Installing a Bundle

In most cases, installing a bundle is as easy as uncompressing the archive and then starting the application server. For example, if you were to install the recommended bundle (Liferay Portal on Tomcat), you would create a folder to store the uncompressed application server and then uncompress the archive into this folder.

What you wind up with after this is the following directory structure:

Now you would simply start Tomcat in the same way as you would if you had downloaded it manually. Tomcat is launched by way of a script which is found in the bin folder. If you drop to a command prompt and go to this folder, you can launch Tomcat via the following command on Windows:

startup

or the following command on Linux / Unix:

./startup.sh

The Liferay / Tomcat bundle will then launch. If you are on Windows, you will see another command prompt window appear with Tomcat's console in it. If you are on Linux, you can see the Tomcat console by issuing the following command:

tail -f ../logs/catalina.out

Once Tomcat has completed launching, you can then view your Liferay bundle in a web browser. Launch your web browser and then go to the following address: http://localhost:8080. The default Liferay home page will then appear in your web browser. It will be using an embedded database for its configuration, but it is fully functional. You can now begin exploring the various features of Liferay.

Installing a different bundle is done in exactly the same way: unzip the bundle into the folder of your choice, launch the application server, and then view the portal in your web browser. There is only one bundle that differs from this procedure. The Pramati bundle is currently the only bundle that is available from Liferay's web site that uses an installer. If you wish to use the Pramati bundle, you need to launch it via its installer.

The Pramati installer will have a file name such as liferay-portal-pramati-<version number>.jar. Download this file from Liferay's web site. Once it has been downloaded, you can launch the installer from the command prompt by issuing the following command:

java -jar <name of bundle file>

For example, if you downloaded liferay-portal-pramati-4.3.3.jar, you would issue the following command:

java -jar liferay-portal-pramati-4.3.3.jar

You will then see the Pramati installer appear on your screen.

Illustration 2: Tomcat Directory StructureSelect the folder to which you wish to to install the bundle and click the Next button. There is only one other screen in the installer:

Click the install button and the bundle will then be installed. Please note that the Pramati bundle is supported on Windows operating systems only.

As you can see, bundles are the easiest way to get started with Liferay. They come pre-configured with a running Liferay that can be used immediately to explore all of the things that Liferay can do. And with minimal extra configuration (which we will see later), bundles can be converted into full production-ready systems.