Orbeon Forms User Guide

Installing Orbeon Forms

1. Downloading

Orbeon Forms can be downloaded from http://www.orbeon.com/forms/download.

2. System Requirements

To install Orbeon Forms you need an application server that runs on Java version 1.4.2 (or later) and implements the Servlet API 2.3 (or later). Orbeon Forms has been used by various organizations on the following application servers:

  • Apache Tomcat 5.5.20 (JDK 1.5.0 and 1.6)
  • BEA WebLogic Server 9.1 (JRockit)
  • IBM WebSphere 6
  • JOnAS 4.6.6 (Tomcat 5.5.12, JDK 1.5.0)
  • JBoss 4.x and 5.x
  • GlassFish

Please contact us if you have questions about support for other application servers or versions.

3. Installing Orbeon Forms on Apache Tomcat

  1. Assuming that TOMCAT_HOME represents the location of your Tomcat installation: create a new TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/orbeon directory.

  2. Unzip orbeon.war in the orbeon directory you just created.

  3. With Tomcat 5, move xercesImpl.jar and xmlParserAPIs.jar from common/endorsed to server/lib. This way Xerces will be available to Tomcat, but it won't override the version of Xerces and standard XML APIs that comes with Orbeon Forms.

  4. You can now start Tomcat, and access http://localhost:8080/orbeon/ to test your installation (replacing localhost and 8080 with the host name and port number of your Tomcat installation if different from the default), or perform one of the optional installation steps below.

  5. Optionally, to run the authentication example:

    1. Open TOMCAT_HOME/webapps/orbeon/WEB-INF/web.xml and uncomment the security-constraint, login-config and security-role declarations at the end of the file.
    2. Open TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml and uncomment the following declaration: <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.MemoryRealm" />
    3. Edit TOMCAT_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml and replace the content of this by with:
      <tomcat-users><role rolename="orbeon-user"/><role rolename="orbeon-admin"/><user username="orbeonadmin" password="xforms" roles="orbeon-user,orbeon-admin"/></tomcat-users>
Note

On Unix systems, we recommend you don't use GIJ / GCG, as there are reports as of June 2008 of issues with that runtime environment and Orbeon Forms. Instead, we recommend you use the Sun runtime environment.

4. Installing Orbeon Forms on BEA WebLogic 9.1

  1. Select a directory where you want to store your web application. Let's assume the path you chose is C:/WebApps/orbeon.

  2. Unzip orbeon.war into C:/WebApps/orbeon. There should now be a directory called WEB-INF under C:/WebApps/orbeon.

  3. Start WebLogic's adminstration console.

  4. Use the console to install a new Web application. When prompted to select a WAR file, point to the directory C:/WebApps/orbeon. When prompted for a context path, choose a value such as orbeon. Complete the installation and start the web application.

  5. You should now be able to access the Orbeon Forms example applications by pointing your browser to the address of your WebLogic server followed by the context path you chose, for example: http://localhost:7001/orbeon/.

5. Installing Orbeon Forms on BEA WebLogic 7.0 and 8.1

Warning

Orbeon Forms 3.0 hasn't been tested with these versions of WebLogic, but you may want to try the following instructions for Orbeon Forms 2.8.

  1. Assume that DOMAIN represents your WebLogic domain directory (typically c:\bea\user_projects). Create a new directory: DOMAIN\applications\orbeon.

  2. Unzip orbeon.war in the orbeon directory you just created.

  3. Edit the startWeblogic.cmd (in DOMAIN) and change set STARTMODE=true to set STARTMODE=false. This starts WebLogic in development mode. In development mode, WebLogic automatically loads and deploys the content of the application directory. If you don't want to start the server in development mode, you have to explicitly declare a Web application in the config.xml.

  4. To improve performance on WebLogic (highly recommended!):

    1. Start WebLogic (e.g. with startWebLogic.cmd)
    2. Make sure you can access the Orbeon Forms example applications with your browser (by going to http://localhost:7001/orbeon/)
    3. Stop WebLogic
    4. Open the config.xml file in an editor. Look for the <WebAppComponent Name="orbeon"> element and add the attribute: ServletReloadCheckSecs="-1". This will prevent WebLogic from checking if a servlet has changed in the application and will make Orbeon Forms much faster.
  5. Optionally, to run the authentication example:

    1. Open DOMAIN/applications/orbeon/WEB-INF/web.xml and uncomment the security-constraint, login-config and security-role declarations at the end of the file.
    2. Go to the WebLogic Console with a browser.
    3. Create a new user named admin with a password of your choice.
  6. Once Orbeon Forms is properly installed, you can start WebLogic as usual with the startWeblogic.cmd script (in DOMAIN).

6. Installing Orbeon Forms on IBM WebSphere 5 and 6

  1. Launch WebSphere server.

    • On Windows, running WebSphere:
      • From the command line, execute WSAS_HOME/bin/startServer server1 (on WebSphere 5).
      • As a service: go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, Look for IBM WebSphere Application Server and make sure it is started.
    • On Linux/UNIX, assuming that WSAS_HOME represents the location of your WebSphere installation, run WSAS_HOME/profiles/default/bin/startServer.sh server1.
    • Note:

      • The default heap size is likely to be too low. You can increase the heap size from the WebSphere Administrative Console, by going to Server / Application Servers / server1 / Process Definition / Java Virtual Machine. There we recommend you set the Initial Heap Size and Maximum Heap Size to the same value.

  2. Log in to the administrative console.

    • On WebSphere 5: got to http://localhost:9090/admin/.
    • On WebSphere 6: got to http://localhost:9060/ibm/console/.
    • The default administrator login is admin.

  3. Install and deploy Orbeon Forms (orbeon.war).

    • Click on Applications / Install New Application.
    • Select the orbeon.war to upload, choose a context path like /orbeon (from now on we will assume this was your choice).
    • Hit "next" until you get to the end of the wizard, then hit "finish". You can leave the defaults everywhere while going through the wizard.
    • Save the configuration.
    • Click on Applications / Enterprise Applications.
    • Select orbeon_war and click on the "start" button.
    • Note:

      • One important log file (if something goes wrong when the applicaiton starts) is: WSAS_HOME/logs/server1/SystemOut.log on WebSphere 5.
      • The WAR file is uncompressed by WebSphere in WSAS_HOME/installedApps/NODE_NAME/orbeon_war.ear/orbeon.war on WebSphere 5, where NODE_NAME if usualy your machine name.

  4. Run and modify the example applications.

    • Go to http://localhost:9080/orbeon/.
    • You can view the log from Orbeon Forms in WSAS_HOME/profiles/default/logs/server1/SystemOut.log.
    • You can modify the example applications resources as the application sever is running and see the results of your modifications on the fly. The resources are stored under WSAS_HOME/profiles/default/installedApps/yourmachineNode01Cell/ orbeon_war.ear/orbeon.war/WEB-INF/resources. For instance, try to modify apps/xforms-hello/view.xhtml: replace "Please enter your first name:" by your own message, and reload the page in the browser to see the result.

7. Installing Orbeon Forms on JBoss

  1. Assuming that JBOSS_HOME represents the location of your JBoss installation: create a new JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/orbeon.war directory.

  2. Unzip orbeon.war in the orbeon.war directory you just created.

  3. If you are using JBoss 4.2 or 5.0, you can skip this. Otherwise:

    • With JBoss 4.0:

      1. Set the following parameter in web.xml:

        <context-param><param-name>oxf.initialize-logging</param-name><param-value>false</param-value></context-param>
      2. Rename the default Orbeon Forms log4j JAR file under WEB-INF/lib from log4j-*.jar to log4j-*.jar.bak. Additionally, you can remove this JAR file altogether.

      3. Create a file jboss-web.xml in JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/orbeon.war/WEB-INF with the following content:

        <jboss-web><class-loading java2ClassLoadingCompliance="false"><loader-repository>orbeon.war:loader=orbeon.war<loader-repository-config>java2ParentDelegation=false</loader-repository-config></loader-repository></class-loading></jboss-web>

    • With JBoss 3.2:

      1. In JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar/META-INF/jboss-service.xml and change the value in <attribute name="UseJBossWebLoader"> from false to true.

  4. Start JBoss by running JBOSS_HOME/bin/run.bat (or run.sh on UNIX).

  5. Run and modify the example applications.

    1. Go to http://localhost:8080/orbeon/
    2. You can modify the example applications resources as the application sever is running and see the results of your modifications on the fly. The resources are stored under JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/orbeon.war/WEB-INF/resources.

  6. Optionally, to run the authentication sample:

    1. Open JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/orbeon.war/WEB-INF/web.xml and uncomment the security-constraint, login-config and security-role declarations at the end of the file.
    2. Open JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy/orbeon.war/WEB-INF/jboss-web.xml and uncomment the security-domain element near the end of bottom of the file.
    3. Open JBOSS_HOME/server/default/conf/login-config.xml and add the following aplication policy to the list of policies :
      <application-policy name="orbeon-demo"><authentication><login-module code="org.jboss.security.auth.spi.UsersRolesLoginModule" flag="required"><module-option name="usersProperties">jboss-orbeon-example-users.properties</module-option><module-option name="rolesProperties">jboss-orbeon-example-roles.properties</module-option></login-module></authentication></application-policy>

  7. Optionally, you might want to setup a JDBC data source if your application is using the SQL Processor. What follows assumes you are configuring the SQL Processor with <sql:datasource>my-datasource</sql:datasource>.

    1. Look at the files JBOSS_HOME/docs/examples/jca/*-ds.xml. You should find one that correspond to the database you are using. Copy it to JBOSS_HOME/server/default/deploy.
    2. Edit the file you copied and change the parameters to match your database configuration. Also assign a JNDI name to this data source with: <jndi-name>my-database</jndi-name> (instead of my-database you might want to use a name which is descriptive of your database).
    3. Edit WEB-INF/web.xml and uncomment the <resource-ref>. Also change there the content of <res-ref-name> to match the name you are using in the SQL Processor prefixed with jdbc/: <res-ref-name>jdbc/my-datasource</res-ref-name>.
    4. Edit WEB-INF/jboss-web.xml. In that file you should have <res-ref-name>jdbc/my-datasource</res-ref-name> (the same name you use to configure the SQL Processor and that you have in the web.xml) and <jndi-name>java:/my-database</jndi-name> (the same name you declared in the ...-ds.xml file).
    5. Copy the JAR files with the JDBC driver for your database in JBOSS_HOME/server/default/lib.

8. Security

For security reasons, you might want to run Orbeon Forms under a Security Manager. Java's Security Manager allows you to control the Java sandbox and which resources the application can access. When installed correctly, the Security Manager can prevent unauthorized code to execute malicious actions, such as deleting files on the server or initializing network connections. For more information, please read the Security in Java 2 SDK 1.2 tutorial and the Security Manager API.

Follow the steps below to install the Security Manager:

  1. Download the policy file.
  2. Append the permissions to the application server policy file. The table lists the policy file for the supported servers.

    Apache Tomcat catalina.policy
    BEA Weblogic weblogic.policy
    IBM WebSphere was.policy
    Sun ONE server.policy
  3. Add the following system properties to the server startup script.
    • oxf.home: Location of the Orbeon Forms exploded WAR file
    • oxf.resources: Location of Orbeon Forms resources directory
  4. Modify the startup script to enable the security manager. Add the following system properties:
    • -Djava.security.manager
    • -Djava.security.policy=="path to the policy file"