Openbravo_ERP

This article is part of the HOWTO series.

Installation • Kernel & Hardware • Networks • Portage • Software • System • X Server • Gaming • Non-x86 • Emulators • Misc

1 Introduction
2 Preparing the system
3 Modifying system variables
4 PostgreSQL password
5 Installing Openbravo
6 Test
7 Contact / Feedback
8 Sources/Further Information

Introduction

Openbravo ERP is an open-source (MPL) web based ERP for SMEs. It encompasses a broad range of functionalities such as finance, supply chain, project management, manufacturing and much more. Currently it supports two databases: Oracle and PostgreSQL. This HOWTO focuses in the PostgreSQL version.

Preparing the system

The software requirements of version 2.35MP4 are:

* Sun JDK >= 1.5
* Apache Ant >= 1.6.5
* Apache Tomcat >= 5.5
* PostgreSQL >= 8.1.4

All these packages are included in portage. Openbravo ERP 2.35MP4 doesn't support PostgreSQL 8.3.x. Version 2.40alpha supports it. PostgreSQL 8.2.7 is still masked with ~keywords. You'll have to add this packages to your package.keywords.

File: /etc/portage/package.keywords

# PostgreSQL
dev-db/postgresql-server
virtual/postgresql-server
dev-db/postgresql-base
virtual/postgresql-base

After this, you are ready to emerge them:

emerge -av sun-jdk ant-core tomcat =postgresql-server-8.2.7

Check your java environment is sane with check-java-config. There should be no problems.
Once PostgreSQL is emerged, don't forget to run:

emerge --config =postgresql-8.2.7

Modifying system variables

The $JAVA_HOME variable must point to the 1.5 or 1.6 JDK. In my case I have sun-jdk-1.5, blackdown-jdk-1.4.2 and sun-jdk-1.6, so:

java-config -S sun-jdk-1.6

Now we'll tweak Tomcat's CATALINA_OPTS variable.

File: /etc/conf.d/tomcat-6

CATALINA_OPTS="-server -Xms384M -Xmx512M"

NOTE: -Xms384M and -Xmx512M performance values depend on the amount of memory of the system. This should be a good value for most systems, though.

PostgreSQL password

The postgres database user does not have a password by default (do not confuse with the system's postgres user), it accepts password-less logins from the local host. To set a password:

psql -U postgres
alter role postgres with password 'new_password';
\q
sed -i 's/trust$/md5/' /var/lib/postgresql/8.2/data/pg_hba.conf
/etc/init.d/postgresql-8.2 reload

Installing Openbravo

Download it from Sourceforge. Select the Linux, Linux-x64, Linux-ia64 or Linux-ppc version, depending on your processor.

Launch the installer as a non-root user:

chmod +x OpenbravoERP_2.35MP4-linux-installer.bin
./OpenbravoERP_2.35MP4-linux-installer.bin

It is possible to launch it in text mode by adding the "--mode text" argument.

These are the options I choose in the installer:

Installation directory: /home/myuser/OpenbravoERP (default)
Attachments directory: /home/myuser/OpenbravoERP/AppsOpenbravo/attachments (default)
Installation type: Full (standard) installation. From sources, not binary. (default)
Database: PostgreSQL
Java home directory: /etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm (default)
Ant home directory: /usr/share/ant-core/bin/ant (default)
Tomcat installation directory: /var/lib/tomcat-6 (default)

Web Server domain: MyHostName (write your hostname here)
HTTP port: 8080 (default)
Context name: openbravo (default)
PostgreSQL directory: /usr/bin (it looks for the psql bunary)
Database host: MyHostName (write your hostname here)
Port: 5432 (default)
Database name: openbravo (default)
Database password: your_postgres_password, the one you've previously set
Openbravo Database user: tad (default)
Openbravo Database user: tad (or whatever)

Now it will start compiling. Take a cup of coffee, it takes 20 minutes on my 2.0GHz Core2Duo laptop. You can track the installations state by reading the log files in /opt/OpenbravoERP/installation_logs.