Installing Standalone Distribution of Apache Archiva
- :STUB: This is a documentation stub.
+ Installing the standalone distribution of Archiva is quite simple - for an example, see the {{{quick-start.html} Quick Start}} guide.
-~~TODO: link to quick start as it covers the most basic scenario
-~~TODO: ensure to refer to advanced configuration options, such as PLEXUS_BASE
-~~TODO: upgrading
+ However, the best way to use this installation technique is to separate the configuration from the installation to make it easy to
+ upgrade to newer versions in the future.
+
+* Running Archiva
+
+ Archiva can be run using one of two techniques:
+
+ * Using the OS specific scripts in <<<bin/linux-x86-32/run.sh>>> (select the one for your environment). The argument can be <<<console>>> to run interactively, or <<<start>>> to run in the background
+ (in this case, run the script with <<<stop>>> to later stop the server).
+
+ * Using the generic <<<bin/plexus.sh>>> script which will run Archiva interactively
+
+ []
+
+* Separating the base from the installation
+
+ The standalone instance of Archiva uses the Plexus application server, which is capable of separating it's configuration from installation,
+ in much the same way Tomcat does, for example, with it's <<<CATALINA_BASE>>> and <<<CATALINA_HOME>>> environment variables.
+
+ This is achieved by the following steps:
+
+ [[1]] Creating the base location. For example, you might install Archiva in <<</opt/archiva-1.0>>> and the data in <<</var/archiva>>>
+
+ [[2]] Move the <<<conf>>> and <<<data>>> directories from the Archiva installation to the new location. If you've previously run Archiva, you may need to edit
+ <<<conf/archiva.xml>>> to change the location of the repositories
+
+ [[3]] Set the environment variable <<<PLEXUS_BASE>>> to the data location (in bash, be sure to export the variable).
+
+ [[4]] Start Archiva standalone as described above from the installation location
+
+* Configuring Archiva
Archiva's configuration is loaded from the following files, in order of most precedent:
{Upgrading Archiva}
- ...
+ Upgrading Archiva is straightforward if the directions for separating the base from the installation above are followed. Simply retain the data directories (the repositories and database),
+ and the configuration files (in the conf directory, or the other locations specified above) and use a new extracted installation of Archiva.
+
+ Note that the <<<users>>> database must always be retained as it contains the permissions and user information across versions. However, should it be necessary, the <<<archiva>>> database can
+ be removed at any time and re-created by scanning the repositories again.
+
+ The repository data is portable across versions, and multiple versions can be configured to look at the same repositories (though not run simultaneously). When scanned, an index is also created
+ in the root directory - while this shold remain portable across versions, it can also be removed and regenerated by scanning the given repository again from the web interface.
+
+