Installing GeoNetwork 2.10

Introduction

In this document you’ll only find specific information for installing GeoNetwork.

It is expected that the base system has already been properly installed and configured as described in CentOS: Installation Guide.

In such document there are information about how to install some required base components, such as PostgreSQL, Apache HTTPD, Oracle Java, Apache Tomcat.

Installing GeoNetwork

Hint

GeoNetwork project page at http://geonetwork-opensource.org/

We’re going to install Tolomeo Catalina base in /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork.

Make sure you already:

Download packages

Note

Latest official version in the 2.10.x branch is 2.10.3, but it’s missing lots of fixes committed after its release. That’s why we’re pointing to a nighlty build.

Download the .war files needed for a full GeoNetwork installation:

cd /root/download
wget http://build.geo-solutions.it/geonetwork/2.10.x/nightly/latest/geonetwork.war
wget http://build.geo-solutions.it/geonetwork/2.10.x/RNDT/iso19139.rndt.zip

Setup tomcat base

Create catalina base directory for GeoNetwork:

cp -a /var/lib/tomcat/base/       /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork
cp /root/download/geonetwork.war  /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/webapps/

Create user and DB for GeoNetwork

Create a PostgreSQL DB for GeoNetwork:

su - postgres -c "createuser -S -D -R -P -l geonetwork"

Annotate the user password.

Create the DB:

su - postgres -c "createdb -O geonetwork geonetwork -E utf-8"

Add the spatial extension to the geonetwork DB:

# su - postgres -c "psql geonetwork"
geonetwork=# CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
geonetwork=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE geonetwork TO geonetwork;
geonetwork=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO geonetwork;

Create GN data dir

Some GN dirs can be externalized.

We’ll put such dirs in /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/gn, in this structure:

gn
├── data
│   ├── metadata_data
│   ├── metadata_subversion
│   └── resources
│       └── images
│           └── logos
├── index
│   └── nonspatial
└── upload

Create the directory hierarchy:

cd /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/
mkdir -p gn/data/{metadata_subversion,metadata_data}
mkdir -p gn/data/resources/images/logos/
mkdir -p gn/data/upload
mkdir -p gn/index/nonspatial/

Create the override file:

vim /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/gn/config-overrides.xml

and insert this content.

You will have to customize at least:

  • the site.host element, setting the IP address or the server host name;
  • the password for the geonetwork DB

You may also want to customize:

  • the site name
  • the bounding box and the layers for the search map. Please note that there are 2 sets of map definition:
    • <mapSearch> is about the search map
    • <mapViewer> is about the preview map

setenv.sh

Create the file setenv.sh. We’ll set here some system vars used by tomcat, by the JVM, and by the webapp itself:

vim /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/bin/setenv.sh

Insert this content:

# Do not set tomcat vars: they are already set in systemd setup
#export CATALINA_BASE=/var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork
#export CATALINA_HOME=/opt/tomcat/
#export CATALINA_PID=$CATALINA_BASE/work/pidfile.pid

# Configure memory and system stuff
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Xms1024m -Xmx2048m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m"
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.lucene.commitLockTimeout=60000"

# Configure GeoNetwork
export GN_EXT_DIR=$CATALINA_BASE/gn

# Configure override file
export GN_OVR_PROPNAME=geonetwork.jeeves.configuration.overrides.file
export GN_OVR_FILE=$GN_EXT_DIR/config-overrides.xml
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -D$GN_OVR_PROPNAME=$GN_OVR_FILE"

#export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dgeonetwork.dir=$GN_DATA_DIR"

# Configure data dirs
export GN_CTX=geonetwork.
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -D${GN_CTX}data.dir=$GN_EXT_DIR/data/metadata_data"
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -D${GN_CTX}resources.dir=$GN_EXT_DIR/data/resources"
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -D${GN_CTX}svn.dir=$GN_EXT_DIR/data/metadata_subversion"
export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -D${GN_CTX}lucene.dir=$GN_EXT_DIR/index"

and make it executable:

chmod +x /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/bin/setenv.sh

Edit server.xml

We need to assign 3 ports to this catalina instance. We want to keep the default ports for this tomcat instance (see Installed applications)

Open file

vim /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/conf/server.xml

and make sure the connection ports are set in this way:

  • 8005 for commands to catalina instance
  • 8080 for the HTTP connections
  • 8009 for the AJP connections

Tomcat dir ownership

Set the ownership of the geonetwork/ related directories to user tomcat

chown tomcat: -R /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork

Starting and stopping GeoNetwork

Note

Before running GeoNetwork the first time, you may want to set the log file location. See Log file location.

Autostart

The standard Systemd way for setting GeoNetwork as an autostarting service is:

systemctl enable tomcat@geonetwork

Commands

Once GeoNetwork has been installed, you can start it with:

systemctl start  tomcat@geonetwork

These are the commands for starting, stopping and querying GeoNetwork:

  • systemctl start  tomcat@geonetwork
  • systemctl stop   tomcat@geonetwork
  • systemctl status tomcat@geonetwork

Configure httpd

Create the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/80-geonetwork.conf and insert these lines:

ProxyPass        /geonetwork   ajp://localhost:8009/geonetwork
ProxyPassReverse /geonetwork   ajp://localhost:8009/geonetwork

Then reload the configuration for apache httpd:

service httpd reload

Known issues

  • site name and site URL set in the override file are not put in the DB during the initialization, so a manual setup in the configuration page is required.

Other settings

There are some settings that are not straightforward, and that require manual editing of configurations files.

Log file location

GeoNetwork log settings are set to create the log files into CURRENT_DIRECTORY/logs/geonetwork.log. It means that, running GeoNetwork with the configuration explained in this document, you’ll get the log files into /home/tomcat/logs/geonetwork.log.

If you wish to customize the log location, you’ll have to edit the file WEB-INF/log4j.cfg.

You may want to change the path in the log4j configuration file before running the GeoNetwork service the first time, in order not to have temp log files placed in unwanted places.

  • Expand the war file (if GN has not been started yet)

    cd /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/webapps/
mkdir geonetwork
cd geonetwork
jar xvf ../geonetwork.war

  • Edit the file WEB-INF/log4j.cfg, setting the property log4j.appender.jeeves.file as follows:

    log4j.appender.jeeves.file = ${catalina.base}/logs/geonetwork.log

    Make sure you have the ${catalina.base} part. In this way, the logfile should be created in the directory /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork/logs/.

  • Change ownership for all the expanded files to user tomcat:

    chown tomcat: -R /var/lib/tomcat/geonetwork

Default language

The only way to change de default UI language is to edit the index.html file:

vim webapps/geonetwork/index.html

The default language is set as a 3 letters ISO code in this line:

window.location="srv/eng/home" + search;

so you may for instance change the string to srv/ita/home to have Italian as default language.