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.

Installation options

Using an external authentication system

VIVO can be configured to work with an external authentication system like Shibboleth or CUWebAuth.

VIVO must be accessible only through an Apache HTTP server. The Apache server will be configured to invoke the external authentication system. When the user completes the authentication, the Apache server will pass a network ID to VIVO, to identify the user.

If VIVO has an account for that user, the user will be logged in with the privileges of that account. In the absence of an account, VIVO will try to find a page associated with the user. If such a page is found, the user can log in to edit his own profile information.

Configuring the Apache server

Your institution will provide you with instructions for setting up the external authentication system. The Apache server must be configured to secure a page in VIVO. When a user reaches this secured page, the Apache server will invoke the external authentication system.

For VIVO, this secured page is named: /loginExternalAuthReturn

When your instructions call for the location of the secured page, this is the value you should use.

Configuring VIVO

To enable external authentication, VIVO requires two values in the runtime.properties file.

externalAuth.netIdHeaderName

remote_userID

selfEditing.idMatchingProperty

Finally, you will need to provide text for the Login button.

• To start the authentication process, the user will click on a button in the VIVO login form. You need to tell VIVO what text should appear in that button.

  In your theme, add a line to the all.properties file, like this one:

  external_login_text = [the text for your login button]

  For example:

  external_login_text = Log in using BearCat Shibboleth

  The VIVO login form will display a button labelled "Log in using BearCat Shibboleth".

  If your site supports additional languages, add lines to the corresponding files. For example, all_es.properties might contain this line:

  external_login_text = Entrar usando Shibboleth GatoOso

Developers' installation: obtaining VIVO source code from Git

Customizing VIVO with a "3-tier" build

Using a database other than MySQL

Adding OpenSocial gadgets to VIVO

VIVO in a language other than English

Other installation options