Windows XP/Vista
Begin the installation process by downloading the Windows installer here and then double clicking on eduCommons_3.2.1-final_setup.exe. (If you have an eduCommons 3.2.1 CD, the installation process should start when you insert the disc.) Follow the instructions provided by the windows installer.
Because eduCommons runs as a service on windows, it requires a little more work to start, stop and get connected to it. Listed below are a number of options for doing this. Note: for Vista and later the default control window that is provided will not function correctly. This will be fixed in a future release. For these platforms please use option 2 or 3 instead.
OPTION 1: Starting eduCommons with the eduCommons Controller (Windows XP only)
After running the Windows Installer a eduCommons Controller window will appear. It can also be started through a program icon created in All Programs during the installation. Clicking “Start instance” will start the Zope application server and your eduCommons site. It may take several minutes before you can open your eduCommons site. You can then click “View eduCommons” to open a browser and connect.
OPTION 2: Starting eduCommons using the Administrative Services panel
To start the eduCommons instance using the Administrative Services panel, type services.msc into the text box in Start Menu and press enter. A control panel will appear. Find the Zope service in the list, right-click on it and select “start.”
After a while, when the instance is running and listing to port 8080, point your browser to address on your local computer (http://127.0.0.1:8080/eduCommons should work as well):
http://localhost:8080/eduCommons
You can login with the admin credentials provided by the installer:
username: admin
password: test1234
Congratulations! You should now be logged in as an admin to your eduCommons instance.
OPTION 3: Starting eduCommons in the Console
The eduCommons installer creates a Zope instance, with a pre-configured eduCommons site. In order to start the eduCommons instance, bring up a console (from Start Menu, under Run, type cmd and press enter) and type:
$ cd "C:\eduCommons"
To start eduCommons in debug mode type:
$ bin\instance install
Then you can start the Zope application server and your eduCommons site as a service go to the Services Panel (from Start Menu, under Run, type services.msc and press enter). Right-click on the service called “Zope instance at C:\eduCommons” and select Start. You site will start. To access it, read the “Accessing your eduCommons instance”” section below.
As an alternative to the above instructions, you may start eduCommons in debug mode by typing:
$ bin\instance fg
You can interrupt the instance by pressing CTRL+C. This will also take down the Zope application server and your eduCommons site. If you want to run Zope application server in production mode please follow instructions below. To install Plone Window background service type:
$ bin\instance install
After this you can start eduCommons as a background service by typing:
$ bin\instance start
After a while, when the instance is running and listing to port 8080, point your browser to address on your local computer (http://127.0.0.1:8080/eduCommons should work as well):
http://localhost:8080/eduCommons
You can login with the admin credentials provided by the installer:
username: admin
password: test1234
Congratulations! You should now be logged in as an admin to your eduCommons instance.
RedHat 5.x/CentOS 5.x
RPMs are provided to simplify installation. Simply copy the RPM file appropriate to your platform (i386 for-32 bit, and x86_64 for 64-bit hardware) to a temporary location on your server and then as root run the following:
rpm -ivh eduCommons-3-2-1-final.i386.rpm
Note: eduCommons has a number of dependent packages on which it is based. If you have run the above command, and it requires additional dependencies try running the following as root:
yum install gcc gcc-c++ python-devel tkinter tcl-devel tk-devel freetype-devel zlib-devel libjpeg-devel libxml2-devel libxslt-devel
Once you have installed the RPM, you can then launch eduCommons by running the init script located in your /etc folder as follows:
/etc/init.d/educommons start
Similarly you can stop eduCommons by running the following:
/etc/init.d/educommons stop
When your server is rebooted after installing the RPM, eduCommons will automatically be launched by default. To connect to eduCommons on your server connect to the following URL in your browser (and substitute <your server IP address> with the actual server’s IP.
http://<your server's IP address>:8080/eduCommons
You should then be able to log in with the default user and password:
username: admin
password: test1234
If for some reason eduCommons does not appear in your browser you may want to check to make sure that if you are running a firewall that port 8080 is opened.
OpenSUSE 11.1
OpenSUSE 11.1 installation requires the proper version of python to be installed first. We have provided a separate RPM for this. Python 2.4.6 and OpenSUSE RPMs are available here. Simply copy the RPM files appropriate to your platform (i586 for 32-bit, and x86_64 for 64-bit hardware) to a temporary location on your server and then as root run the following:
rpm -ivh python24-2.4.6-1.i586.SUSE.rpm
rpm -ivh eduCommons-3.2.1-1.i586.rpm
Note: eduCommons has a number of dependent packages on which it is based. If you have run the above command, and it requires additional dependencies try running the following as root:
zypper install gcc gcc-c++ python24 libxml2-devel libxslt-devel python-tk freetype2-devel zlib-devel libjpeg-devel xorg-x11-libX11-devel
Once you have installed the RPM, you can then launch eduCommons by running the init script located in your /etc folder as follows:
/etc/init.d/educommons start
Similarly you can stop eduCommons by running the following:
/etc/init.d/educommons stop
When your server is rebooted after installing the RPM, eduCommons will automatically be launched by default. To connect to eduCommons on your server connect to the following URL in your browser (and substitute <your server IP address> with the actual server’s IP.
http://<your server's IP address>:8080/eduCommons
You should then be able to log in with the default user and password:
username: admin
password: test1234
If for some reason eduCommons does not appear in your browser you may want to check to make sure that if you are running a firewall that port 8080 is opened.
VMWare Image
If you are using VMWare you can download complete virtual machine with eduCommons pre-installed here. Copy the compressed VM image to your local drive and unpack it. Using your regular method for launching VMWare images start the eduCommons virtual machine. The virtual machine is designed to pick up a default IP address over DHCP. When booting the image choose the eduCommons boot option. The VMWare image is minimal and will boot in text mode and will launch. To connect to eduCommons find the IP address of the server (listed in the text boot messages and connect with the following URL entered in your browser:
http://<your server's IP address>:8080/eduCommons
Once your browser has connected to your eduCommons server you can log in with the default username and password:
username: admin
password: test1234
You can also log directly into your server from the command line and do further customizations from there. The default root login and password are as follows:
username: root
password: linux
The default root password for your server should be changed immediately, and the VMWare image should never be put in a production environment with the default password.
Source Code
Download the eduCommons 3.2.1-final release, available here on SourceForge.net.
Unarchive the package to a directory which will serve as your buildout directory. Change directories and run the bootstrap script:
cd eduCommons.buildout
/usr/local/python2.4 bootstrap.py
(in some environments the command will be /usr/local/bin/python2.4 bootstrap.py)
Then run the buildout script to download all the required packages and set up the eduCommons application:
bin/buildout
Or run the same buildout script above, plus the Selenium test runner (needed to run acceptance tests):
bin/buildout -c tests.cfg
Once you have the buildout ready you can launch it using the following:
bin/instance start
Or to launch in the foreground of your console:
bin/instance fg
You should now be able to open a browser and go to the ZMI with the following URL (assuming that you configured Zope to run on port 8080)
http://<server name>:8080/manage
You should then get a dialog prompt asking for your Zope admin username and password. The default username/password for the buildout is admin/test1234.
Once you have logged into the ZMI via the management interface, you are now ready to create the site. Start by creating a plone site with the pull down menu in the top right corner. Give the plone site an ID and title. The ID will be used in the URL to access the site, so name it appropriately. The title will appear several places within the eduCommons install, and should be based on your group or institution.</p> Under “Extension Profiles” you need to do a multi-select (hold down the CTRL or the Command key). Select the following so they are all highlighted:
- PloneBookmarklets
- ContentLicensing
- IMSTransport
- OpenSearch
- OAI Intercom
- SearchAndReplace
- Zip File Transport
- Left Skin
- Static Site
- eduCommons
- wordpressexchange
- iw.fss (FileSystemStorage)
- Working Copy Support (Iterate)
- CacheSetup
- LinguaPlone
Then click “Add Plone Site.”
If you wish to localize content in other languages you will need to select your supported languages.
In the ZMI:
- Navigate to your eduCommons instance
- Navigate to portal_languages
- Select one or more Allowed languages (use the control or apple key to multi-select)
- Click Save
Additional instructions for localizing content using LinguaPlone are available in LOCALIZATION.txt. Finally, you need to reorder the Layers in your eduCommons Skins Selections. In the ZMI:
- Navigate to your eduCommons instance
- Navigate to portal_skins
- Click on the Properties tab
- Under the Skins Selections, in the Layers text box for LeftSkin, cut the LinguaPlone entry and paste it one a new line below the eduCommons entry
- Click Save (be sure to click the Save button for the Skins selection section)
Configure eduCommons