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Home/Marketplace Apps/Liferay Forums/Installing

Installing on Liferay Self-Hosted (Tomcat)

Follow these steps when Liferay is installed from a Tomcat bundle on a server you manage.

You need file access to the Liferay server, the required Liferay fixes installed with Liferay’s patching tool or their workarounds, and Liferay must have finished starting before you begin. In the steps below, <liferay-home> is the Liferay installation folder, the one that contains the osgi and routes folders.

  1. Step 1: Download the Release
  2. Step 2: Deploy the Batch
  3. Step 3: Deploy the Microservice’s Zip
  4. Step 4: Start the Microservice
    1. On the Liferay Machine
    2. On Another Machine
  5. Step 5: Set Up Email Notifications
  6. Step 6: Create the Forum Sites
  7. Related Information

Step 1: Download the Release

From the latest release, download:

Step 2: Deploy the Batch

  1. Copy liferay-forums-batch.zip into <liferay-home>/osgi/client-extensions.

  2. Wait until the Liferay log shows five lines containing Finished batch engine import task after the copy. This takes about a minute.

Don’t continue until all five have finished. The microservice deployed in the next step only gets access to the parts of the forum that exist by then. Liferay also logs a few of these lines while it starts, so only count the ones after the copy.

Step 3: Deploy the Microservice’s Zip

Copy liferay-forums-etc-spring-boot.zip into <liferay-home>/osgi/client-extensions.

Liferay registers the microservice and writes its credentials to <liferay-home>/routes/default. Liferay doesn’t run the microservice itself; the next step starts it.

Step 4: Start the Microservice

The microservice must run whenever Liferay runs: posting, notifications, and moderation all depend on it. Run it on the Liferay machine if you can; it’s simpler.

On the Liferay Machine

  1. Unzip liferay-forums-etc-spring-boot.zip into a folder of your choice, such as /opt/liferay-forums.

  2. From that folder, start it, with LIFERAY_HOME set to the Liferay installation folder. It finds Liferay’s address and its credentials there, so there’s nothing to configure.

    On Linux:

     LIFERAY_HOME=/opt/liferay ./start.sh

    On Windows:

     set LIFERAY_HOME=C:\liferay
 start.bat

    If it stops with a message that the routes don’t exist, its zip isn’t deployed to that Liferay yet, or LIFERAY_HOME points to the wrong folder.

  3. Check that it’s running. This prints READY:

     curl http://localhost:58081/ready

To keep it running across reboots on Linux, run it as a system service. For example, a systemd unit at /etc/systemd/system/liferay-forums.service:

[Unit]
Description=Liferay Forums microservice
After=network.target

[Service]
User=liferay
Environment=LIFERAY_HOME=/opt/liferay
WorkingDirectory=/opt/liferay-forums
ExecStart=/opt/liferay-forums/start.sh
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Download liferay-forums.service

Then run sudo systemctl enable --now liferay-forums.

On Another Machine

Liferay always calls the microservice at localhost:58081, so port 58081 on the Liferay machine must be forwarded to the microservice’s machine.

  1. On the microservice’s machine, unzip liferay-forums-etc-spring-boot.zip into a folder of your choice.

  2. In application.properties, next to the jar, uncomment and fill in these four settings:

     com.liferay.lxc.dxp.mainDomain=liferay.example.com
 com.liferay.lxc.dxp.server.protocol=https
 liferay-forums-etc-spring-boot-oahs.oauth2.headless.server.client.id=<client ID>
 liferay-forums-etc-spring-boot-oahs.oauth2.headless.server.client.secret=<client secret>

    mainDomain and server.protocol are how the microservice reaches Liferay; include the port in mainDomain unless it’s 80 or 443. The client ID and secret are those of Liferay Forums Etc Spring Boot OAuth Application Headless Server, in Control Panel → Security → OAuth 2 Administration.

  3. Start it without LIFERAY_HOME: ./start.sh on Linux, or start.bat on Windows.

  4. On the Liferay machine, forward port 58081 to the microservice’s machine, and keep the forward running as long as the microservice runs. Allow port 58081 through any firewall between the machines. Either run socat on the Liferay machine:

     socat TCP-LISTEN:58081,bind=127.0.0.1,fork,reuseaddr TCP:<microservice-host>:58081

    Or open an SSH tunnel from the microservice’s machine:

     ssh -N -R 58081:localhost:58081 <user>@<liferay-host>

  5. On the Liferay machine, check that the forward reaches the microservice. This prints READY:

     curl http://localhost:58081/ready

Step 5: Set Up Email Notifications

The batch created two email templates with a placeholder sender address. Set real addresses, then restart the microservice, before members get email. See Email Notifications.

Step 6: Create the Forum Sites

Continue with Creating Forum Sites.