Distributing Liferay including custom portlets, hook, ext etc

Been working on Liferay (CE 6.1.1) for a couple of months now.
I ended up with a task about creating a script that could automate deployment of Liferay, a database server and all the war archives we created (portlets, ext, hooks, themes etc).

I used PostgreSQL (9.1.6) as the database.

The documentation on this was pretty fragmented so I thought I might as well publish the complete script here:

#!/bin/bash

####################################################
# Install the postgres database                    #
####################################################
tar -zxvf ~/Downloads/postgresql-9.1.6-1-linux-x64-binaries.tar.gz
pgsql/bin/initdb -D pgsql/data
pgsql/bin/pg_ctl start -w -D pgsql/data/ -l postgres.logs
pgsql/bin/createuser --no-createdb --no-createrole --no-superuser schneider
pgsql/bin/createdb lportal -O schneider
####################################################
# Install liferay bundle including tomcat          #
####################################################
unzip ~/Downloads/liferay-portal-tomcat-6.1.1-ce-ga2-20120731132656558.zip
####################################################
# Install portlets, hook, ext...                   #
####################################################
mkdir liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/deploy
unzip ~/Downloads/all_the_war_archives.zip -d liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/deploy/
####################################################
# Manually deploy ext...                           #
####################################################
unzip liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/deploy/project-ext.war WEB-INF/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/classes/portal-ext.properties
mv WEB-INF/ext-web/docroot/WEB-INF/classes/portal-ext.properties liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/tomcat-7.0.27/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/
unzip liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/deploy/project-ext.war WEB-INF/ext-impl/classes/*
mv WEB-INF/ext-impl/classes/ liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/tomcat-7.0.27/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/
rm -rf WEB-INF
####################################################
# Add setup properties file to avoid initial       #
# create user dialog...                            #
#################################################### 
cp portal-setup-wizard.properties liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/
####################################################
# Startup liferay                                  #
####################################################
liferay-portal-6.1.1-ce-ga2/tomcat-7.0.27/bin/startup.sh

The auto deployment of the ext war archive didin't work as expected. Because of that I manually extract the parts I needed to have deployed on startup.

To make Liferay automatically create the required database tables the portal-ext.properties have to be deployed prior to the first startup. The required settings in the portal-ext.properties are:

    #
    # Set this to to true to populate with the minimal amount of data. Set this
    # to false to populate with a larger amount of sample data.
    #
    schema.run.minimal=true
  
    #
    # Set this to true to automatically create tables and populate with default
    # data if the database is empty.
    #
    schema.run.enabled=true
   
    jdbc.default.driverClassName=org.postgresql.Driver
    jdbc.default.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/lportal
    jdbc.default.username=schneider
    jdbc.default.password=schneider

Installing Oracle Java (JDK) on openSUSE

There is a guide for installing the JRE from Oracle here. Most of these steps also works for the JDK.

I did not install the IcedTea plugin and the openJDK.

Other than that the compiler (javac) also needs to be updated. To do that run the following commands:

update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/javac" "javac" "/opt/java/64/jdk1.6.0_31/bin/javac" 1
update-alternatives --set javac /opt/java/64/jdk1.6.0_32/bin/javac

For the java browser plug-in it is also possible to use update-alternatives to change the browser plug-in:

sudo /usr/sbin/update-alternatives --install /usr/lib64/browser-plugins/javaplugin.so javaplugin /opt/java/jdk1.7.0_25/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so 3 --slave /usr/bin/javaws javaws /opt/java/jdk1.7.0_25/jre/bin/javaws --slave /usr/share/man/man1/javaws.1 javaws.1 /opt/java/jdk1.7.0_25/man/man1/javaws.1
update-alternatives --config javaplugin

My first tablet: A Galaxy Tab 10.1 review

My first impressions with the Galaxy Tab 10.1

I recently got my first tablet. I ended up with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. I did consider the iPad 2 & 3.
My reasons for going with the Android tablet were:

• I have already invested in the Android platform in the form of my Nexus S phone.
• The iPads tight integration with iTunes for transferring were not ideal.
• The tablet were also ment as entertainment for the kids and the flash support would give access to more online universes for the kids. On the other hand the iPad had a few more danish apps for the kids. But flash support won that battle.
• The better cameras that I use for video calls also spoke in favor of the Galaxy Tab.

Using a Google Apps account with the tablet

I used my Google Apps account to setup the Galaxy Tab. When I tried to access the Google Play store my searches didn't return any results.
I tried to google it but I couldn't find any information on what could cause this. One day I added a "classic" Google account and suddenly the search in the Play Store app worked.

Waiting for the ICS update

Now I'm just waiting for the Ice Cream Sandwich update. I run that on my phone and really miss the Chrome browser.
The update has started rolling out in Canada. Why is Canada the first country to get this update? Another option is the Cyanogenmod 9 but that does not have support for the camera yet. So for me that is not an option. I just have to wait.

Executing process from java...

Everytime I need to launch a native program from Java I always end up with this old guide. It covers all that is needed to execute a native application from Java.

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-traps.html

If you are fine with including 3rd party libraries here is a guide using the Executor from the apache commons project:
http://java.dzone.com/articles/executing-command-line