1 Installation Guide
1.1 Preparation
Please note that the install.sh script will only work with Debian Linux. Please contact Gentics Support if you want to install Gentics Content.Node on a different operating system.
Check if the locale ‘en_US.utf8’ is installed. You can check this under Debian Linux by using the following command
localedef --list-archive
To create a new locale you can use the following command:
dpkg-reconfigure locales
It is not required to set this locale as default system locale. It is just required to have it created within the system.
1.2 Installing the Package
After extracting the package you will find a script named install.sh
in it’s root directory. Execute this script as “root”-user. It will move the Node-directory to your root-Directory. Two users (node and node_public) and two groups (node and node_public) will be added to your Linux system. Additional entries in crontab (for scheduler) will be added by the installation process. Also the user “node” will be activated with the password “node” during the installation process.
Of course it is possible to install Gentics Content.Node in another directory than /Node but you have to provide a symbolic Link from /Node which targets to the real location of the installation.
We recommend you to keep the new created users (node and node_public) as local accounts and not to move these to a LDAP-Directory or something else.
After installation check whether these two users and groups are set up in your system and whether permissions are correct in Node-directory and subdirectories. If not there is a Script called setperm.sh
which resets permissions. In general all files are owned by user node and group node, except for:
/Node owner node group node_public 750 /Node/node with subdirectories owner node group node_public 750 /Node/.node with subdirectories owner node group node_public 750 /Node/var owner node group node_public 750 /Node/lib with subdirectories owner node group node_public 750 /Node/tmp with subdirectories owner node group node_public 770 /Node/var/httpd_public with subdirectories owner node_public group node_public 700
The default permission mode is 700.
Please make sure that the ulimit (-u)
“max user processes” is large enough to support all running server processes.
Thread maximum per server: Tomcat: 300 Node Apache (MPM): 75 Public Apache (MPM): 75 each CRSync: 25
Please note that each server process will also need internal threads that are not listed here.
An ulimit -u
of 600 should be enough for a default installation. If possible set the ulimit to a higher value.
After you finished the installation, your Gentics Content.Node will be available at http://
By entering the address in your browser you can check whether the system is online. You can use the nodectl
script to check Gentics Content.Node’s status or stop and start it’s processes:
/Node/bin/nodectl [command]
Here’s a table of @nodectl@’s parameters
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
status | display status information of Apache, Tomcat and MySQL |
start | starts Gentics Content.Node |
stop | stops Gentics Content.Node |
restart | restarts Gentics Content.Node |
Make sure your user has sufficient privileges when using nodectl. For this it is recommended that you install sudo on your server and add following line to /etc/sudoers
.
node ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:/etc/init.d/nodectl
Use visudo (usually located at /usr/bin/visudo) for editing /etc/sudoers
which is shipped with sudo.
Gentics Content.Node uses the following default ports:
- Web Server: 80
- MySQL: 42006
1.3 Activating Gentics Content.Node
After logging into Gentics Content.Node you will be redirected to a site where you must enter your license key. In order for this to work your desktop client must have a working internet connection. You also can obtain a license key by sending an inquiry to Gentics Customer Support (support@gentics.com). Please prepare th following information in order to receive a license key:
- IP-address of server
- Domain and port of installation
- Your name and name of your company
The license key will need to be renewed if you move the Gentics Content.Node package to another server of if the IP-address of you server has changed.
After completing the automated activation process change the password for you administration user called “node”.
1.4 Testing Your Installation
Use this list as a basis to verify your installation:
- Check CMS-users: Try to access your system with default user node and password node. Change password after successful login.
- Check Publishing: Create a new page, upload a new image/file and edit a page, start publishing by using the Scheduler and check whether the publishing process is working.
- Check Contentmap: Change settings of a node and activate publishing in contentmap. After changing contents, these changes should be available in the local contentmap.
- Check Character Set: All default installations of Gentics Content.Node are based on UTF-8. In case your synchronized content repository contains character errors, check whether the database, tables and columns are really set to UTF-8.
1.5 Backup
Be sure to set up a backup for Gentics Content.Node in case something goes wrong.
Backup is neither part of your Gentics Content.Node installation, nor is Gentics responsible for consistency of your backups. Please refer to our documentation on how to set up a backup for Gentics Content.Node.
1.6 Additional Steps
If you are using a 64bit os and want to resolve hostnames under Debian you need to install lib32nss-mdns:
apt-get install lib32nss-mdns