

Whichever approach you take, start the Handle server with [dspace]/bin/start-handle-server, as the DSpace user. Once the configuration file has been generated, you will need to go to http://hdl.handle.net/4263537/5014 to upload the generated sitebndl.zip file. The upload page will ask you for your contact information. An administrator will then create the naming authority/prefix on the root service (known as the Global Handle Registry), and notify you when this has been completed. You will not be able to continue the handle server installation until you receive further information concerning your naming authority.

Note that since the DSpace code manages individual Handles, administrative operations such as Handle creation and modification aren't supported by DSpace's Handle server.

If you need to update the handle prefix on items created before the CNRI registration process you can run the [dspace]/bin/update-handle-prefix script. You may need to do this if you loaded items prior to CNRI registration (e.g. setting up a demonstration system prior to migrating it to production). The script takes the current and new prefix as parameters. For example:

[dspace]/bin/update-handle-prefix 123456789 1303

will change any handles currently assigned prefix 123456789 to prefix 1303, so for example handle 123456789/23 will be updated to 1303/23 in the database.

Windows Installation

Pre-requisite Software

You'll need to install this pre-requisite software:

Installation Steps

  1. Download the DSpace source from SourceForge and untar it (WinZip will do this)

  2. Copy the PostgreSQL JDBC driver across to the DSpace source tree. The drivers will be in C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.x\jdbc\. The postgresql-8.x-yyy.jdbc2.jar is the jar file you need. Copy it to [dspace-source]/lib.

  3. Ensure the PostgreSQL service is running, and then run pgAdmin III (Start -> PostgreSQL 8.0 -> pgAdmin III). Connect to the local database as the postgres user and:

  4. Update paths in [dspace-source]\config\dspace.cfg. Note: Use forward slashes / for path separators, though you can still use drive letters, e.g.:

    dspace.dir = C:/DSpace

    Make sure you change all of the parameters with file paths to suit, specifically: 

    	dspace.dir
	config.template.log4j.properties
	config.template.log4j-handle-plugin.properties
	config.template.oaicat.properties
	assetstore.dir
	history.dir
	log.dir
	upload.temp.dir
	report.dir
	handle.dir

  5. Create the directory for the DSpace installation (e.g. C:\DSpace)

  6. Run:

    ant fresh_install

  7. Create an administrator account, e.g. assuming C:\dspace is where your DSpace installation is:

    C:\dspace\bin\dsrun org.dspace.administer.CreateAdministrator

    and enter the required information

  8. Copy the .war Web application files from [dspace-source]\build to Tomcat's webapps dir, which should be somewhere like C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 5.5\webapps

  9. Start the Tomcat service

  10. Browse http://localhost:8080/dspace. You should see the DSpace home page

Checking Your Installation

TODO

Known Bugs

In any software project of the scale of DSpace, there will be bugs. Sometimes, a stable version of DSpace includes known bugs. We do not always wait until every known bug is fixed before a release. If the software is sufficiently stable and an improvement on the previous release, and the bugs are minor and have known workarounds, we release it to enable the community to take advantage of those improvements.

The known bugs in a release are documented in the KNOWN_BUGS file in the source package.

Please see the DSpace bug tracker for further information on current bugs, and to find out if the bug has subsequently been fixed. This is also where you can report any further bugs you find.

Common Problems

In an ideal world everyone would follow the above steps and have a fully functioning DSpace. Of couse, in the real world it doesn't always seem to work out that way. This section lists common problems that people encounter when installing DSpace, and likely causes and fixes. This is likely to grow over time as we learn about users' experiences.

Database errors occur when you run ant fresh_install

There are two common errors that occur. If your error looks like this--

[java] 2004-03-25 15:17:07,730 INFO  org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Initializing Database
[java] 2004-03-25 15:17:08,816 FATAL org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Caught exception:
[java] org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: Connection refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections.
[java]     at org.postgresql.jdbc1.AbstractJdbc1Connection.openConnection(AbstractJdbc1Connection.java:204)
[java]     at org.postgresql.Driver.connect(Driver.java:139)

it usually means you haven't yet added the relevant configuration parameter to your PostgreSQL configuration (see above), or perhaps you haven't restarted PostgreSQL after making the change. Also, make sure that the db.username and db.password properties are correctly set in [dspace-source]/config/dspace.cfg.

An easy way to check that your DB is working OK over TCP/IP is to try this on the command line:

psql -U dspace -W -h localhost

Enter the dspace database password, and you should be dropped into the psql tool with a dspace=> prompt.

Another common error looks like this:

[java] 2004-03-25 16:37:16,757 INFO  org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Initializing Database
[java] 2004-03-25 16:37:17,139 WARN  org.dspace.storage.rdbms.DatabaseManager @ Exception initializing DB pool
[java] java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.postgresql.Driver
[java]     at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:198)
[java]     at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
[java]     at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:186)

This means that the PostgreSQL JDBC driver is not present in [dspace-source]/lib. See above.

Tomcat doesn't shut down

If you're trying to tweak Tomcat's configuration but nothing seems to make a difference to the error you're seeing, you might find that Tomcat hasn't been shutting down properly, perhaps because it's waiting for a stale connection to close gracefully which won't happen. To see if this is the case, try:

ps -ef | grep java

and look for Tomcat's Java processes. If they stay arround after running Tomcat's shutdown.sh script, trying killing them (with -9 if necessary), then starting Tomcat again.

Database connections don't work, or accessing DSpace takes forever

If you find that when you try to access a DSpace Web page and your browser sits there connecting, or if the database connections fail, you might find that a 'zombie' database connection is hanging around preventing normal operation. To see if this is the case, try:

ps -ef | grep postgres

You might see some processes like this

dspace 16325  1997  0  Feb 14  ?         0:00 postgres: dspace dspace 127.0.0.1 idle in transaction

This is normal--DSpace maintains a 'pool' of open database connections, which are re-used to avoid the overhead of constantly opening and closing connections. If they're 'idle' it's OK; they're waiting to be used. However sometimes, if something went wrong, they might be stuck in the middle of a query, which seems to prevent other connections from operating, e.g.:

dspace 16325  1997  0  Feb 14  ?         0:00 postgres: dspace dspace 127.0.0.1 SELECT

This means the connection is in the middle of a SELECT operation, and if you're not using DSpace right that instant, it's probably a 'zombie' connection. If this is the case, try killing the process, and stopping and restarting Tomcat.

You've made changes to the code or to the JSP's and rebuilt DSpace successfully, but when you run Tomcat you don't see any of your changes in DSpace.

After you've rebuilt DSpace and copied dspace.war from your [dspace-source]/build directory into your [tomcat]/webapps directory, you must also delete the existing [tomcat]/webapps/dspace directory before re-starting Tomcat. Otherwise Tomcat will continue to use the old code.

Copyright © 2002-2005 MIT and Hewlett Packard