www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Sakai OAE Deployment and Management Max Whitney Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Tokyo www.it-ebooks.info Sakai OAE Deployment and Management by Max Whitney Copyright © 2012 Melissa Whitney. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com. Editors: Shawn Wallace and Brian Jepson Production Editor: Melanie Yarbrough Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Interior Designer: David Futato Illustrator: Robert Romano Revision History for the First Edition: 2012-06-01 First release 2012-06-14 Second release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449318765 for release details. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Sakai OAE Deployment and Management, the cover image of a Lapland Longspur, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information con- tained herein. ISBN: 978-1-449-31876-5 [LSI] 1339693367 www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 1. Why Sakai? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Putting Course Materials Online 1 Collaboration 2 A Protected Space 3 The Open Source Orientation 3 2. Installing Sakai OAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Quickest Install: Web Start 7 Binary Install 8 Install Java 1.6 9 Start the Binary Up 11 Shut the Binary Down 14 Building from Source 15 3. A Whirlwind Tour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Choose Your Browser 21 Create Your First Account 21 Create Your Profile 23 Create a Course and a Research Project 25 Lecture Course Online Companion 25 Research project 31 Changing the Dashboard 35 The Public Face of Sakai 37 4. Making the Look and Feel Your Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Configure OAE for CSS, Property, and JavaScript Changes 41 Modifying Labels in the User Interface 44 Internationalization and Localization 44 Changing the CSS: Paint It Pink 48 iii www.it-ebooks.info Changing Drop Down Menus 53 Categories 56 Troubleshooting 59 Change the Landing Page 60 Changing the Sign Up and Error pages 62 Rebundle OAE 64 5. LDAP Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Set Up a Mini LDAP Instance 65 Build and Install the OAE LDAP Modules 70 LDAP Connection Service 70 LDAP Authentication Service 73 Troubleshooting LDAP Configuration Settings 78 Choose Your Configuration (and Configure It) 79 LDAP Host 80 SSLing the Connection 80 Bind User 81 Performance Considerations 81 Authorization 82 RESTful Account Creation 83 Advanced Topics: Cracking Open the LDAP Authentication Plug-in 84 Removing the Self-Service Functions 85 6. Building On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 A Very Simple Dashboard Widget: JISC Content Browser 89 A Group Widget: Simplified Comments 91 A Complex Widget: Walking Time Map 91 7. Scaling Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 The Basics 95 Set Up Curl 95 Change the Admin Password 96 Outgoing Email 97 Logging 98 Create a Sakai User 98 Unix-Style Start and Stop Scripts 99 Integrating with a Database Backend 101 Choosing Your Database 101 Integrating with PostgreSQL 102 Integrating with Oracle 107 Set Up a Web Server 112 Retrieve Apache and Install Modules 113 Virtual Host Configuration 114 iv | Table of Contents www.it-ebooks.info Server Protection Service Configuration 114 The Preview Processor 116 Separating Solr 117 Starting Clean 120 The Checklist 121 Table of Contents | v www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Preface A Note on Names The original Sakai software descended from work by Indiana University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Michigan, uPortal, and the Open Knowledge Initiative. Lots of the original code came from University of Michi- gan’s framework, known as CHEF, the CompreHensive collaborativE Framework. (Programmers do love to stretch their acronyms.) As the new shared infrastructure matured, a joke ran through the community that this was Iron Chef, a reference to the Japanese competitive cooking show. It seemed right on the surface: this collaboratively built framework was stronger, smarter, faster, and more international than any of the preceding single-institution systems. It also felt right as an observation of the commu- nity in development: programmers and academics coming together across varied in- stitutional cultures interacting in some highly formalized ways to duke it out over which implementation choice was best. Who would win the challenge? An established pro- grammer from a long-committed university or a smart upstart designer from a tiny consulting firm? The software was ultimately named for the “King of Iron Chefs,” Hir- oyuki Sakai, with hope that it would be the winningest of all education and collabora- tion frameworks. After a couple of years, an effort to rewrite the backend services was undertaken. This started out as the kernel rewrite effort, morphed into the kernel rearchitecture effort, then got clear enough that it became two separate but aligned efforts called kernel 1 and kernel 2. A major user interface redesign was undertaken at the same time, ad- dressing both the user interaction and user experience layers. Because the production version was numbered in the 2s, work on the next generation of the frontend of Sakai became variously known as Sakai 3 and 3akai (pronounced three-ak-EYE). It got mad- deningly confusing to talk about Sakai 2 on K1 as distinguished from 3akai-ux on K2. The kernel team resolved on nakamura as the name for the backend services. This name benefitted from referring both to an Iron Chef, Koumei Nakamura, and to the first Japanese national to scale K2, Shoji Nakamura. Let it never be said that Sakai pro- grammers don’t love the act of naming. vii www.it-ebooks.info The name of the overarching product, of which nakamura forms one element in the framework, is the Sakai Open Academic Environment (OAE). This name primarily serves to distinguish it from the other Sakai product, the Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE). While OAE started out conceptually as the next version of CLE it is now clear that both OAE and CLE will continue on as distinct products in develop- ment and maintenance for as long as schools and organizations find them valuable. The numeric distinction between them had become misleading. In practice, both systems get rebranded as soon as they’re deployed. Sakai instances around the world are known variously as Vula, Tusk, bSpace, and many other names, each of which is meaningful to the local community. Often it is only the technical staff that speak of CLE or OAE on a given campus. It is the branded, art-directed, living community of interaction that the students and teachers talk about. Conventions Used in This Book The following typographical conventions are used in this book: Italic Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions. Constant width Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords. Constant width bold Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user. Constant width italic Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values deter- mined by context. This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note. This icon indicates a warning or caution. Using Code Examples This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for viii | Preface www.it-ebooks.info [...]... executing the sakaioae.jnlp file Binary Install Installing a regular small scale instance of Sakai OAE really isn’t much harder than using the Java Web Start version Use the browser of your choice to connect to http://sakaiproject.org /oae- release In the “Downloads” section of the Sakai OAE page, in the section titled OAE 1.2.0 Binary,” click the link to open the folder at http://source.sakaiproject.org/release /oae/ 1... the Sakai OAE jar using curl: curl -O \ http://source.sakaiproject.org/release /oae/ 1.2.0/binary/ org.sakaiproject.nakamura.app-1.2.0.jar You can check that the file downloaded cleanly by comparing the md5 and sha1 checksums For another layer of certainty, you can also check the GPG signature Install Java 1.6 Sakai OAE is built on Java Test scripts and some subsystems are made available independently and. .. downloaded and run using Java on a Linux, Mac, or Windows system The binary is a fully functional instance of OAE To run a small pilot with a handful of users, this is a fast and simple method of getting started The binary install includes the default look and feel and employs the Apache Derby database Customizable Build When you’re ready to start customizing and scaling OAE, build the frontend and backend... application Use the browser of your choice to connect to http://sakaiproject.org /oae- release 7 www.it-ebooks.info In the “Downloads” section of the Sakai OAE page, there’s a section titled OAE 1.2.0 Web Start (one-click download/run for Demos).” Click the link there to connect to http://source.sakaiproject.org/release /oae/ 1.2.0/webstart/sakaioae.jnlp Depending on the configuration of your computer, you... IBM, Oracle, and Blackboard all contribute to Sakai, demonstrating a belief in the value and viability of this open source academic environment The Sakai community of educators, programmers, and administrators provide a wealth of freely available insight The mailing lists are active day and night As an international community, it’s always daytime somewhere, and programmers never sleep Sakai OAE is not... customizable and rebuildable set of source files This chapter covers three installations models: Web Start The Java Web Start installation downloads Sakai OAE and everything needed to get it running in a demonstration format Web Start is a good choice if this is your first encounter with Sakai OAE Java Web Start is the absolute fastest way to get a look at OAE s features Binary Jar The compiled Sakai OAE jar... unzip sakaiproject-3akai-ux-3akai-ux-1.2.0-0-ga27a5b1.zip unzip sakaiproject-nakamura-nakamura-1.2.0-0-g33d7e98.zip On Windows, double-click the ZIP files to unzip them 3 Move both directories over to more humane names On Mac and *nix, use the mv command: mv sakaiproject-3akai-ux-e993f00 sakai- ux mv sakaiproject-nakamura-6407909 nakamura On Windows, do the same with the rename command: rename sakaiproject-3akai-ux-e993f00... indicate that Nakamura is running, and the Open Sakai OAE button becomes enabled Go ahead and click it to start OAE now Your web browser will open and connect to http://localhost:8080 (See Figure 2-1.) You have achieved Sakai OAE Congratulations! Head on over to Chapter 3 When you’re ready to shut the system down, come back to the Java Web Start window and click the Exit button This will shut the system... the jar file: #! /bin/sh java -Xms512m -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -jar org.sakaiproject.nakamura.app-1.2.0.jar 1> run.log 2>&1 & SAKAI_ PID=$! if [ -f OAE. pid ] Binary Install | 11 www.it-ebooks.info then rm OAE. pid fi echo $SAKAI_ PID > OAE. pid The *nix style script captures the process ID and writes it to a file named OAE. pid, which the shutdown script will use later to identify which process to... process id from the file created by the startup.sh script and kills that process with extreme prejudice: #! /bin/sh if [ -f OAE. pid ] then SAKAI_ PID=`cat OAE. pid` kill -9 $SAKAI_ PID rm OAE. pid else echo \ "No pid file found Run 'ps -ef | grep nakamura' to identify the process to kill." fi Make the shutdown script executable: chmod +x shutdown.sh and shut OAE down: /shutdown.sh It doesn’t hurt to do a quick . www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Sakai OAE Deployment and Management Max Whitney Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Tokyo www.it-ebooks.info Sakai OAE Deployment and Management by Max Whitney Copyright. details. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Sakai OAE Deployment and Management, the cover image of a Lapland Longspur, and. the framework, is the Sakai Open Academic Environment (OAE) . This name primarily serves to distinguish it from the other Sakai product, the Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE). While OAE started