Installing XWiki .war package manually

Version 4.1 by Vincent Massol on 2012/01/29

You'll need to perform 2 mandatory steps:

  • Install and configure a Servlet Container
  • Install and configure a relational database

Install and configure a Servlet Container

XWiki will work with any Servlet Container (provided it's properly configured obviously). We're only listing instructions for a few containers but you can adapt these instructions for your favorite container.

Some containers have the Java Security Manager turned on. In this case, XWiki needs to be granted some permissions. Here's below a sample policy file if you want to run your container with the Security Manager active. Depending on the version of XWiki Enterprise that you use and on the plugins/extensions that you use the permissions might need to be adjusted to your needs:

grant codeBase "file:<full-path-here>/webapps/xwiki/WEB-INF/lib/-" {
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "file.encoding", "read";
// Needed by Hibernate -> antlr
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "ANTLR_DO_NOT_EXIT", "read";
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "ANTLR_USE_DIRECT_CLASS_LOADING", "read";
// Needed by Hibernate and others
  permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
  permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "createClassLoader";
  permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "setContextClassLoader";
// Needed by commons-logging
  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.HashtableImpl", "read";
// Needed for connecting to the database
  permission java.net.SocketPermission "127.0.0.1:3306", "connect,resolve";
// Needed by the scheduler plugin -> quartz, but works without (maybe except scheduling? should be checked)
//  permission java.util.PropertyPermission "org.quartz.properties", "read";
};

You're now ready to install and configure your relational database.

Install and configure a Relational Database

XWiki can work with a lot of relational databases. We're only listed those that we have tested it on.

The general strategy is the following:

  • Install your favorite RDBMS
  • Create a xwiki database
  • Create a user with all privileges on that database
  • Copy your RDBMS Java drivers to the XWiki webapp's WEB-INF/lib directory
  • Configure XWiki to use the created database. This involves modifying the WEB-INF/hibernate.cfg.xml file as is described in the tutorials for each database below.
  • (A more scalable and J2EE-conformant tactic is to use the servlet container to manage your data source.  You modify the web app as little as possible... hopefully one day Xwiki will allow you to override hibernate.cfg.xml without needing to change the app itself.
    • Do not add your JDBC library to the web app.  Install it to the container classpath instead, like to $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.
    • Do not set user, url, etc., nor connection.provider_class in hibernate.cfg.xml. The critical settings are connection.datasource (with JNDI name like java:/comp/env/jdbc/XWikiDS) and the dialect class for your DB vendor. Do not comment out <mapping resource="..."/> elements, hibernate needs them. (You should leave the provider_class unset, since Xwiki's implementation doesn't handle container-managed data sources).
    • Manage all database access settings using your container facilities, for example Tomcat admin webapp or server.xml + APPNAME.xml. Uncommenting the <resource-ref> element inside WEB-INF/web.xml that matches the above JNDI name and looks like <res-ref-name>jdbc/XWikiDS</res-ref-name> could be a good idea.

Install and configure the database you wish to use:

If your database is empty this will result in a minimal empty wiki installation. You may want to use the Import/Export tool to import some pages in your wiki. We recommend that you import the provided default XAR. If you're upgrading from an existing installation your database should already contain the pages you had before.

Concluding Step

At this stage you have finished configuration XWiki. If you start your database and container and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/xwiki/ you'll have a working, albeit minimal, wiki (without any page loaded). The next step is either to create new pages by hand or import the default Wiki that we are providing as a XAR file, by using the Import feature.

Installing the Default Wiki XAR

The default wiki is a fully configured wiki that you can use as a starting point for creating your own wiki content. It provides the following:

  • A Blog
  • A Recent Changes page
  • The Panels Application
  • Search
  • Administration page (Access rights, Group and users management, etc)
  • ... and much more

It comes configured with an "Admin" user (password is "admin" in lowercase). You'll need that username/password to log in once you've imported the default wiki.

To install the XAR, use the Import/Export tool.

If you're upgrading an existing wiki be careful that the XAR import operation will replace the content of the existing pages of your wiki with the content of the XAR (New pages that you have created will not be modified). As a consequence it's critical that you perform a backup first and read the upgrade nodes bellow carefully.

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