Installing Asset Bank on your own servers

Linux Installation Instructions

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1. Install required software

  1. 1.1) If your distribution includes a package manager such as apt-get or yum, the easiest and recommended option is to install Java 8 OpenJDK. Otherwise, install the Java 8 JDK NetBeans or Java EE aren't required. We recommend that you use the Server JVM which means that you should download the JDK instead of the JRE, because the JRE only comes with the Client JVM.
  2. 1.2) Install Tomcat version 7.0.69. On Red Hat distributions we recommend installing a standard binary distribution instead of a packaged managed version of tomcat. See points 3 and 8 for notes about configuring Tomcat.
  3. 1.3) If you do not already have a database, install the latest version of MySql. Currently we recommend MySQL 5.5 Community Edition.
  4. 1.4) Make sure that the image libraries are installed for the formats you want to support. For example, commonly required libraries are:

    On Red Hat-based distributions you may be able to install the headers and libraries required to compile ImageMagick and GhostScript from source with the commands:

  5. yum-builddep ImageMagick
    yum-builddep ghostscript

  6. Similarly on Debian you may be able to install these headers and libraries with:

  7. apt-get build-dep imagemagick
    apt-get build-dep ghostscript
  1. 1.5) Install ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/). We currently recommend installing ImageMagick version 6.9.0.10. Install as follows:
    1. tar xzf ImageMagick-6.9.0-10.tar.gz
      cd ImageMagick-6.9.0-10
      ./configure --without-gcc-arch
      make
      sudo make install
  3. 1.6) Install ExifTool.
    If you need to install from source then follow the above link or download version 9.49 and install as follows: 
    gzip -dc Image-ExifTool-#.##.tar.gz | tar -xf -
    cd Image-ExifTool-#.##
    perl Makefile.PL
    sudo make install 
  4. Exiftool will be installed to /usr/local/bin by default. Make sure this is in the PATH for the user running Tomcat.
  5. 1.7) If you want Asset Bank to support RAW formats, install DCRAW. This is a single C file, which should be compiled (e.g. using gcc -o dcraw -O4 dcraw.c -lm -ljasper -ljpeg -llcms or use -DNO_JASPER if you get an error about jasper.h) and placed in the PATH. (e.g. /usr/bin). On Red Hat you can use the package manager to install it (i.e. yum install dcraw).
  6. 1.8) If you want to convert video files, install FFmpeg (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/download.html). Step-by-step instructions for building and installing Ffmpeg on Linux.
  7. 1.9) Install wkhtmltopdf.
  8. Download the appropriate archive from the links below, unpack and copy the executable at wkhtmltox/bin/wkhtmlopdfto somewhere on the system PATH. (e.g. /usr/local/bin). Enter the PATH in the property ‘wkhtmltopdf-path‘ in ApplicationSettings.properties.

e.g

tar xf wkhtmltox-0.12.4_linux-generic-amd64.tar.xz
cp wkhtmltox/bin/wkhtmltopdf /usr/local/bin
  1. 1.10) After installing software make sure that any services that are critical to Asset Bank running (Tomcat, MySQL, SMTP etc.) are set to automatically startup if they stop. This will make sure Asset Bank doesn't require manual intervention to get back up and running if the server ever goes down unexpectedly. If the application is considered business critical then you could also set up URL monitoring.

2. Install the webapp

  1. 2.1) Download the Asset Bank zip: asset-bank.zip
  2. 2.2) Unzip the installation package to a convenient location on your hard drive. This will create a directory called 'asset-bank'.
  3. 2.3) Shutdown Tomcat (if it is running).
  4. 2.3) Move the directory 'asset-bank' into [Tomcat]/webapps.

 

3. Configure Tomcat

  1. 3.1) For security reasons, don't run Tomcat as root. For example, create a user called 'tomcat' and run as that.
  2. 3.2) Ensure that the user that will be running Tomcat (usually called ‘tomcat’) has recursive read/write permissions on the following directories. For example, set tomcat to be the owner recursively.
    • [tomcat]/webapps/asset-bank
    • [tomcat]/logs
    • [tomcat]/work
    • [tomcat]/temp
  3. 3.3) Copy the file [tomcat]/asset-bank/WEB-INF/manager-config/tomcat/setenv.sh into [tomcat]/bin.
    Edit this file to ensure that the memory settings for Tomcat are suitable for your server. This step is necessary as by default Tomcat will not be given optimal memory to run as a production server.
  4. 3.4) ONLY use this section (3.4) if you want Tomcat to access the application on port 80 and do not want to use a separate web server. If you want to use a separate web server ignore this part and move on to 3.5!(see section 8, below), Tomcat has a production-quality web server built in - you just need to change the port it listens on from 8080 to 80.
    To do this:
  5. - Open the file [Tomcat]\conf\server.xml in a text editor.
    - Search for the string <Connector port="8080" and replace 8080 with 80.

  6. 3.5) Open the file [Tomcat]\conf\server.xml in a text editor and add the attribute URIEncoding="UTF-8" to the “Connector” element, as shown here:

    <Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"
    connectionTimeout="20000"
    redirectPort="8443"
    URIEncoding="UTF-8" />

  7. <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>
  8. 3.6) Follow the configuration described in this Knowledge Base article to set the "mappedfile" init parameter to "false". This step is necessary as by default Tomcat will not be able to display certain pages within Asset Bank.

4. Edit ApplicationSettings.properties

The settings file is in [tomcat]/asset-bank/WEB-INF/classes

Most of the settings in this file can stay as they are. Settings that you must change:

  • imagemagick-path - this should point to the directory containing the image magick executables (e.g. 'convert'). This is usually /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin.
  • The FTP properties (beginning 'ftp') - see below for more information about FTP.
  • emailSMTP - set to the URL of your SMTP mail server.

Settings that may need to be changed depending on your server configuration:

  • index-directory - this should point to a local (not NFS-mounted) directory.
  • Refer to this article to update the date formats.

If you are installing an Enterprise version of Asset Bank that has Multi-Language enabled, please refer to this knowledge base article.

 

5. Install license

You will have received a license file license.lic by email. This is valid for 14 days (for evaluation) or indefinitely (for production).

Copy the license file license.lic to
[Tomcat]/webapps/asset-bank/WEB-INF/classes.

 

6. Set up the database

Follow the database setup instructions in Database & Advanced Setup

7. Logging settings

Please ensure that you set the log level to 'info' in the top line of both files mentioned below.

 
org.apache.commons.logging.simplelog.log.AssetBank-Standard=info
 
<tomcat home>\webapps\asset-bank\WEB-INF\classes\simplelog.properties

 

8. (Optional) Set up FTP for Bulk Upload

By default, users can upload files for 'Bulk Upload' using a Flash control or Java applet, which is shown on the first page of the Bulk Upload process.

If you do not want your users to use Flash or the applet for bulk upload, users can upload their files for Bulk Uploading using FTP. To enable this you need to install or enable an FTP server. If you don't have a preference, we recommend VSFTP.

You then need to create an FTP user, for example called assetbank-ftp. For security reasons this user should be jailed in their home directory.

The property 'bulk-upload-directory' in the ApplicationSettings.properties file should point to the home directory of the FTP user. The easiest way to do this is to create a symbolic link in [tomcat]/asset-bank called 'bulk-upload', pointing to the FTP user's home directory. If you do this then you don't need to change the value of the setting as it is that by default.

Both the FTP user and Tomcat need to be able to read and write to this 'bulk-upload' directory. The easiest way to do this is by ensuring that the Tomcat user and the FTP user are in the same group and giving group read/write permissions on the directory.

To use FTP rather than the applet, ensure that the setting 'bulk-upload-use-applet' is set to false.

 

9. Start the Application

  1. 9.1) Start or restart Tomcat.
  2. 9.2) Ready to run - you should be able to access the Asset Bank on http://localhost/asset-bank/ from a browser on the server, or http://[server ip address]/asset-bank/
  3. from any other computer on your network.
    Note: If you did not follow step (3.5) or (11) then you will need to specify port 8080, e.g. http://[server ip address]:8080/asset-bank/
  4. 9.3) The application will start with a “Setup Wizard” which will allow you to easily set up your Asset Bank.
    Note: On first run the “Setup Wizard” will ask you for a password to prevent access from non-admin users. This password can be changed using the setting setup-wizard-password in the ApplicationSettings file.
  5. 9.4) Login as the default admin user:
  6. Username: admin
    Password: password
  7. 9.4) Change the password of the default admin user ‘admin’ by going to the 'Your Profile' link in the top right. This is important as it is easy to forget that this user exists once you start adding your own, and it is especially important, for obvious security reasons, if your Asset Bank is available online. Alternatively, remember to delete this user as soon as you have added one or more other admin users.

 

10. Upgrade to the latest version

The installer may not contain the most recent version of Asset Bank (although it should be close!) To upgrade your Asset Bank to the latest version (assuming you have a license that allows it), then please follow these instructions.

 

11. Integrate Tomcat with Apache (optional)

See integrating Tomcat with Apache.

 

12. Backup procedure

You need to ensure that the database and files are backed up regularly (we advise nightly). For information on backing up and restoring Asset Bank please read our knowledge base article.

The disc usage of the Asset Bank installation should also be monitored to ensure that the application does not run out of room. This includes where the Asset Bank assets are stored and the Tomcat logs.

 

If you want to uninstall Asset Bank

Please proceed to uninstall all of the pre-requisite software - as mentioned in step 1 - and drop the database that was generated during step 6. To complete the uninstall, stop Tomcat, delete the Tomcat]\webapps\asset-bankfolder and restart Tomcat. You may also wish to revert changes to your Tomcat installation as mentioned in step 8 and changes made to your web server in step 11.

 

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