Introduction

This document is a summary of the VIVO installation process. For information about this release, consult the VIVO 1.6 Release Announcement. Links to this and other documentation can be found on the support page at VIVOweb.org.

These instructions assume that you are performing a clean install, including emptying an existing database, emptying the VIVO home directory, and removing a previous installation from the Tomcat webapps directory. VIVO may not work as expected if you install over an an earlier version. If you are upgrading an existing service, please consult the Upgrade Instructions for VIVO release 1.6.

The section entitled A simple installation describes a standard, simple installation for those who want to get VIVO up and running. The second called Installation options section describes several choices; some are intended for a full-scale production installation of VIVO, and some are intended for a person who is developing VIVO on their own machine.

Where is VIVO on your computer?

Before beginning the installation, let's look at the four locations on your computer that will hold VIVO.

The VIVO distribution directory

This is created when you unpack the VIVO distribution file (see Download the VIVO source code, below). This is where you will create your build.properties file (see Specify build properties, below), and where you will make any modifications to the VIVO theme or code. You can create this wherever you choose.

VIVO inside Tomcat

When you run the build script to compile and deploy VIVO (see Compile and deploy, below), the files will be deployed to a directory inside Tomcat. This is the actual executing code for VIVO, but you won’t need to look at it or change it. If you need to change VIVO, make the changes in the distribution directory, and run the build script again. Tell the build script where to find Tomcat by setting tomcat.home in the build.properties file (see Specify build properties, below).

The VIVO home directory

This directory contains the runtime configuration properties for VIVO. VIVO will also use this area to store some of its data. Uploaded image files are stored here, and the Solr search index is stored here also. This is also a place for the files or RDF data that will initialize the VIVO knowledge base. You can create this wherever you choose. Tell VIVO where to find the home directory by setting vitro.home in the build.properties file (see Specify build properties, below). You must create this directory before starting VIVO. You must create the runtime.properties file in this directory (see Specify runtime properties, below), and you must ensure that Tomcat has permission to read and write to this directory when it runs.

The VIVO knowledge base

By default, nearly all of the data that you enter into VIVO will be stored in MySQL. The actual location of this data depends on what system you have, and on how you install MySQL (see Install required software, below). but you won’t need to know the location. You will access the data through VIVO, or occasionally through the MySQL client application.

First the installation, then what?

When you have VIVO up and running, please read the Site Administrator's Guide.

A simple installation

This section describes the process of getting VIVO up and running on your computer, for testing or experimentation, or just to gain familiarity with the process.

If you want to install VIVO on a production server, or if you want to develop VIVO code, you should also read the section on Installation options.

Preparing for VIVO

Install required software

Before installing VIVO, make sure that the following software is installed on the desired machine:

• Java (SE) 1.7.x http://java.sun.com
  • VIVO has not been tested with OpenJDK
• Apache Tomcat 6.x or 7.x http://tomcat.apache.org
• Apache Ant 1.8 or higher, http://ant.apache.org
• MySQL 5.1 or higher, http://www.mysql.com

Be sure to set up the environment variables for JAVA_HOME and ANT_HOME and add the executables to your path, as required. This requirement depends on the operating system you are using. Consult the installation directions from the software support websites.

The following browsers are supported for this release

• Mac:
  • Chrome 30.0.1599.69 and above
  • FireFox 3.6.28, 10.0.12, 24
  • Opera 12.02
  • Safari 5.0.3
• PC:
  • Chrome 25.1364.2 and above
  • FireFox 10.0.12, 24
  • Internet Explorer 8, 9, 10
  • Opera 12.02

Did it work?

You can test the software installation by typing these commands:

java -version
mysql --version
ant -version

Each of these command should print a response that tells you what version is installed. If any of these commands prints an error message, or reports an unexpected version number, you should review your installation.

Create an empty database and a database account

Decide on a database name, username, and password.You will need these values for this step, and again when you Specify runtime properties.

Log into your MySQL server and create a new database in MySQL that uses UTF-8 encoding. At the MySQL command line you can create the database and user with these commands substituting your values for dbname, username, and password. Most of the time, the hostname will be localhost.

CREATE DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username'@'hostname' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Building VIVO

Download the VIVO source code

Download the VIVO application source as either rel-1.6.zip or rel-1.6.gz file and unpack it on your web server:
http://vivoweb.org/download

Specify build properties

At the top level of the VIVO distribution directory, copy the file example.build.properties to a file named simply build.properties. Edit the file to suit your installation, as described in the following table.

These properties are used in compiling VIVO and deploying it to Tomcat. They will be incorporated into VIVO when it is compiled. If you want to change these properties at a later date, you will need to stop Tomcat, repeat the Compile and deploy step, and restart Tomcat.

Compile and deploy

In the previous step, you defined the location of the VIVO home directory, by specifying vitro.home in the build.properties file. If that directory does not exist, create it now.

At the command line, from the top level of the VIVO distribution directory, type:

ant all

to build VIVO and deploy to Tomcat's webapps directory.

The build script may run for as much as five minutes, and creates more than 100 lines of output. The process comprises several steps:

• collecting the source files from the distribution directory,
• compiling the Java source code,
• compiling and running unit tests,
• preparing the Solr search engine,
• deploying VIVO and Solr to Tomcat.

Did it work?

The output of the build may include a variety of warning messages. The Java compiler may warn of code that is outdated. Unit tests may produce warning messages, and some tests may be ignored if they do not produce consistent results.

If the output ends with a success message, the build was successful. Proceed to the next step.

If the output ends with a failure message, the build has failed. Find the cause of the failure, fix the problem, and run the script again.

Running VIVO

Configure Tomcat

Set JVM parameters

VIVO copies small sections of your RDF database into memory in order to serve Web requests quickly (the in-memory copy and the underlying database are kept in synch as edits are performed).

VIVO may require more memory than that allocated to Tomcat by default. With most installations of Tomcat, the setenv.sh or setenv.bat file in Tomcat's bin directory is a convenient place to set the memory parameters. If this file does not exist in Tomcat's bin directory, you can create it.
For example:

export CATALINA_OPTS="-Xms512m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m"

This configures Tomcat to allocate an initial heap of 512 megabytes, a maximum heap of 512 megabytes, and a PermGen space of 128 megs. Lower values may be sufficient, especially for small test installations.

If an OutOfMemoryError is encountered during VIVO execution, it can be remedied by increasing the heap parameters and restarting Tomcat.

Set security limits

VIVO is a multithreaded web application that may require more threads than are permitted under your Linux installation's default configuration. Ensure that your installation can support the required number of threads by making the following edits to /etc/security/limits.conf:

apache	hard	nproc	400
tomcat6	hard	nproc	1500

Set URI encoding

In order for VIVO to correctly handle international characters, you must configure Tomcat to conform to the URI standard by accepting percent-encoded UTF-8.

Edit Tomcat's conf/server.xml and add the following attribute to each of the Connector elements: URIEncoding="UTF-8".

<Server ...>
  <Service ...>
    <Connector ... URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>
      ...
    </Connector>
  </Service>
</Server>

Take care when creating Context elements

Each of the webapps in the VIVO distribution (VIVO and Solr) includes a "context fragment" file, containing some of the deployment information for that webapp.

Tomcat allows you to override these context fragments by adding Context elements to server.xml. If you decide to do this, be sure that your new Context element includes the necessary deployment parameters from the overridden context fragment.

See the section entitled Running VIVO behind an Apache server for an example of overriding the VIVO context fragment.

Specify runtime properties

The build process in the Compile and deploy step created a file called example.runtime.properties in your VIVO home directory (specified by vitro.home in the build.properties file). Rename this file to runtime.properties and edit the file to suit your installation, as described below.

These properties are loaded when VIVO starts up. If you want to change these properties at a later date, you will need to restart Tomcat for them to take effect. You will not need to repeat the Compile and deploy step.

Basic properties

These properties define some fundamental aspects of your VIVO installation. Most sites will need to modify all of these values.

Extended properties

These are properties that many sites will not need to modify.

scheme + servername + port + vivo_webapp_name + "solr"

Additional properties

The runtime.properties file can accept many additional properties, but most of them don't apply to the standard installation. If you choose any of the Installation options, you may need to set some of those properties.

Start Tomcat

Most Tomcat installations can be started by running startup.sh or startup.bat in Tomcat's bin directory. Start Tomcat and direct your browser to http://localhost:8080/vivo to test the application. Note that Tomcat may require several minutes to start VIVO.

On start up VIVO will run some diagnostic tests. If a problem is detected the normal VIVO pages will redirect to a startup status page describing the problem. You can stop Tomcat, attempt to fix the problem and proceed from the Compile and deploy step. If the problem is not serious, the startup status page may offer a continue link which will allow you to use VIVO in spite of the problems.

If the startup was successful, you will see the VIVO home page.

If Tomcat does not start up, or the VIVO application is not visible, check the files in Tomcat's logs directory. Error messages are commonly found in [tomcat]/logs/catalina.out, [tomcat]/logs/vivo.all.log or [tomcat]/logs/localhost.log

Get started using VIVO

Log in and add RDF data

Direct your browser to the VIVO home page. Click the "Log in" link near the upper right corner. Log in with the rootUser.emailAddress that you set in the runtime.properties file. The initial password for the root account is rootPassword. When you first log in, VIVO will require you to change the password. When login is complete, the search index is checked and, if it is empty, a full index build will be triggered in the background, in order to ensure complete functionality throughout the site.

After logging in, you will be presented with a menu of editing options. Here you can create OWL classes, object properties, data properties, and configure the display of data. Currently, any classes you wish to make visible on your website must be part of a class group and any individual must have an rdfs:label. There are a number of visibility and display options available for classes and properites. VIVO comes with a core VIVO ontology, but you may also upload other ontologies from an RDF file.

Under the "Advanced Data Tools" click "Add/Remove RDF Data." Note that Vitro currently works best with OWL-DL ontologies and has only limited support for pure RDF data. You can enter a URL pointing to the RDF data you wish to load or upload from a file on your local machine. Ensure that the "add RDF" radio button is selected. You will also likely want to check "create classgroups automatically."

Clicking the "Index" tab in the navigation bar at the top right of the page will show a simple index of the knowledge base.

See more documentation for configuring VIVO, ingesting data, and manually adding data at http://vivoweb.org/support.

Set the Contact Email Address

If you have configured your application to use the "Contact Us" feature (email.smtpHost is set in the runtime.properties file), you will also need to add an email address to the VIVO application.  This is the email to which the contact form will submit. It can be a list server or an individual's email address.

Log in as a system administrator. Navigate to the "Site Admin" table of contents (link in the right side of the header). Go to "Site Information" (under "Site Configuration"). In the "Site Information Editing Form," enter a functional email address in the field "Contact Email Address" and submit the change.

If you set the email.smtpHost in the runtime.properties file, and do NOT provide an email address in this step, your users will see an error message instead of the expected contact form.

Review the VIVO terms of use

VIVO comes with a "Terms of Use" statement linked from the footer. The "Site Name" you assign in the "Site Information" form under the Site Admin area will be inserted into the "Terms of Use" statement. If you want to edit the text content more than just the "Site Name", the file can be found here:

[vivo_source_dir]/vitro-core/webapp/web/templates/freemarker/body/termsOfUse.ftl

Your "Terms of Use" statement is also referenced in the Linked Open Data (RDF) that your site produces, so you should be sure that it accurately reflects the way that your data may be used.

Be sure to make the changes in your source files and deploy them to your tomcat so you don't lose your changes next time you deploy for another reason.

Was the installation successful?

Installation options

Running VIVO behind an Apache server

Using an external authentication system

Developers' installation: obtaining VIVO source code from Git

Customizing VIVO with a "3-tier" build

Using a database other than MySQL

Using a servlet container other than Tomcat

Adding OpenSocial gadgets to VIVO

VIVO in a language other than English

Other installation options