Installing OFBiz on Tomcat 7 on OpenSuse 13.1, and setting up mod_jk

[Ted Byers]

I am about to do my most aggressive install to date (that is,
aggressive in terms of pushing my limits - I am a coder, not a
sysadmin).  Here is what I want to do.

I have two servers, one running Ubuntu 12.04, and the other running
OpenSuse 13.1.  The Ubuntu machine has Apache's web server running,
and I expect I need to install mod_jk on that machine, and somehow
have it send all requests for OFBiz to the OpenSuse 13.1 server.  On
the OpenSuse 13.1 server, I already have Tomcat 7 installed.  What I
want to do is install the latest stable release of OFBiz, configured
for multitenant support, onto that instance of Tomcat.  The version of
OFBiz is now up to, what, 13.x, but the most recent documentation I
have found to date for installing OFBiz into  an application server
(other than that provided with the distribution) refers only to
versions 9 and 10, indicating the method didn't work for version 11.

There are three things in this effort that are new to me.  1) the
multi-tenant configuration, 2) deploying OFBiz to another application
server, and 3) using mod_jk, so traffic comes in via my web server,
and it just lets Tomcat (on a different server in the LAN) handle it.

I will have the DB on yet a different machine, but doing that is
pretty much a no-brainer.

Can anyone either provide step-by-step guidance on these things that
are new to me, or point me to the most recent documentation that talks
about them (ideally referring to the latest stable release)?

BTW: In terms of coding extensions for OFBiz, does anyone have any
thoughts on using Spring and the toolset from that, or Eclipse, to do
the coding and deploying of new capabilities  And would there be any
benefit from hibernate?  While I have used core Java for a couple
decades, I have not used either Spring or Hibernate, and my recent
readings suggest these two as having significant benefits; but that
begs the question of if/how they ought/can be used in a project like
OFBiz.

Thanks

Ted

--
R.E.(Ted) Byers, Ph.D.,Ed.D.

[Pierre Smits]

Hi Ted,

As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.

Multi-tenancy is straight forward: just setting the multi-tenancy property
in the general.properties file in framework/common/config. This will ensure
that users can provide the tenantID when they log in.

Creating new tenant can be done with following ant command (in the OFBiz
folder):
./ant create-tenant
But you have to ensure that the database exists on your preferred rdbms
before you invoke the command. Subsequently you can log in with the created
tenant-adminID and via webtools you can import the data sets you need.

Having a web server (e.g. apache HTTP) in front of OFBiz does not require
any configuration changes in OFBiz. Unless you want to point to a different
ajp port. Then you'll need to change that port number in OFBiz.
For more info on the aspect see:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo

Implementation of OFBiz on an external app server (tomcat 7) might prove a
challenge. Documentation regarding this aspect is not up to date and issues
have been reported.

Regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com


On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Ted Byers <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I am about to do my most aggressive install to date (that is,
> aggressive in terms of pushing my limits - I am a coder, not a
> sysadmin).  Here is what I want to do.
>
> I have two servers, one running Ubuntu 12.04, and the other running
> OpenSuse 13.1.  The Ubuntu machine has Apache's web server running,
> and I expect I need to install mod_jk on that machine, and somehow
> have it send all requests for OFBiz to the OpenSuse 13.1 server.  On
> the OpenSuse 13.1 server, I already have Tomcat 7 installed.  What I
> want to do is install the latest stable release of OFBiz, configured
> for multitenant support, onto that instance of Tomcat.  The version of
> OFBiz is now up to, what, 13.x, but the most recent documentation I
> have found to date for installing OFBiz into  an application server
> (other than that provided with the distribution) refers only to
> versions 9 and 10, indicating the method didn't work for version 11.
>
> There are three things in this effort that are new to me.  1) the
> multi-tenant configuration, 2) deploying OFBiz to another application
> server, and 3) using mod_jk, so traffic comes in via my web server,
> and it just lets Tomcat (on a different server in the LAN) handle it.
>
> I will have the DB on yet a different machine, but doing that is
> pretty much a no-brainer.
>
> Can anyone either provide step-by-step guidance on these things that
> are new to me, or point me to the most recent documentation that talks
> about them (ideally referring to the latest stable release)?
>
> BTW: In terms of coding extensions for OFBiz, does anyone have any
> thoughts on using Spring and the toolset from that, or Eclipse, to do
> the coding and deploying of new capabilities  And would there be any
> benefit from hibernate?  While I have used core Java for a couple
> decades, I have not used either Spring or Hibernate, and my recent
> readings suggest these two as having significant benefits; but that
> begs the question of if/how they ought/can be used in a project like
> OFBiz.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ted
>
> --
> R.E.(Ted) Byers, Ph.D.,Ed.D.
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

Le 11/06/2014 10:22, Pierre Smits a écrit :
> Hi Ted,
>
> As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.

You might prefer to wait for R13.07. It will be officially released pretty soon

Jacques

>
> Multi-tenancy is straight forward: just setting the multi-tenancy property
> in the general.properties file in framework/common/config. This will ensure
> that users can provide the tenantID when they log in.
>
> Creating new tenant can be done with following ant command (in the OFBiz
> folder):
> ./ant create-tenant
> But you have to ensure that the database exists on your preferred rdbms
> before you invoke the command. Subsequently you can log in with the created
> tenant-adminID and via webtools you can import the data sets you need.
>
> Having a web server (e.g. apache HTTP) in front of OFBiz does not require
> any configuration changes in OFBiz. Unless you want to point to a different
> ajp port. Then you'll need to change that port number in OFBiz.
> For more info on the aspect see:
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo
>
> Implementation of OFBiz on an external app server (tomcat 7) might prove a
> challenge. Documentation regarding this aspect is not up to date and issues
> have been reported.
>
> Regards,
>
> Pierre Smits
>
> *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
> Services & Solutions for Cloud-
> Based Manufacturing, Professional
> Services and Retail & Trade
> http://www.orrtiz.com
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Ted Byers <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> I am about to do my most aggressive install to date (that is,
>> aggressive in terms of pushing my limits - I am a coder, not a
>> sysadmin).  Here is what I want to do.
>>
>> I have two servers, one running Ubuntu 12.04, and the other running
>> OpenSuse 13.1.  The Ubuntu machine has Apache's web server running,
>> and I expect I need to install mod_jk on that machine, and somehow
>> have it send all requests for OFBiz to the OpenSuse 13.1 server.  On
>> the OpenSuse 13.1 server, I already have Tomcat 7 installed.  What I
>> want to do is install the latest stable release of OFBiz, configured
>> for multitenant support, onto that instance of Tomcat.  The version of
>> OFBiz is now up to, what, 13.x, but the most recent documentation I
>> have found to date for installing OFBiz into  an application server
>> (other than that provided with the distribution) refers only to
>> versions 9 and 10, indicating the method didn't work for version 11.
>>
>> There are three things in this effort that are new to me.  1) the
>> multi-tenant configuration, 2) deploying OFBiz to another application
>> server, and 3) using mod_jk, so traffic comes in via my web server,
>> and it just lets Tomcat (on a different server in the LAN) handle it.
>>
>> I will have the DB on yet a different machine, but doing that is
>> pretty much a no-brainer.
>>
>> Can anyone either provide step-by-step guidance on these things that
>> are new to me, or point me to the most recent documentation that talks
>> about them (ideally referring to the latest stable release)?
>>
>> BTW: In terms of coding extensions for OFBiz, does anyone have any
>> thoughts on using Spring and the toolset from that, or Eclipse, to do
>> the coding and deploying of new capabilities  And would there be any
>> benefit from hibernate?  While I have used core Java for a couple
>> decades, I have not used either Spring or Hibernate, and my recent
>> readings suggest these two as having significant benefits; but that
>> begs the question of if/how they ought/can be used in a project like
>> OFBiz.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Ted
>>
>> --
>> R.E.(Ted) Byers, Ph.D.,Ed.D.
>>

--

[Ted Byers]

Thanks Pierre,

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 4:22 AM, Pierre Smits <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi Ted,
>
> As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.
>
> Multi-tenancy is straight forward: just setting the multi-tenancy property
> in the general.properties file in framework/common/config. This will ensure
> that users can provide the tenantID when they log in.
>
That's what I expected.

> Creating new tenant can be done with following ant command (in the OFBiz
> folder):
> ./ant create-tenant
> But you have to ensure that the database exists on your preferred rdbms
> before you invoke the command. Subsequently you can log in with the created
> tenant-adminID and via webtools you can import the data sets you need.
>
Is there no GUI component to facilitate this?  If not, what do you
think of the notion of a simple control that takes whatever
information is needed to create a new tenant, and, on submit, connects
to the DB to make the new database that is required, and then invokes
./ant create-tenant?

> Having a web server (e.g. apache HTTP) in front of OFBiz does not require
> any configuration changes in OFBiz. Unless you want to point to a different
> ajp port. Then you'll need to change that port number in OFBiz.
> For more info on the aspect see:
> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo
>
This, too, is what I'd expected.  I thought the principle task in this
effort would be simply to create a new virtual host which loads
mod_jk, and has the specs for the workers, but wasn't certain as I
have not tried to couple Apache's web server with Tomcat before.

Now, I have not even looked, yet, at Tomcat's support for virtual
hosts, but Apache's web server has good support for virtual hosts
which is almost trivially easy to use (I use both IP based and name
based virtual hosts, in both production and development), but I would
suppose that would make a natural fit to OFBiz multi-tenant support.

> Implementation of OFBiz on an external app server (tomcat 7) might prove a
> challenge. Documentation regarding this aspect is not up to date and issues
> have been reported.
>
This is something I find very odd.

When I develop a C++ application, my make files ALWAYS define test and
install targets in addition to the usual build target.  This is to
support the usual idiom (at least for C++ applications on Unix) of the
sequence 'make', 'make check', followed, if successful, 'make install'
(none of my applications get installed unless they pass ALL tests).
And, when I do some basic web application development in NetBeans or
Eclipse, the IDE has built in support for deploying the web
application to your production application server.  How difficult
would it be to set OFBiz up as a project in Eclipse (or NetBeans or
other IDE), so that the IDE`s support for deployment can be exploited?

Deployment is a concern as, obviously, I can't have two instances of a
server that both listen on 8080 and 8443, and I need to take care as
my application server may well serve multiple different web
applications.

How hard would it be to add a `deploy`target to OFBiz`s ant file?  As
I have never even edited an ant file, I would definitely need
assistance in adding such a target.  I will admit I am just a little
rusty in the area of developing Java based web applications.  ;-)

Thanks again,

Ted

[Ted Byers]

Thanks Jacques

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 5:15 AM, Jacques Le Roux
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Le 11/06/2014 10:22, Pierre Smits a écrit :
>
>> Hi Ted,
>>
>> As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.
>
>
> You might prefer to wait for R13.07. It will be officially released pretty
> soon
>
> Jacques
>
>

Any guesses as to when?

Thanks

Ted

[Pierre Smits]

Pretty soon is not SMART.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad

> Op 11 jun. 2014 om 11:15 heeft Jacques Le Roux <[hidden email]> het volgende geschreven:
>
> Le 11/06/2014 10:22, Pierre Smits a écrit :
>> Hi Ted,
>>
>> As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.
>
> You might prefer to wait for R13.07. It will be officially released pretty soon
>
> Jacques
>
>>
>> Multi-tenancy is straight forward: just setting the multi-tenancy property
>> in the general.properties file in framework/common/config. This will ensure
>> that users can provide the tenantID when they log in.
>>
>> Creating new tenant can be done with following ant command (in the OFBiz
>> folder):
>> ./ant create-tenant
>> But you have to ensure that the database exists on your preferred rdbms
>> before you invoke the command. Subsequently you can log in with the created
>> tenant-adminID and via webtools you can import the data sets you need.
>>
>> Having a web server (e.g. apache HTTP) in front of OFBiz does not require
>> any configuration changes in OFBiz. Unless you want to point to a different
>> ajp port. Then you'll need to change that port number in OFBiz.
>> For more info on the aspect see:
>> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo
>>
>> Implementation of OFBiz on an external app server (tomcat 7) might prove a
>> challenge. Documentation regarding this aspect is not up to date and issues
>> have been reported.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Pierre Smits
>>
>> *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
>> Services & Solutions for Cloud-
>> Based Manufacturing, Professional
>> Services and Retail & Trade
>> http://www.orrtiz.com
>>
>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Ted Byers <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am about to do my most aggressive install to date (that is,
>>> aggressive in terms of pushing my limits - I am a coder, not a
>>> sysadmin).  Here is what I want to do.
>>>
>>> I have two servers, one running Ubuntu 12.04, and the other running
>>> OpenSuse 13.1.  The Ubuntu machine has Apache's web server running,
>>> and I expect I need to install mod_jk on that machine, and somehow
>>> have it send all requests for OFBiz to the OpenSuse 13.1 server.  On
>>> the OpenSuse 13.1 server, I already have Tomcat 7 installed.  What I
>>> want to do is install the latest stable release of OFBiz, configured
>>> for multitenant support, onto that instance of Tomcat.  The version of
>>> OFBiz is now up to, what, 13.x, but the most recent documentation I
>>> have found to date for installing OFBiz into  an application server
>>> (other than that provided with the distribution) refers only to
>>> versions 9 and 10, indicating the method didn't work for version 11.
>>>
>>> There are three things in this effort that are new to me.  1) the
>>> multi-tenant configuration, 2) deploying OFBiz to another application
>>> server, and 3) using mod_jk, so traffic comes in via my web server,
>>> and it just lets Tomcat (on a different server in the LAN) handle it.
>>>
>>> I will have the DB on yet a different machine, but doing that is
>>> pretty much a no-brainer.
>>>
>>> Can anyone either provide step-by-step guidance on these things that
>>> are new to me, or point me to the most recent documentation that talks
>>> about them (ideally referring to the latest stable release)?
>>>
>>> BTW: In terms of coding extensions for OFBiz, does anyone have any
>>> thoughts on using Spring and the toolset from that, or Eclipse, to do
>>> the coding and deploying of new capabilities  And would there be any
>>> benefit from hibernate?  While I have used core Java for a couple
>>> decades, I have not used either Spring or Hibernate, and my recent
>>> readings suggest these two as having significant benefits; but that
>>> begs the question of if/how they ought/can be used in a project like
>>> OFBiz.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>> --
>>> R.E.(Ted) Byers, Ph.D.,Ed.D.
>
> --

[Jacques Le Roux]

Le 11/06/2014 22:58, Pierre Smits a écrit :
> Pretty soon is not SMART.

I can tell you that we (PMC) are in the process of providing it, hence the "pretty soon".
You certainly saw that a new R12.04 is in the vote process. And it must not have escaped to you that the reason we are producing new releases is
recent Tomcat information disclosures.
You might check
http://tomcat.apache.org/security-6.html
http://tomcat.apache.org/security-7.html
http://tomcat.apache.org/security-8.html

This is the SMART part in it (and I don't mean that Tomcat is the smart part in OFBiz, but you certainly got it ;)

Jacques

>
> Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPad
>
>> Op 11 jun. 2014 om 11:15 heeft Jacques Le Roux <[hidden email]> het volgende geschreven:
>>
>> Le 11/06/2014 10:22, Pierre Smits a écrit :
>>> Hi Ted,
>>>
>>> As r13.07 is still not released the release to go for is r12.x.
>> You might prefer to wait for R13.07. It will be officially released pretty soon
>>
>> Jacques
>>
>>> Multi-tenancy is straight forward: just setting the multi-tenancy property
>>> in the general.properties file in framework/common/config. This will ensure
>>> that users can provide the tenantID when they log in.
>>>
>>> Creating new tenant can be done with following ant command (in the OFBiz
>>> folder):
>>> ./ant create-tenant
>>> But you have to ensure that the database exists on your preferred rdbms
>>> before you invoke the command. Subsequently you can log in with the created
>>> tenant-adminID and via webtools you can import the data sets you need.
>>>
>>> Having a web server (e.g. apache HTTP) in front of OFBiz does not require
>>> any configuration changes in OFBiz. Unless you want to point to a different
>>> ajp port. Then you'll need to change that port number in OFBiz.
>>> For more info on the aspect see:
>>> https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/OFBIZ/FAQ+-+Tips+-+Tricks+-+Cookbook+-+HowTo
>>>
>>> Implementation of OFBiz on an external app server (tomcat 7) might prove a
>>> challenge. Documentation regarding this aspect is not up to date and issues
>>> have been reported.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Pierre Smits
>>>
>>> *ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
>>> Services & Solutions for Cloud-
>>> Based Manufacturing, Professional
>>> Services and Retail & Trade
>>> http://www.orrtiz.com
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Ted Byers <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I am about to do my most aggressive install to date (that is,
>>>> aggressive in terms of pushing my limits - I am a coder, not a
>>>> sysadmin).  Here is what I want to do.
>>>>
>>>> I have two servers, one running Ubuntu 12.04, and the other running
>>>> OpenSuse 13.1.  The Ubuntu machine has Apache's web server running,
>>>> and I expect I need to install mod_jk on that machine, and somehow
>>>> have it send all requests for OFBiz to the OpenSuse 13.1 server.  On
>>>> the OpenSuse 13.1 server, I already have Tomcat 7 installed.  What I
>>>> want to do is install the latest stable release of OFBiz, configured
>>>> for multitenant support, onto that instance of Tomcat.  The version of
>>>> OFBiz is now up to, what, 13.x, but the most recent documentation I
>>>> have found to date for installing OFBiz into  an application server
>>>> (other than that provided with the distribution) refers only to
>>>> versions 9 and 10, indicating the method didn't work for version 11.
>>>>
>>>> There are three things in this effort that are new to me.  1) the
>>>> multi-tenant configuration, 2) deploying OFBiz to another application
>>>> server, and 3) using mod_jk, so traffic comes in via my web server,
>>>> and it just lets Tomcat (on a different server in the LAN) handle it.
>>>>
>>>> I will have the DB on yet a different machine, but doing that is
>>>> pretty much a no-brainer.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone either provide step-by-step guidance on these things that
>>>> are new to me, or point me to the most recent documentation that talks
>>>> about them (ideally referring to the latest stable release)?
>>>>
>>>> BTW: In terms of coding extensions for OFBiz, does anyone have any
>>>> thoughts on using Spring and the toolset from that, or Eclipse, to do
>>>> the coding and deploying of new capabilities  And would there be any
>>>> benefit from hibernate?  While I have used core Java for a couple
>>>> decades, I have not used either Spring or Hibernate, and my recent
>>>> readings suggest these two as having significant benefits; but that
>>>> begs the question of if/how they ought/can be used in a project like
>>>> OFBiz.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Ted
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> R.E.(Ted) Byers, Ph.D.,Ed.D.
>> --
>

--

[Pierre Smits]

Hi Ted,

For sure, you could add some code to the process behind ./ant create-tenant
to accomplish the creation of the databases for the tenant between the
process to register the tenant and the process to load the tenant db's with
the OFBiz. But I guess the difficulty lies in the complexities of each
rdbms platform.

With regards to using Apache HTTPS in a multi-tier strategy it does make a
good fit. It is very easy to implement in a HA/FO setup.

As for deployment on an external server, the feature set worked up to r10.x
After that it seems to be broken and no contributor felt the need to
address this. Apparently not many users apply that strategy.

Regards,

Pierre Smits

*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com