Create Alfresco Share sites through Webscript.

I see many has requirement to create share site programmatically and OOB API is not available to create fully functional site.

Create a site is two step functionality.
     1. Create repository level site folder structure
     2. Create surf site presets objects.
So we need to call surf web script – “/service/modules/create-site”

As per Alfresco - If you call a Surf Web Script URL directly in a browser address bar there is no authentication (i.e. no context). You would need to have a JSESSIONID that is already authenticated (i.e. by the page). Surf ties the given JSESSIONID to the Alfresco TICKET that is stored in the session for that user for that connector (i.e. alfresco, alfresco-api).

I tried some posts to create site through script but it was not working for me. All scripts like dologin, create-site were getting executed OK with 200 status and without any error but when I check actual site it was not getting created.

Then I tried to login in to Share through browser and I used same cookies from browser to in my code then site was getting created perfectly OK so might be session was not getting initiated.
So I called authenticated service in between and its working fine.

 Below is working JAVA code.

NOTE: I have default Alfresco NTLM authentication and I have disabled CSRF token filter. I have verified it against Alfresco 5.x EE.

	package com.test.alfresco.share;
	import java.io.IOException;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpException;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpStatus;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.GetMethod;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.PostMethod;
	import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.StringRequestEntity;
	import org.json.JSONException;
	import org.json.JSONObject;
	public class CreateShateSite {
	public static void main(String[] args) throws HttpException, IOException, InterruptedException {
	HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
	String loginData = "username=admin&password=admin"; // provide username and pwd
	PostMethod loginPost = new PostMethod("http://127.0.0.1:8080/share/page/dologin");
	loginPost.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
	loginPost.setRequestEntity(new StringRequestEntity(loginData, "text/plain", "UTF-8"));
	// make a post call to get JSESSIONID and other required cookies
	System.out.println("dologin script status: " + client.executeMethod(loginPost));
	// Make a share touch call to initiate/validate session
	GetMethod authenticationGet = new GetMethod("http://127.0.0.1:8080/share/service/modules/authenticated?a=user");
	System.out.println("User is authenticated script status : " + client.executeMethod(authenticationGet));
	//call share script to create a site.
	PostMethod createSitePost = new PostMethod("http://127.0.0.1:8080/share/service/modules/create-site");
	String shortName = "TestSiteFromCode";
	JSONObject siteObject = new JSONObject();
	try {
	siteObject.put("shortName", shortName);
	siteObject.put("Visiblity", "Public");
	siteObject.put("sitePreset", "site-dashboard");
	siteObject.put("title", shortName);
	siteObject.put("description", shortName);
	createSitePost.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
	createSitePost.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
	createSitePost.setRequestEntity(new StringRequestEntity(siteObject.toString(), "application/json", "UTF-8"));
	int status = client.executeMethod(createSitePost);
	System.out.println("create a site script status :: " + status);
	if (status == HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
	System.out.println("Site created OK");
	}
	else{
	System.out.println("There is error in site creation");
	}
	} catch (JSONException err) {
	err.printStackTrace();
	}
	}
	}

view raw CreateShateSite.java hosted with ❤ by GitHub

If You have not disabled CSRF token filter then add below snippet in your share-config-custom.xml located at [tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension] as per - https://www.alfresco.com/blogs/ewinlof/2013/03/11/introducing-the-new-csrf-filter-in-alfresco-share/

	<config evaluator="string-compare" condition="CSRFPolicy" replace="true">
	<filter>
	<rule>
	<request>
	<method>POST</method>
	<path>/service/modules/create-site</path>
	</request>
	<action name="assertReferer">
	<param name="always">false</param>
	</action>
	<action name="assertOrigin">
	<param name="always">false</param>
	</action>
	</rule>
	</filter>
	</config>

view raw share-config-custom.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Getting Started with Maven Alfresco SDK 2.0

As we know old Ant based SDK has been replaced with Maven based SDK in Alfresco 5.0.x.
Here, we will see How to get started with Alfresco development using Alfresco Maven SDK.

Need to follow below steps to create Maven based project. Here we will use Enterprise artifacts.

I am assuming you already have JDK 1.7 and Maven 3.2.5 installed.

You need to have enterprise credential to access Alfresco Private Repository. Enterprise artifacts are stored in Alfresco Private Repository and it can be accessed only by Enterprise users.


Edit settings.xml under your .m2 directory. .m2 folder is generally located at C:\Users\<UserName>\.m2 in windows. Add following server configurations under <servers>


                    <server>
                                <id>alfresco-private-repository</id>
                                <username>TestUser</username>
                                <password>MyPwd</password>
                    </server>


Create a directory where you want to create new maven based project


You can create three types of Project based on archtypes. For details of this archtypes please check- http://docs.alfresco.com/5.0/concepts/alfresco-sdk-usage.html


                    a. Alfresco AMP archetype
                    b. Alfresco Share AMP archetype
                    c. Alfresco all-in-one archtype (AIO)


Switch to new directory and run following command


                 mvn archetype:generate -Dfilter=org.alfresco.maven.archetype:


Next you need to choose archtype. Here I would select alfresco-amp-archetype


Next to choose an archetype version. I would select 2.0.0


Then, You will be prompted to enter a value of groupId. Its like package name. You can enter any. I will enter com.alfresco.test


Then you will be asked to define artifactId. It can be like your project name. I will enter test-repo-project


Next, You will be prompted to enter a value for the Alfresco version you wish to develop against - currently the default is 5.0.c. Hit the Enter key to accept the default value. Later we will change it.


You will get log as below and your new project test-repo-project is created with required folders and configuration files.


To understand project structure please check - http://docs.alfresco.com/5.0/concepts/alfresco-sdk-project-structure.html


[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Using following parameters for creating project from Archetype: alfresco-amp-archetype:2.0.0
[INFO] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.alfresco.test
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: test-repo-project
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: (not used)
[INFO] Parameter: packageInPathFormat, Value: (not used)
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: (not used)
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.alfresco.test
[INFO] Parameter: alfresco_target_version, Value: 5.0.c
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: test-repo-project
[INFO] Parameter: alfresco_target_groupId, Value: org.alfresco
[INFO] project created from Archetype in dir: D:\alfrescoMVNWorkspace\test-repo-project
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 06:28 min
[INFO] Finished at: 2015-03-12T15:39:22+05:30
[INFO] Final Memory: 16M/121M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------


Once project is created you can start your development. Before that you can build and verify your project.


We want to use enterprise artifact so we need to modify pom.xml of test-repo-project


Go to test-repo-project and edit pom.xml and change the values of alfresco.groupId and alfresco.version to specify Enterprise artifacts.
Please check this http://docs.alfresco.com/5.0/concepts/alfresco-sdk-tutorials-alfresco-enterprise.html to select correct value of both properties. Here I will set it as below.


<alfresco.groupId>org.alfresco</alfresco.groupId>
<alfresco.version>5.0.0</alfresco.version>


Go to cmd and change your current directory to - test-repo-project and type following command. It will download enterprise artifact to build your project and it will also run the project. For first time it may take time to build as it’s downloading all required dependencies.


                 mvn install -Prun,enterprise


Once build is successful login to Share and verify if you have any custom changes.

ISSUE: You might face this unauthorized error message issue while downloading enterprise artifact. To solve it add <server> configuration in your settings.xml as below

        <server>

                <id>alfresco-internal</id>

                <username>TestUser</username>

                <password>MyPwd</password>

        </server>

Issue detail: https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/MNT-13406

Other useful commands:

To build project:

          mvn package

Install amp in your local repo:

          mvn install

By default, build includes to run test, If you want to skip test cases

    mvn install -DskipTests=true

To delete all compiles artifacts

        mvn clean

Alfresco CMIS example with mule CMIS connector using RAML

As we know, Alfresco implements Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard which allows our application to manage content and its metadata in Alfresco repository or in Alfresco cloud.

Here, we will see how we can use Mule to integrate Alfresco into Enterprise Architecture using CMIS.

And mule provides developer tooling RESTful API Modeling Language (RAML) which enables us to build the design-first approach to REST APIs.

We will implement simple HTTP service which gets content metadata from Alfresco as following

• Design and write our API definition in RAML
• Use this RAML file to create simple REST API using Anypoint studio
• Use CMIS connector to connect to Alfresco repository
• Get metadata of given node and display it in JSON format.

Assumption: You have already installed Alfresco and AnypointStudio.

I have executed this example with Alfresco 4.2.1EE, Mule server 3.5.1 EE

Our URL and Response will look like:

Script URL: http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content/props?nodeRef=c76fe91c-c1f1-45cb-9b75-6742398482a6

Response:

{

                "title" : "test content",

                "name" : "test.ppt",

                "creator" : "admin",

                "description" : "My first RAML file"

              }

Write API Definition in RAML: 

We will use API web designer to write our RAML file

• Please create API Portal account -http://www.mulesoft.org/documentation/display/current/Setting+Up+Your+API+Portal
• Login in to designer on API Portal - http://api-portal.anypoint.mulesoft.com/raml/api-designer
• Click on New File and give any name to your new raml file. Ex: alfrescoContentMetaData.raml

• Our RAML file contains mainly title, URI, HTTP method – get/post etc… query parameter and response.
• Below is RAML file for our example.

	#%RAML 0.8
	title: Alfresco get content properties
	version: 1.0
	baseUri: http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content
	mediaType: application/json
	/props:
	displayName: getContentProperties
	get:
	description: Get given content properties
	queryParameters:
	nodeRef:
	type: string
	example: "78d05557-29ee-4c51-b8cc-378e3bfbe186"
	responses:
	200:
	body:
	application/json:
	example: |
	{
	"title" : "test content",
	"name" : "test.ppt",
	"creator" : "admin",
	"description" : "My first RAML file"
	}
	500:
	description:
	Given noderef is not valid
	body:
	application/json:
	example: |
	{
	"status" : "Please check your noderef."
	}

view raw alfrescoContentMetaData.raml hosted with ❤ by GitHub
• Once your RAML file is ready you can test it.
• Click on Get which will show Request, Response and Try it tab

• Request shows description and query parameter detail that we have provided in our RAML file

• Response is static response that we have provided as example in RAML file with proper HTTP status code 200 and if any error occurs then 500

• Try it – You can try your script and check its response. Click on GET which will show you Response.

• Once your RAML file is ready then save it on your local drive.
• We are done with RAML file.

Create Mule Project:

We will create a mule project and will import this RAML file which will automatically generate the flow.

• Click on File - New – Mule Project
• Provide name of your project
• Check Add APIkit Component and select From RAML file or URL
• Select RAML file that you have saved in your local drive.
• Click Finish. 

• Studio creates new project and it automatically generates Main flow from RAML file and you can check your RAML file under – src/main/api

• In Flows you can see:
• Main Flow with HTTP end point and API Kir Router
• Global exception strategy mappings
• Backend flow for each resource-action pairing

• In backend flow, it initially sets up hard coded parameter and response in payload.
• In Main flow, click on HTTP connector which will open its properties. Click on Advanced tab.
• Check studio has not populated address as per baseUri of our RAML file. Change its values as per RAML file - http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content and save it.
• Let’s first run this project and test in console
• Right click on Project- Run as – Mule Application. 
• On startup of server, it will launch APIkit Console.
• You can verify your script same as we did before.

• We are done with importing RAML file and creating flow.

CMIS Connector:

Now, we will implement actual logic for our flow to connect Alfresco using CMIS connector and to get metadata of given content.

• In your flow get:/props:alfrescoContentMetaData-config add CMIS connector.

• Open CMIS connector properties window
• In General tab, in Connector Configurations click on plus sign to add Alfresco cmis repository and add properties as following. Here we will use alfresco cmis 1.1

• Name: CMIS [Provide any name]
• UserName: admin
• Password : admin
• BaseURL: http://localhost:9090/alfresco/api/-default-/public/cmis/versions/1.1/atom
• Repository id:  -default-
• Use Alfresco Extension: true [Default value is false. You need to make it true if you need to access alfresco open cmis extension API. Our example will work with true/false both value.]
• Once done Test connection
• If everything is OK then Click on OK

• In Basic Settings, Select Operation – Here we want to get CMIS node object from given nodeId so Select “Get object by Id”
• In General: In object id, we need to provide noderef. You can test it by giving any hard coded noderef of your alfresco’s content . But we want to access it from parameter so give it as below- #groovy:message.getProperty('nodeRef',org.mule.api.transport.PropertyScope.INBOUND)]
• We are done with CMIS connector configurations.
• For testing run your project and hit URL - http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content/props?nodeRef=c76fe91c-c1f1-45cb-9b75-6742398482a6 with actual noderef this will give hard coded JSON response that we have provided in RAML file as I mentioned earlier when we import RAML file, in payload it sets this hardcoded message.

Process CMIS object:

Now we need to Process CMIS object to get required properties as per our JSON response

• CMIS connector and its operation Get object by Id gives us CMIS object
• You can process it with either js like groovy or java. Here I will show you with JAVA
• Add java component as shown in image and add class com.test.mule.alfresco.cmis.content.GetContentProps

• In src/main/java add GetContentProps class and also add ContentPropsBean. Below is source code for both classes.
• GetContentProps class will process CMIS object to get required properties and it will set to instance of ContentPropsBean

	package com.test.mule.alfresco.cmis.content;
	import org.apache.chemistry.opencmis.client.api.Document;
	import org.mule.api.MuleEventContext;
	import org.mule.api.MuleMessage;
	import org.mule.api.lifecycle.Callable;
	import com.test.mule.alfresco.cmis.bean.ContentPropsBean;
	/**
	* Class to process CMIS object
	*
	* @author niketa.patel
	*/
	public class GetContentProps implements Callable
	{
	@Override
	public Object onCall(final MuleEventContext eventContext) throws Exception
	{
	final MuleMessage incomingMessage = eventContext.getMessage();
	final Document cmisAlfrescoDocObject = (Document) incomingMessage.getPayload();// get cmisObject
	final ContentPropsBean contentPropObject = new ContentPropsBean();
	contentPropObject.setTitle(cmisAlfrescoDocObject.getProperty("cm:title").getValueAsString());// set title
	contentPropObject.setName(cmisAlfrescoDocObject.getName()); // set name
	contentPropObject.setDescription(cmisAlfrescoDocObject.getProperty("cm:description").getValueAsString());// set description
	contentPropObject.setCreator(cmisAlfrescoDocObject.getProperty("cmis:createdBy").getValueAsString());// set created by
	return contentPropObject;
	}
	}

view raw GetContentProps.java hosted with ❤ by GitHub

	package com.test.mule.alfresco.cmis.bean;
	import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonAutoDetect;
	@JsonAutoDetect
	public class ContentPropsBean
	{
	String title;
	String name;
	String creator;
	String description;
	public String getTitle()
	{
	return this.title;
	}
	public void setTitle(final String title)
	{
	this.title = title;
	}
	public String getName()
	{
	return this.name;
	}
	public void setName(final String name)
	{
	this.name = name;
	}
	public String getCreator()
	{
	return this.creator;
	}
	public void setCreator(final String creator)
	{
	this.creator = creator;
	}
	public String getDescription()
	{
	return this.description;
	}
	public void setDescription(final String description)
	{
	this.description = description;
	}
	}

view raw ContentPropsBean.java hosted with ❤ by GitHub
• Now add Object to Json transformer as shown in image to get our response in JSON format.

• And also remove/comment payload. 
• We are done with our coding. Below is our main Flow.

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<mule xmlns:json="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json" xmlns:tracking="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/tracking" xmlns:cmis="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/cmis" xmlns:doc="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/documentation" xmlns="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core" xmlns:apikit="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit" xmlns:http="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http" xmlns:spring="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/core/current/mule.xsd
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/http/current/mule-http.xsd
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/apikit/current/mule-apikit.xsd
	http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.1.xsd
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/cmis http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/cmis/current/mule-cmis.xsd
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/tracking http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/ee/tracking/current/mule-tracking-ee.xsd
	http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json http://www.mulesoft.org/schema/mule/json/current/mule-json.xsd" version="EE-3.5.1">
	<apikit:config name="alfrescoContentMetaData-config" raml="alfrescoContentMetaData.raml" consoleEnabled="true" consolePath="console" doc:name="Router"/>
	<apikit:mapping-exception-strategy name="alfrescoContentMetaData-apiKitGlobalExceptionMapping" doc:name="Mapping Exception Strategy">
	<apikit:mapping statusCode="404">
	<apikit:exception value="org.mule.module.apikit.exception.NotFoundException" />
	<set-property propertyName="Content-Type" value="application/json" doc:name="Property"/>
	<set-payload value="{ &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Resource not found&quot; }" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	</apikit:mapping>
	<apikit:mapping statusCode="405">
	<apikit:exception value="org.mule.module.apikit.exception.MethodNotAllowedException" />
	<set-property propertyName="Content-Type" value="application/json" doc:name="Property"/>
	<set-payload value="{ &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Method not allowed&quot; }" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	</apikit:mapping>
	<apikit:mapping statusCode="415">
	<apikit:exception value="org.mule.module.apikit.exception.UnsupportedMediaTypeException" />
	<set-property propertyName="Content-Type" value="application/json" doc:name="Property"/>
	<set-payload value="{ &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Unsupported media type&quot; }" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	</apikit:mapping>
	<apikit:mapping statusCode="406">
	<apikit:exception value="org.mule.module.apikit.exception.NotAcceptableException" />
	<set-property propertyName="Content-Type" value="application/json" doc:name="Property"/>
	<set-payload value="{ &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Not acceptable&quot; }" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	</apikit:mapping>
	<apikit:mapping statusCode="400">
	<apikit:exception value="org.mule.module.apikit.exception.BadRequestException" />
	<set-property propertyName="Content-Type" value="application/json" doc:name="Property"/>
	<set-payload value="{ &quot;message&quot;: &quot;Bad request&quot; }" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	</apikit:mapping>
	</apikit:mapping-exception-strategy>
	<cmis:config name="CMIS" username="admin" password="admin" baseUrl="http://localhost:9090/alfresco/api/-default-/public/cmis/versions/1.1/atom" doc:name="CMIS" repositoryId="-default-" useAlfrescoExtension="true"/>
	<flow name="alfrescoContentMetaData-main" doc:name="alfrescoContentMetaData-main">
	<http:inbound-endpoint address="http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content" doc:name="HTTP" exchange-pattern="request-response"/>
	<apikit:router config-ref="alfrescoContentMetaData-config" doc:name="APIkit Router"/>
	<exception-strategy ref="alfrescoContentMetaData-apiKitGlobalExceptionMapping" doc:name="Reference Exception Strategy"/>
	</flow>
	<flow name="get:/props:alfrescoContentMetaData-config" doc:name="get:/props:alfrescoContentMetaData-config">
	<cmis:get-object-by-id config-ref="CMIS" doc:name="CMIS" objectId="#[groovy:message.getProperty('nodeRef',org.mule.api.transport.PropertyScope.INBOUND)]" connectionTimeout=" "/>
	<component class="com.test.mule.alfresco.cmis.content.GetContentProps" doc:name="Java"/>
	<json:object-to-json-transformer doc:name="Object to JSON"/>
	<!-- <set-payload value="{&#xA; &quot;title&quot; : &quot;test content&quot;,&#xA; &quot;name&quot; : &quot;test.ppt&quot;,&#xA; &quot;creator&quot; : &quot;admin&quot;,&#xA; &quot;description&quot; : &quot;My first RAML file&quot;&#xA;}" doc:name="Set Payload"/>
	-->
	</flow>
	</mule>

view raw alfrescoContentMetaData.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub
• Run your mule project.
• Hit mule service with actual noderef. Make sure Alfresco is Up and running : http://localhost:8080/mule/test/content/props?nodeRef=c76fe91c-c1f1-45cb-9b75-6742398482a6
• Verify your JSON response.

You can download source code of this example from GitHub

Basics of Audit Analysis and Reporting in Alfresco

In Alfresco, there is general requirement to have audit data and its report! Alfresco does provide audit feature we can enable it but there is not out-of-box support for audit report.

Here we will discuss on this audit and reporting addons - Alfresco Audit Analysis and Reporting (A.A.A.R.)

What is Alfresco Audit Analysis and Reporting (A.A.A.R.)

This solution provides very detailed report on Alfresco audit data. It fetches audit data from Alfresco stores it into Data Mart and creates the report in pdf, XLS etc… and uploads this report back to Alfresco.

This solution creates AAAR_datamart database to store Alfresco audit data.

Report in different format gets generated from Pentaho Report Designer from this data mart.

Pentaho Data Integration Or Kettle is ETL system which provides powerful capabilities to Extract, Transform and Load data. So here Pentaho Data Integration is used to extract data from Alfresco and load into Data mart and generate Reports and load them back to Alfresco.

How to install AAAR

We need

•  Alfresco 4.X
• MySql/PostgreSQL
• Pentaho Report Designer
•  Pentaho Data Integration

NOTICE: I have tested this with Alfresco 4.2.1EE and MySql DB in win7 

Install Alfresco 4.2.1EE 

Please refer this link to install Alfresco: http://docs.alfresco.com/4.2/concepts/master-ch-install.html

• Once Alfresco is installed enable auditing. Edit - alfresco-global.properties located at <AlfrescoInstallDir>/tomcat/shared/classes

                               ### Audit Configuration

                               audit.enabled=true

                               audit.alfresco-access.enabled=true

                                ### FTP Server Configuration ###

                                ftp.enabled=true

                                ftp.port=21

• Restart server and verify audit is enabled and working OK.
• Hit this webscript which will give you below JSON response - http://<alfresco_url>:<alfresco_port>/alfresco/service/api/audit/control

Create Data Mart :

• We need to create AAAR_DataMart 
• Run cmd
• Go to MySql bin folder using cd C:/Program Files (x86)/MySQL/MySQL Server 5.5/bin
• Execute this script AAAR_DataMart.sql. You can find this script either at biserver-ce\pentaho-solutions\system\AAAR\endpoints\kettle\src\MySql OR <your AAR installed folder>\AAAR\endpoints\kettle\src\PostgreSql
• Execute this command mysql –u root –p<password> “<AAAR folder>\AAAR_DataMart.sql” OR you can execute this entire script from your MySql editor.
• Check aaar_datamart database has been created

Install Pentaho Data Integration/Kettle :

• Make sure you have java7 installed
• Download pdi-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip from the official website or the sourceforge  - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pentaho/files/Data%20Integration/5.0.1-stable/
• Unzip pdi-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip
• To run it with MySql add mysql driver jar file to data-integration/lib folder
• PDI is composed of Spoon, Kitchen and Pan
• Execute spoon.bat located at pdi-ce-5.1.0.0-752\data-integration to create all configuration folders and files
• Now we need to set PDI/Kettle repository
• As we executed script to create aaar_datamart same way we need to execute AAAR_Kettle_v5.sql to create aaar_kettle database

Set Pentaho Data Integration repository :

• Next step is to set PDI data repository to store ETL data.
• Go to pdi-ce-5.1.0.0-752\data-integration and run Spoon.bat
• Click on the green plus to add a new repository and define a new repository connection in the database.

• Add a new database connection to the repository
• Select “Kettle Database Repository”  which will allow you to select DB connection settings

• Select General
• Give Connection Name – AAAR_Kettle
• Select Connection Type – MySql
• Select Access – Native(JDBC)
• In Settings, provide
• Host Name: localhost
• Database Name: AAAR_Kettle
• Port Number: 3306
• User Name: root
• Password: root
• Once done Test connection and make sure you are able to connect AAAR_Kettle DB
• Click OK

• In Repository Connection you will find AAAR_KETTLE
• User Name: admin and Password: admin
• Click OK
• We are done with AAAR_Kettle DB setup
• Now lets configure AAAR_Datamart
• From the Pentaho Data Integration panel, click on Tool -> Repository -> explore

• Click on the 'Connections' tab and edit the AAAR_DataMart connection.

• Edit this DB connection. Provide all details same as  AAAR_kettle DB setup

• We are done with PDI repository setup

Install Pentaho Business Analytics platform 5 [Pentaho BI-Server 5] :

• Make sure you have java7 installed
• Make sure you have java7 installed
• Download the Pentaho BI-Server 5 package from the official website or the sourceforge  - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pentaho/files/Business%20Intelligence%20Server/5.0.1-stable/biserver-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip/download
• Unzip biserver-ce-5.0.1-stable.zip
• This is web application which is deployed in tomcat. 
• To run this application with MySql please refer - http://anonymousbi.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/pentaho-bi-server-5-0-1ce-mysql-installation-guide/
• Start this application by running  - start-pentaho.bat located at biserver-ce-5.0.1-stable\biserver-ce OR from startup.bat of tomcat located at - biserver-ce-5.0.1-stable\biserver-ce\tomcat\bin
• Once its started then go to - http://<server>:8080/pentaho and login with admin user. UID: admin PWD: password

Install A.A.A.R from Pentaho marketplace

• Login as admin user to - http://<server>:8080/pentaho
• Go to Home-> Market Place
• Install:
• Community Data Access
• Community Dashboard Editor
• Alfresco Audit Analysis and Reporting

• Once its installed, Restart your BIServer
• Again login as admin
• Go to Tools -> AAAR
• Click on Configuration
• Provide details for Alfresco, Data Mart and PDI/Kettle
• Alfresco details:
• Protocol : http
• Host: localhost
• Port: 9090
• Login: admin
• Password: admin
• FTP Path : alfresco
• FTP Port : 2121
• Max audit: 50000
• Data Mart details:
• Type: MySql
• Host: localhost
• Port: 3306
• Login: root
• Password: root
• Bin Path [MySql bin dir’s path]:  C:/Program Files (x86)/MySQL/MySQL Server 5.5/bin
• PDI/Kettle details
• Path[Where you have installed your PDI]: D:/Pentaho/pdi-ce-5.1.0.0-752/data-integration

• Save your data
• Click Install tab then click on Install
• Check your logs
• After successful installation, Go to Tools -> Refresh -> CDA cache
• Click Use

Use A.A.A.R

• Login as admin or other user to - http://<server>:8080/pentaho
• Go to Tools -> AAR
• Click on Use
• Here you will find 
• Extract: Get audit data from alfresco to Data mart
• Publish: Upload report to alfresco
• Analyse: Analyze data from dashboard
• Extract data:
• You can schedule this script to run as per your requirement or for testing you can also run it manually
• To run it manually go to - biserver-ce\pentaho-solutions\system\AAAR\endpoints\kettle\script and execute AAAR_Extract.bat script
• Execute this script OR 
• Go to cmd and change your working directory to data-integration
• Execute this command: kitchen.bat /rep:"AAAR_Kettle" /job:"Get all" /dir:/Alfresco /user:admin /pass:admin /level:Basic

• Publish to Alfresco:
• We can publish extracted report from PDI repository to Alfresco. This will be static report.
• You can schedule this script to run or you can run it manually
• To run it manually go to - biserver-ce\pentaho-solutions\system\AAAR\endpoints\kettle\script and execute AAAR_Publish.bat script
• Execute this script OR 
• Go to cmd and change your working directory to data-integration
• Execute this command:kitchen.bat /rep:"AAAR_Kettle" /job:"Report all" /dir:/Alfresco /user:admin /pass:admin /level:Basic
• Once reports are published you can go to Alfresco and check reports are generated under Company Home

• Analyze data:
• Go to Analyze tab and click on Analytics and you can analyze real time data from here
• OR you can access through http://<server>:8080/pentaho/api/repos/:public:AAAR:main.wcdf/generatedContent

Reference: https://addons.alfresco.com/addons/alfresco-audit-analysis-and-reporting-aaar

Sorting Search Results with Alfresco Solr

In Alfresco, we can configure our search subsystem to Solr.

During search we need to sort our result based on property. So here I would like to focus on sorting on property specifically when you define your custom property.

Sorting Search Results:

When you want to sort on specific property, you need to set “tokenised”. It should be set either “false” or “both”.

<index enabled=”true”>

<atomic>true</atomic>

<stored>false</stored>

<tokenised>false</tokenised>

</index>

By default “tokenised” is set to “true” and when you try to sort your result, Solr will throw below error

2014-06-30 13:23:06,768 ERROR [solr.core.SolrCore] [http-8443-5] java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Ordering not supported for @custom:myTestProperty

Sorting on Date and Date Range Query:

As mentioned above, if you want to sort your result based on any property, here specifically for 

d: datetime, you can either set its “tokenised” to “false” or “both”.

If you make your date property “tokenised” to “false” then soring will work but it will NOT allow you to search on range query.

This query won’t give you any result with “tokenised “to “false”: 

@custom\:myTestDate:[2011-06-13 TO 2014-06-01]

So you need to set “Tokenised” to “both” so your sorting and range query both will work.

Numeric Sort:

In some scenario, You need to sort your search result numerically for an example for d:int type of property.

If you set “Tokenised” to “false” for your numeric property then Solr will sort results in lexical order [same as your text property ex: cm:name] rather than numeric order.

So to sort your results numerically you need to make “Tokenised” to “both”.

In Lucene, you can sort result regardless of “Tokenised” setting. If you are moving your search sub-system from Lucene to Solr then you need to make sure for “Tokenised” settings.

Whenever you make any change in your content model, need to re-build indexes so you need to make sure for searching and sorting requirement in advance.

Configuring Solr and Alfresco on different tomcat

Alfresco supports Solr Enterprise search platform which is open source enterprise search platform.

In new alfresco version, Solr is default search engine and If you have installed alfresco using setup wizard then it comes with alfresco bundle. In newer version Solr is not deployed under tomcat/webapps due to different behavior of tomcat 7.

In your production environment, You might need solr to run on different application server than alfresco. So Here I would describe detail steps to configure solr on different standalone application server.

Assuming you have standalone tomcat running in your env on port 8080 and SSL port 8443 and have existing alfresco installed on another tomcat on port 9090 and SSL port 8444

We will refer 
TOMCAT_HOME_ALFRESCO  - where Alfresco is installed
TOMCAT_HOME_SOLR - where Solr is installed
SOLR_HOME - where we will extract all solr related file

Step 1: Get  alfresco-enterprise-solr-4.2.0.zip and extract it to SOLR_HOME

Step 2: Create solr.xml file under TOMCAT_HOME_SOLR\conf\Catalina\localhost and copy context.xml file to this solr.xml. [You can get context.xml file under SOLR_HOME]

Step 3: Modify solr.xml and edit docBase and solr/home
docBase should point to - SOLR_HOME/apache-solr-1.4.1.war
solr/home should point to - SOLR_HOME

For example:

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	<Context docBase="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/apache-solr-1.4.1.war" debug="0" crossContext="true">
	<Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr" override="true"/>
	</Context>

view raw solr.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Step 4: Edit solrcore.properties to set data.dir.root where your Solr index will be stored. Modify it for both core - workspace and archive

File location:
SOLR_HOME\solr\workspace-SpacesStore\conf
SOLR_HOME\solr\archive-SpacesStore\conf

For example:
data.dir.root=D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/solr-index

You can define same value for both cores. It will create sub-directory for each core.

Step 5: Edit solrcore.properties. Set your alfresco server detail for both core.

alfresco.host=localhost
alfresco.port=9090
alfresco.port.ssl=8444

Before we go ahead lets generate Secure keys for communication between Alfresco and Solr

Step 6: Edit generate_keystores.bat (Windows) and generate_keystores.sh(Linux) located at SOLR_HOME\solr\alf_data\keystore and set below environment variable.

ALFRESCO_HOME
ALFRESCO_KEYSTORE_HOME
SOLR_HOME

For example:
ALFRESCO_HOME = D:\MyAlfresco
ALFRESCO_KEYSTORE_HOME=D:\Alfresco_SOLR\solr\alf_data\keystore
SOLR_HOME=D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr

Also make sure you have proper value set for JAVA_HOME, REPO_CERT_DNAME and SOLR_CLIENT_CERT_DNAME .

Step 7: Run this script. And set dir.keystore value in your alfresco-global.properties file.

For example:
dir.keystore=D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore

Step 8: Edit server.xml file for both Solr and Alfresco's tomcat to use the keystore and truststore for https requests

This SSL connector settings are changed from 4.1 so make sure you configure it as below.
Removed configurations: maxSavePostSize
Added/changed configurations: clientAuth="want" maxHttpHeaderSize="32768"

Configure server.xml file location located at <TOMCAT_HOME_ALFRESCO>/conf/server.xml on connector port 8444

	<Connector port="8444" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol"
	SSLEnabled="true" maxThreads="150" scheme="https"
	keystoreFile="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore/ssl.keystore"
	keystorePass="kT9X6oe68t" keystoreType="JCEKS" secure="true" connectionTimeout="240000"
	truststoreFile="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore/ssl.truststore"
	truststorePass="kT9X6oe68t" truststoreType="JCEKS" clientAuth="want" sslProtocol="TLS"
	allowUnsafeLegacyRenegotiation="true"
	maxHttpHeaderSize="32768" maxSavePostSize="-1"/>

view raw server_alfresco.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Configure server.xml file location located at <TOMCAT_HOME_SOLR>/conf/server.xml on connector port 8443

	<Connector port="8443" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol"
	SSLEnabled="true" maxThreads="150" scheme="https"
	keystoreFile="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore/ssl.keystore"
	keystorePass="kT9X6oe68t" keystoreType="JCEKS" secure="true" connectionTimeout="240000"
	truststoreFile="D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore/ssl.truststore"
	truststorePass="kT9X6oe68t" truststoreType="JCEKS" clientAuth="want" sslProtocol="TLS"
	allowUnsafeLegacyRenegotiation="true"
	maxHttpHeaderSize="32768" maxSavePostSize="-1"/>

view raw server_solr.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Step 9: Edit your alfresco-global.properties file.
Set search subsytem, dir.keystore which we already set in above step and solr server detail.

index.subsystem.name=solr
dir.keystore=D:/Alfresco_SOLR/solr/alf_data/keystore
solr.port.ssl=8443
solr.host=localhost
solr.port=8080
solr.secureComms=https

Step 10: Edit tomcat-users.xml located at TOMCAT_HOME_SOLR/conf to configure an identity for the Alfresco server.

<user username="CN=Alfresco Repository, OU=Unknown, O=Alfresco Software Ltd., L=Maidenhead, ST=UK, C=GB" roles="repository" password="null"/>

view raw tomcat-user-solr.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Step 11: Edit tomcat-users.xml located at TOMCAT_HOME_ALFRESCO/conf to configure an identity for the Alfresco server.

<user username="CN=Alfresco Repository Client, OU=Unknown, O=Alfresco Software Ltd., L=Maidenhead, ST=UK, C=GB" roles="repoclient" password="null"/>

view raw tomcat-user-alfresco.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now, we are done with required configurations start your alfresco and Solr tomcat server and verify Solr indexes and search.
While searching on alfresco You might get below error

org.apache.tomcat.util.net.jsse.JSSESupport handShake WARNING: SSL server initiated renegotiation is disabled, closing connection

OR in solr tomcat logs you get below timeout error

WARN  [org.alfresco.solr.tracker.CoreTracker] Tracking communication timed out.

These error shows issue in communication between alfresco and solr over SSL connection.
Please check it for troubleshooting your issue - http://docs.alfresco.com/4.0/topic/com.alfresco.enterprise.doc/concepts/solr-troubleshooting.html

Alfresco version: 4.2EE

Alfresco Share webscript Connection timeout

Recently We faced HTTP connection timeout issue in Alfresco share webscript while calling repository webscrtipt.
This timeout occurs for several reasons like high load on server or custom logical operation on huge amount of data so alfresco explorer takes too much time to respond etc.
So sometimes you might need to change this timeout parameters used by Share remote client. Here I will describe how we can change them.

Initially, this parameters was hard coded, now you can set them through configuration in newer version of alfresco.
Connection timeout default value is 10s.

Need to follow below steps

Step 1:
Locate spring-webscript-application-context.xml. This settings are defined in this file.

This file is in spring-webscripts-1.2.0-SNAPSHOT.jar [tomcat\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\lib] and go to org/springframework/extensions/webscripts/.

Step 2:
Search for "connector.remoteclient.abstract" and copy entire bean definition.

	<bean id="connector.remoteclient.abstract" abstract="true">
	<!-- name of authentication ticket that can be optionally applied to proxied URLs -->
	<!-- the ticket value is set programmatically by the connector making use of the RemoteClient instance -->
	<property name="ticketName"><value>alf_ticket</value></property>
	<!-- default encoding to use when decoded responses when none is set in the response - set to null for platform default -->
	<property name="defaultEncoding"><null/></property>
	<!-- default Content-Type header value to use for PUT or POST responses when none is supplied -->
	<property name="defaultContentType"><value>application/octet-stream</value></property>
	<!-- size of the internal byte buffer used when proxying responses -->
	<property name="bufferSize"><value>4096</value></property>
	<!-- the http.connection.timeout value in milliseconds to apply to HTTP connections -->
	<property name="connectTimeout"><value>15000</value></property>
	<!-- the http.socket.timeout value in milliseconds to apply to HTTP connections -->
	<property name="readTimeout"><value>120000</value></property>
	<!-- the maximum number of redirects to process from a GET request while maintaining cookies -->
	<property name="maxRedirects"><value>10</value></property>
	<!-- the RemoteClient will automatically use an HTTP proxy if the JVM property 'http.proxyHost' is set
	but this feature can be disabled by setting this bean property to false -->
	<property name="allowHttpProxy"><value>true</value></property>
	<!-- the RemoteClient will automatically use an HTTPS proxy if the JVM property 'https.proxyHost' is set
	but this feature can be disabled by setting this bean property to false -->
	<property name="allowHttpsProxy"><value>true</value></property>
	<!-- the set of headers to remove when proxying a request from a client to a remote endpoint -->
	<property name="removeRequestHeaders">
	<set>
	<value>Cookie</value>
	</set>
	</property>
	<!-- the set of headers to remove when proxying a response from a remote endpoint to a client -->
	<property name="removeResponseHeaders">
	<set>
	<value>Set-Cookie</value>
	</set>
	</property>
	<!-- http.tcp.nodelay setting - default is true -->
	<property name="httpTcpNodelay"><value>true</value></property>
	<!-- http.connection.stalecheck setting - default is true -->
	<property name="httpConnectionStalecheck"><value>true</value></property>
	</bean>

view raw spring-webscripts-application-context.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Step 3:
Go to tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\web-extension and create custom-slingshot-application-context.xml if you don't have else modify this file.

Copy remoteclient bean defination into this and update "connectTimeout" value as per your requirement.

Step 4:
Restart server and verify.

You can increase logs to debug if any issue.
log4j.logger.org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.connector.RemoteClient=debug

NOTE: This might affect your system performance. So till possible rectify your code which is causing this issue.

Alfresco version: 4.2

Hope this helps!