Deke Smith

Installing CRX 2.1 or CQ 5.4 for Desktop Development

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

[Revised 11 April 2012: added section, Before You Begin]

CRX provides the base functionality for both CQ and Experience Services. CQ adds its own flavor of extended functionality to CRX and Experience Services does so as well. So they are all very similar and installing a development server on your local machine is the same for CQ, Experiences Services or generic CRX.

Before You Begin

To install CQ, Experience Services or CRX, you need the quickstart jar for the server and licensing as either a license key or the license.properties file. Quickstart files are cross platform. So the same quickstart will work on any compatible platform. You need to have both of these lined up ahead of time.

System Requirements

Adobe documentation describes the technical requirements for the servers at http://dev.day.com/docs/en/cq/current/deploying/technical_requirements.html. Your workstation should have 2 GB of free disk space and 1.5 GB of available memory. A Java run time, either version 1.5 or 1.6, is required. JRE 1.6 is preferred. JRE 1.7 will not work.

For development and testing on your local machine, the deployment requirements in the documentation can be more broad. The servers should work on computers with recent versions of the Windows and Macintosh systems.

Create a Deployment Directory, Rename Quick Start and Provide License

CQ, CRX and Experience Services all can be deployed using a single jar file, called a quickstart file, that is run by a Java JVM. This single jar contains everything needed to run, including the server, configuration files, and binaries. There are naming conventions for the quickstart files. Some of the conventions are mandatory, others override default behavior. If the quickstart is for CQ, the name of the quickstart file must start with cq-. If CRX, the name must begin with crx-. If Experience Services, the name must begin with adep-ria-. The port used by the server can be set using file naming, too. Place -[port] at the end of the file name (just before the .jar suffix) and the quickstart server will run on that port. The file name and the path to the quickstart file must not contain any spaces.

I have a directory, servers, at the root of my c drive to contain my server instances for testing and development. I place each quickstart file into its own directory. You do this because, when run, the quickstart will unpack itself within this directory. In my naming convention, I place the version of the server in the directory name.

These are examples of the quickstart files I use, where I place them and how I name them on the Windows 7 workstation.

Experience Services 10.0.0 using port 450

C:\servers\adep-ria-quickstart-10-0-0\adep-ria-quickstart-4502.jar

Experience Services 10.0.1 (service pack 1) using port 4503

C:\servers\adep-ria-quickstart-10-0-1\adep-ria-quickstart-4503.jar

CQ 5.5.0 using port 8081

C:\servers\cq-5.5.0-20120220\cq-quickstart-5.5.0-20120220-8081.jar

Before the first time a quickstart is used, each of these directories should have two files inside of them. First, of course, is the quickstart jar itself. The second file that should be in each of these directories is a license.properties file. If the license.properties file is not present, the user will be prompted for a license key the first time the quickstart is run. If you do not have a license.properties file or license key, get in touch with either Adobe sales or Adobe customer support.

Start the Server the First Time

Using the command line, confirm the version of Java is correct. I have more than one version of Java installed for testing, so it is possible that the default Java is not correct even if you do have JRE 1.5 or JRE 1.6 installed.

java -version

If this does not return the correct version of Java, you will need to use the complete file path to Java when starting the server.

To start the server, change the directory of the command line to be the same directory that contains the quick start jar. Use Java to run the jar.

java -Xms1536m -jar cq-quickstart-5.5.0-20120220-8081.jar

The first time the server runs it creates a crx-quickstart folder in the same directory and unpacks its resources into this directory. It does some basic configuration based on the naming conventions used with the quick start file. Once the resources are unpacked, the quick start server runs.

Log Into the Administrative Console

Once the server has started, a browser window will open to allow you to log into administrative console of the server. The default user name is admin, the default password is admin.

You can start the server the same way from the command later. After the first time, starting it up will not take as much time. The jar is not unpacked.

For More Information

The developer site at day.com, http://dev.day.com, contains more information about how to configure and use CQ, Experience Services and CRX.

Using the Data Store Garbage Collection in CRX and CQ

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Deke Smith | Comments (2)

Andrew Khoury sent this information to me, basing the instructions on his solution to a customer’s problem.

I posted a solution to the problem in which the journal files for CRX grew and became a problem. The journal files are tar files in which the repository stores its information. However, items greater than 4KB are not stored in the repository tar files. Instead, CRX stores that data in a set of indexed files found within the crx-quickstart/repository/repository/datastore directory.

Like the tar journal files, these files have data appended, not rewritten. So the size of the datastore directory grows with each deployment that contains files larger than 4KB.

Just as there is a garbage collection functionality for repository tar files, there is a way to do garbage collection on the datastore. Running garbage collection removes unused items from the datastore directory and decreases the amount of its data.

Experience Services and CQ are both built using CRX as their base. So the instructions for CRX applies to the Experience Services and CQ servers, as well.

Running Datastore Garbage Collection

Go to http://[server domain]:[server port]/crx and log in as administrative user
Click Repository Configuration
Click Datastore Garbage Collection
Check all boxes and click Run (if it runs successfully then you are done)

If this process completes successfully, you are done.

If Datastore Garbage Collection fails with an error

Look at the error in the application server log and crx-quickstart/logs/crx/error.log. You may see “File not found: 123,” where 123 corresponds to the id number of a tar file. If so, first try to restore the tar file that corresponds to that id from a backup. For example, the tar file for id 123 would be crx-quickstart/workspaces/crx.default/data_00123.tar. The number in the data tar file name is always padded to five digits so add zeros before the number to make it five digits.

Next steps

If an error occurred, do the following. Do the rest of these steps even if you were not able to restore the missing tar file(s).

Stop the application server or the quickstart server.
If using *nix, log into the server via ssh and cd to the crx-quickstart directory. If using Windows, go to the crx-quickstart drectory.

Make backups of the tar index files. Within the *nix environment use these commands:

cd repository/version

mkdir index_tar_backup

mv index*.tar index_tar_backup/

chmod 640 data*.tar

cd ../workspaces/crx.default

mkdir index_tar_backup

mv index*.tar index_tar_backup/

chmod 640 data*.tar

Backup crx-quickstart/workspaces/crx.default/workspace.xml as crx-quickstart/workspaces/crx.default/workspace.xml.backup
Open crx-quickstart/workspaces/crx.default/workspace.xml in a text editor

Comment out the PersistenceManagerelement:Before:

<PersistenceManager class="com.day.crx.persistence.tar.TarPersistenceManager"/>

After:

<!--PersistenceManager class="com.day.crx.persistence.tar.TarPersistenceManager"/-->

Add a new persistence manager element with the consistency check parameters set:

<PersistenceManager class="com.day.crx.persistence.tar.TarPersistenceManager">

<param name="consistencyCheck" value="true" />

<param name="consistencyFix" value="true" />

</PersistenceManager>

Restart the application server or the quick start server

Monitor start up by tailing crx-quickstart/logs/crx/error.log and watch fo any errors. In the error.log you will see something very similar to the following when the start up is complete:

 02.03.2012 15:39:52 *INFO * CRXHttpServlet: PackageShareServlet initialized. (CRXHttpServlet.java, line 52)

 02.03.2012 15:39:52 *INFO * CRXHttpServlet: PackageManagerServlet initialized. (CRXHttpServlet.java, line 52)

 02.03.2012 15:40:04 *INFO * TarUtils: File system status: created 200 files in 14 ms (14285 ops/sec) (TarUtils.java, line 782)

02.03.2012 15:40:04 *INFO * TarUtils: File system status calculated in 35 ms (TarUtils.java, line 795)

Go to http://[server domain]:[server port]/crx and log in as an administrative user
Click Repository Configuration
Click Datastore Garbage Collection
Check all boxes and click Run
Edit the file, crx-quickstart/workspaces/crx.default/workspace.xml, replacing it with the original version that was backed up.

Getting the version of a Component Application Framework (Mosaic) service

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

To get the current version of a CAF service, log in as the administrator and point the browser to http://[Mosaic server and port]/mosaic/about.

When publishing an AIR application, Flash Professional cannot access time stamp server

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

When a developer’s workstation is accessing the Internet through a proxy, Flash Professional can have problems accessing the time stamp server to create AIR applications. For Flash Professional CS5 and Flash Professional CD5.5, this can be fixed by editing Flash Professional’s JVM configuration file. The configuration file is at [install location]/Common/First Run/ActionScript 3.0/jvm.ini. Within this file add the following line:

-java.net.useSystemProxies=true

“Failure in Loader: VerifyError: Error #1014″ within the Composite Application Framework (Mosaic)

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (2)

The error, Failure in Loader: VerifyError: Error #1014″, within the Composite Application Framework (Mosaic) can be caused by the presence of a non-interface class within the interface library that defines a service within Mosaic. Service interfaces should not use non-interface classes as arguments or results. For example, if a service that is being implemented returns an ArrayCollection, the result should be specified in the interface as IList. Creating an interface with an ArrayCollection in its definition will cause other tiles to throw this exception.

See also:
Adobe Forums post about this error
Create a composite application: create a service

Appending values to collections within Process Management orchestrations

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

Within the Process Management module for ADEP Document Services or LiveCycle, values returned from services, if not explicitly XML or primitives, are Java-based. These values, like XML in orchestrations, can be created, modified and deleted using the Set Value service or by using BeanScript within the Execute Script service.

Manipulating Java objects within BeanScript is very similar to how it works in Java. However, setting Java objects in the Set Value service can be very different. It uses XPath as its language. Values for XML behave as described within the W3C XPath specification. In addition, associating schema with XML supports functionality to add values to XML that fit a very specific object model. Though XPath is meant for querying XML, it has been purposed for setting and editing the Java elements within orchestrations as well.

There are many differences in the way Java objects are treated within the Set Value service’s XPath than XML or primitives behave. One difference is in the way items are added to collections within Java objects.

First, to create a collection, a variable must be set to be a new, empty, collection:

/process_data/myList = empty-list()

To append an item to an already existing collection, set the collection to be equal that value you wish to append:

/process_data/myList = empty-list()
/process_data/myList = "a" // collection is now ["a"]
/process_data/myList = "b" // collection is now ["a","b"]
/process_data/myList = "c" // collection is now ["a","b","c"]

To reset the value of the list, do not set it to a different collection. This only appends the collection to the existing list:

/process_data/myList = empty-list()
/process_data/myList = "a" // myList is ["a"]
/process_data/list2 = empty-list()
/process_data/list2 = "b" // list2 is ["b"]
/process_data/myList = /process_data/list2 // myList is ["a",["b"]]

To replace the value of a varible with a new list, first set the list to null:

/process_data/myList = empty-list()
/process_data/myList = "a" // myList is ["a"]
/process_data/list2 = empty-list()
/process_data/list2 = "b" // list2 is ["b"]
/process_data/myList = null
/process_data/myList = /process_data/list2 // myList is ["b"]

One big implication of this is, whenever a collection variable is set to the result of a service, if that variable is not empty the result is appended to the collection. This is sometimes desired, but can cause problems if not expected.

Moving custom digital signature appearances between computers

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

The custom appearances for a digital signature are kept in the security directory in the file, appearances.acrodata. The security folder for me (Windows 7 using Acrobat 10) is at [user directory]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Acrobat/10.0/Security.

As long the signature has been set up, moving that one file from one computer to another will move the custom appearance of the signature.

For more:
Digital Signature Appearances
Sample Signatures
Creating the signature appearance (Acrobat 9)
Adobe TV: Signing PDF Files and Creating Appearances (Acrobat 9)

503 error (service unavailable) while accessing services in CRX and CQ Quick Start

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (1)

[Edited 9 July 2012 by Deke Smith: updated to no longer be specific to Experience Services]

One thing that causes this is using the wrong of Java with the server. CQ, CRX, and Experience Services requires at least version 1.6.0.26 of the JDK (Java 6 update 26). But it will not work with version 1.7 JDK (Java 7). After installing Java, confirm the environment variable, JAVA_HOME, is set to the correct JDK directory.

It is easy to see what version of Java is on the server. Within a command prompt or terminal window type:

java -version

This command returns the version of Java on the machine.

What if you want to use the CRX Quick Start AND have Java 1.7 on your machine AND don’t want to set the JAVA_HOME variable to the Java 1.6 JDK? Within the server.bat file for the Quick Start is a setting in which the path to the Java SDK can be defined. The server.bat file is at [server directory]/crx-quickstart/server/server.bat. By default, it is set to JAVA_HOME:

set JAVA_HOME=%JAVA_HOME%

It can be set to the path to another SDK:

set JAVA_HOME=c:\java\jdk1.6.0_26

For more information, see CQ Technical Requirements: Java Virtual Machines.

One just wanted to tell the computer what to do, the other wanted it to talk back

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy, both pioneers in computer science, died this passed October.

Unless someone tells computers what to do, they are pretty much a dumb collection of rare earth minerals, wires, silicon and plastic. But the computer’s language is the same language of a light switch. It is either on or off. And to talk to these machines in their own language is a very difficult exercise of building a structure ones and zeros in a very hardware-specific way.

What Ritchie and McCarthy had in common, besides very healthy beards, was what they accomplished. They created high level languages we humans can use to tell these boxes what to do. McCarthy create LISP and Ritchie created C. With C, Ritchie helped to create Unix.

Article: Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy | The Economist

Throw it onto the Internet, but will they come?

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Deke Smith | Comments (0)

Despite the talk of the second tech bubble, new ideas still pour out. Sometimes people gravitate towards them. And sometimes they even make money. “Coding isn’t about making money or scratching some OCD itch. It’s about doing what you love and, yes, changing the world.” More in Bubble Boys from New York Magazine.