Obtaining Liferay

The CE version of Liferay is freely downloadable from our web site at http://www.liferay.com. Click on the Downloads link at the top of the page, and you will be presented with multiple options for getting a copy of Liferay, including our convenient bundles or a .war package for installation on your application server of choice.

The EE version of Liferay is provided to you as a result of your support subscription. You will receive download links which will allow you to obtain a copy of a Liferay bundle or a .war package for installation on your application server of choice.

So what is a bundle anyway? A bundle is simply an open source application server with Liferay preinstalled. If you want to install a bundle, there is a list of bundles available. If you do not currently have an application server, it is best to download the Tomcat bundle, as Tomcat is one of the smallest and most straightforward bundles to configure. If you have an application server preference, you can also choose the server you prefer from the available Liferay Portal bundles. All of the bundles ship with a Java Runtime Environment for Windows; if you are using a different operating system, you will need to have a JDK (Java Development Kit) installed prior to launching Liferay.

Please note that Liferay is not able to provide application server bundles for proprietary application servers such as WebLogic or WebSphere, because the licenses for these servers do not allow for redistribution. Liferay Portal, however, runs just as well on these application servers as it does on open source application servers. You will need to use the .war package to install Liferay on these application servers.

For a manual install, you will need the Liferay .war file as well as Liferay's dependency .jars. Later in this chapter are instructions for installing Liferay on many of the major application servers available today.

Illustration 1: Bundle directory structure