ERP/2.50/Openbravo ERP Installation/Community Appliance

Introduction

A virtual appliance is a minimally preinstalled and preconfigured application and operating system, designed to run under VMware, Xen or any other virtualization technology. The Openbravo ERP project provides virtual appliances to simplify the evaluation process. For that purpose, these appliances include a sample database client called BigBazaar.

The appliance images are available at the SourceForge download area.

General information

Included software

The appliances include the following software:

• Openbravo ERP 2.50MP21.
• PostgreSQL 8.3.9 with ossp-uuid support, version 1.6.2.
• Sun JDK 1.6.0_18.
• Apache Ant 1.7.1.
• Apache httpd 2.2.9.
• Apache Tomcat 6.0.24.
• Tomcat Native 1.1.20.
• mod_jk 1.2.30.
• APR 1.2.12.
• OpenSSH 4.9p1 (client and server).

Minimum requirements and image details

The RAM allocated for the virtual machine is 1024MB, however for a single concurrent user and without a system rebuild (e.g. installing modules) 512MB is enough

VMware appliance

• Supported versions: VMWare Player 1.x, 2.x, VMware Server, VMware WorkStation or VMware Fusion.
• File name: OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.vmware.zip.
• Allocated free space: 2GB.
• Allocated RAM memory: 1024MB.
• Allocated swap space: 128MB.
• Networking: bridged.

Xen appliance

• Supported versions: Xen 3.0.3 or higher. Can be deployed to Amazon EC2.
• File name: OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.xen.tar.gz
• Allocated free space: 2GB.
• Allocated swap space: 128MB.

QEMU appliance

• Supported versions: QEMU 0.8 or higher. Optionally use KQEMU to increase performance.
• File name: OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.qemu-parallels.zip.
• Allocated free space: 2GB.
• Allocated swap space: 128MB.

Parallels appliance

• Supported versions: Parallels Workstation, Desktop or Server.
• File name: OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.qemu-parallels.zip.
• Allocated free space: 2GB.
• Allocated swap space: 128MB.

VirtualBox appliance

• Supported versions: VirtualBox or VirtualBox-OSE.
• File name: OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.virtualbox.zip.
• Allocated free space: 2GB.
• Allocated swap space: 128MB.

Login into Openbravo ERP

1. At the end of the boot process, a message appears indicating the IP address you need to launch Openbravo ERP. In your chosen web browser, type that IP address into the address box. The login screen appears.
2. In the Username box, type Openbravo
3. In the Password box, type openbravo

   Both the username and password are case sensitive.

Linux passwords

• root access: passwordless, log in as root and set the password with 'passwd'. One cannot ssh as root until this password is set.
• SSH access: username openbravo and password openbravo.

Note that these passwords are not used to login to Openbravo ERP, but in Linux.

Direct database access

For security reasons the appliance runs a firewall (iptables) that blocks every external access except to the SSH (22), HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443) ports. So in order to connect to the database using an external tool, such as PgAdmin3, it is necessary to establish a SSH tunnel, described as follows.

Linux, MAC and *BSD

1. Open a command-line terminal and type the following command, replacing ip_address with the correct IP address:

   ssh -N -L 5433:localhost:5432 openbravo@ip_address

   This forwards the appliance's PostgreSQL port into the 5433 port of the user's local client machine, tunneled over a SSH connection.

2. Type the openbravo user password and leave this terminal open.
3. Open the PostgreSQL client (e.g. PgAdmin3), specify the following connection settings and click OK:
   • Name: OpenbravoERP
   • Host: localhost
   • Port: 5433
   • Username: tad
   • Password: tad

The connection will be available as long as the previous SSH connection is opened.

Windows

Use PuTTY to connect to PostgreSQL in Windows. PuTTY is an open source and free SSH client:

1. Select Session.
2. In the Host Name box, enter IP Address of the Openbravo Network machine.
3. Select Connection > SSH > Tunnels.
4. In the Source port field, enter 5433.
5. In the Destination field, enter localhost:5432.
6. Click Add.
7. Click Open to open the SSH connection.
8. Type the openbravo user name and its password and leave this terminal open.

Misc

• The tomcat context is located in /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/openbravo.
• Web Services can be installed by login-in as the openbravo SSH user and running:

  $ ant installWebService

• The Tomcat manager URL is the following one: http://<ip_address>/manager/html

The Manager username is admin and the password openbravo.

Installation and usage

Common steps

In general, the process of running Openbravo ERP on a virtual appliance are as follows:

1. Download a virtualization program. See below for specific instructions on VMware, Xen, QEMU, Parallels and VirtualBox.
2. Download the virtual appliance and open it with the virtualization program.
3. The following message is shown at the end of the boot process, indicating the URL to access Openbravo ERP with your web browser:

   Welcome to Openbravo ERP Community

   To login to Openbravo ERP use your web browser to go to http://<IP_ADDRESS>

VMware

Use VMware Player (freeware) to run pre-built virtual machines on your desktop. To run the Openbravo appliance, follow these steps:

1. Download and install VMware Player. There are versions for Microsoft Windows and Linux. VMware Fusion is the Macintosh version.
2. Download the latest version of the Openbravo VMware image and unpack the files.
3. Run VMware Player (or VMware Fusion on a Mac).
4. Select the decompressed .vmx file.

If there is DHCP on your network, no further steps are required. The final boot message within the virtual machine play window will show the URL to access Openbravo ERP from your browser.

If your network does not have DHCP you can either:

• Create an internal subnet. Through which you will be able to access the virtual machine. Openbravo ERP cannot access the Internet via an internal subnet.
• Specify a fixed IP address and gateway.

To create an internal subnet:

1. Launch the VMware player.
2. Change the network adapter options from Bridged to NAT.
3. Restart the virtual machine.

To set a fixed IP address and gateway:

1. Log in as root (passwordless)
2. Type the following commands to set a specific ip IP_ADDRESS and a gateway IP_GATEWAY:

   $ /sbin/ifconfig eth0 IP_ADDRESS netmask 255.255.255.0 up
   

   $ /sbin/route add default gw IP_GATEWAY

3. Finally to make the IP address available to the Internet, assign some DNS servers to it:

   $ echo "nameserver IP_DNS1" >> /etc/resolv.conf
   

   $ echo "nameserver IP_DNS2" >> /etc/resolv.conf

4. To launch Openbravo ERP, launch your chosen web browser and type 'http://<IP_ADDRESS>' into the address box, where 'IP_ADDRESS' is the IP address you specified in step 2.

If your Openbravo ERP VMware virtual machine hangs when restoring its previous state, just follow this simple trick.

Xen appliance

Xen is an open source and free virtualization software. To run the Openbravo ERP appliance within Xen, follow these steps.

Running on Amazon EC2

To deploy the Xen appliance into Amazon EC2, follow these steps. Make sure all the environment variables are correctly configured:

1. Bundle the image using the following command:

   $ ec2-bundle-image -i OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.ext3 -r i386 -k $EC2_PRIVATE_KEY -c $EC2_CERT -u $EC2_USER_ID

2. Upload the image into a Amazon S3 bucket:

   $ ec2-upload-bundle -b OpenbravoERP -m /tmp/OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.fs.manifest.xml -a $EC2_ACCESS_KEY -s $EC2_SECRET_KEY

3. Register the image:

   $ ec2-register OpenbravoERP/OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.fs.manifest.xml
   

   ami-xxxxxx

4. Use the ami-xxxxxx returned by this command to run the instance:

   $ ec2-run-instance ami-xxxxxx

QEMU appliance

The installation and its networking configuration are out of the scope of this document. Assuming it is ready, run the following command:

$ qemu -hda OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.qemu-parallels -m 1024 -net tap -net nic

Parallels appliance

Decompress OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.qemu-parallels.gz and open the OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.qemu-parallels file with Parallels.

VirtualBox appliance

• Decompress OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.virtualbox.gz, this will result in the OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.virtualbox.vdi file.
• Open VirtualBox and click on Machine -> New. Enter Openbravo ERP Community in the Name and select Linux 2.6 in OS Type. Click on Next.
• Select 1024MB of Base Memory Size. Click on Next.
• Click on Existing to add the image. Then Add, and browse to select the OpenbravoERP-2.50MP21-x86.virtualbox.vdi file. Click on Select, then on Next and finally in Finish.

In order to use Openbravo ERP it is necessary to access the virtual appliance through the network. There are two options here:

• Use VirtualBox version 2.2 or higher, edit the preferences of the virtualmachine you just created and select Bridge in the network settings. This is the recommended method.
• Forward (NAT) the http port (80) from the virtual appliance to a random port (8000) in the host machine. This is easier to do than the previous method, and it is recommended for testing. Run the following commands:

$ VBoxManage setextradata "Openbravo ERP Community" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guesthttpd/HostPort" 8000
$ VBoxManage setextradata "Openbravo ERP Community" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guesthttpd/GuestPort" 80
$ VBoxManage setextradata "Openbravo ERP Community" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/guesthttpd/Protocol" TCP

Where "Openbravo ERP Community" matches with the name given to the appliance in its creation.

Afterwards it is necessary to shut down VirtualBox and start the appliance again. Then, to access Openbravo ERP enter http://localhost:8000 in a web browser.

Using Openbravo ERP

Navigate to the Openbravo ERP installation guide to discover how to use Openbravo ERP.