Alfresco Quick Start Guide - Attune · 2020. 1. 7. · Alfresco open source 4 focuses, a riches of new user features and UI enhancements that enable faster user adoption, next to

Alfresco Quick

Start Guide

By Tapan Avasthi

[email protected] www.attuneuniversity.com

Alfresco Quick Start Guide 1

INTRODUCTION AND INSTALLATION of ALFRESCO

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the top growing category

of enterprise software. In order to improve collaboration in an organization,

Alfresco Software foundation offers a free ECM system – Alfresco.

Alfresco is available in two editions: Community Edition and Enterprise

Edition. Alfresco the open platform for social content management launches

the Alfresco Community 4 has GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

with support of open standard model, the most significant release of the

platform to date. Alfresco open source 4 focuses, a riches of new user features

and UI enhancements that enable faster user adoption, next to improved tools

to allow developers to create social and cloud-scale, content-rich applications.

Alfresco 4 Enterprise Edition is the commercially supported Edition

includes Alfresco share and content platform. Alfresco enterprise version is the

stable version with support and extensive tests.

Alfresco is completely built on the following open standards:

Install Java

Java Content Repository API

Java Portlet Integration

Spring 2.0 Aspect-Oriented Framework

RIA Platform

JSON

ACEGI Aspect-Oriented Security Framework

Hibernate 3.2 ORM Persistence

Lucene 2.1 Text Search Engine

AIFS (Alfresco Intelligent File System) supporting Windows Files sharing

(SMB/CIFS), NFS, FTP

WEBDAV

Jakarta POI – Java API to Access Microsoft File formats

PDFBoxiText – Open Source Java PDF Libraries

Open Office 2.x

JSR-223 Java Language Integration – Scripting for Java Platform

2 Alfresco Quick Start Guide

Web Scripts

JBPM 3.2

Embedded SMTP E-mail server

Electronic Signature

RSS, Atom publishment

OpenID platform

Alfresco applications are built on the content application server and rely

on the server to persist, access, query, and manage content.

The major Alfresco applications are:

Alfresco Explorer - the original application built with the Alfresco system

to handle content. Explorer lets you browse the repository, set up rules and

actions, and manage content and its metadata, associations, and classifications.

Alfresco Explorer was built using Java Server Faces and is integrated into the

content application server. It also has widespread capabilities for managing the

repository as a system administrator tool.

Alfresco Share - the next generation user interface built entirely with the

Alfresco web script technology and can be used to enlarge the application. Share

provides content management capabilities with simple user interfaces, tools to

search and browse the repository, content as thumbnails and associated

metadata, previews using Flash renditions of content, and a set of collaboration

tools such as Wikis, Discussions, and Blogs. Alfresco Share is organized as a set

of sites that can be used as a meeting place for collaboration.

A prerequisite installation for quickly Alfresco ECM up and running in

your system as below.

Install Java


Java is a programming language and free computing platform. Java is a

programming language expressly designed for use in

the distributed environment of the Internet. Basically, whole Alfresco CMS

based on JDK environment. Use the JDK version 6.0 or latest JDK version for

using Alfresco CMS in your system.

If you are using Linux flavor or Mac OS then it can be provided by

service vendor itself in installation package. If you are using Windows operating

system then you may download install Java in your environment manually.

Download latest version of Java from

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-

1880260.html and choose the package according your environment bit operating

system. Afterwards, set JAVA_HOME in your system environment variable as

below:

Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System and click on

Advanced system settings.

Then click on Environment Variable button Advanced tab.

Then add JAVA_HOME in path variable also as below.

http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/definition/distributed

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html


Once your Java path set, now you are ready to install Alfresco CMS in

your operating system.


For Windows

Download Alfresco CMS updated version from

http://www.alfresco.com/products/community

Click on downloaded alfresco installer. (Default it comes with Apache

Tomcat as the Application Server)

Select Language from dropdown box and click on OK button.

Now, click on Next button to start Alfresco Enterprise Setup Wizard.

http://www.alfresco.com/products/community


Select Advanced installation type and click on Next button.

Select the components that you want to install and click on Next button

when you are ready to proceed further.


Choose a folder to where install Alfresco Enterprise setup. Click on Next

button when you are ready to proceed further.


Please, enter your database port in which you’ll need to store Alfresco

prerequisite table in it. Here, we provide MySQL Database port. Click on Next



Please enter the Tomcat configuration parameter which you would like to

use for Alfresco running. Click on Next button when you are ready to proceed

further.


Please enter FTP port to use with Alfresco for integration purpose. Click

on Next button when you are ready to proceed further.


Please choose a port number for Alfresco to use to execute remote

commands. Click on Next button when you are ready to proceed further.


=

Now, please enter Administrator credentials to access Alfresco

Administrator Explorer and Share. Here, I used admin as an username and

password both. Click on Next button when you are ready to proceed further.


Please enter the port number for SharePoint protocol. Click on Next



Please enter port number through which Open Office listen from

Alfresco Enterprise. Click on Next button when you are ready to proceed

further.


Select operation through which your Alfresco Server start and stop. Here,

I choose manually start and stop services of Alfresco. Click on Next button

when you are ready to proceed further.


Now, Alfresco Server start to extracting with your settings at the

directory which you specified at the time of Installation folder.


Launch manually Alfresco CMS with below command from

SYSTEM_DRIVE:/Alfresco/TOMCAT_HOME/bin/Startup.bat

Congratulations! You have installed and running Alfresco CMS in your

system.




ALFRESCO USERS AND GROUPS

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the top growing category

of enterprise software. In order to improve collaboration in an organization,

Alfresco Software foundation offers a free ECM system – Alfresco.

o Users

o Groups

o Authentication

o Authentication / How does Alfresco allow multiple authentication modes

for a website and how it is used?

o Roles

o Users are individual members.

o User is identified by a unique user ID, which is also known as the login

ID. Administrator plays role of Superuser of the system. Alfresco

identifies the registered users and users not logged in as a guest. The

names of such logged-in users are shown on the top right-hand corner of

the Alfresco Explorer screen and the left-hand corner of the Alfresco

Share.


o Groups are logical categorizations of users.

o Alfresco groups logically group a set of users in the system for the

purpose of security and collaboration. A group can have any number of

subgroups. There is a default group called EVERYONE, which

represents all of the users of the system.

o A user can belong to more than one group and subgroup. A user

belonging to a subgroup will automatically belong to the parent group.

o A group can have more than one user. You can create group and add

members by inviting them, we can add users which are not user of

alfresco. To add that user for particular group we just have to invite by

passing their email id.

o Permissions and roles

o Define access on spaces and content - Alfresco supports extensive

permission settings on spaces and content.

o Permissions are identified by a string - a particular permission may be

granted or denied to a user and a group. The children of a node will


inherit permissions from their parents. Permissions set on a node take

priority over permissions set on the parent nodes. Permission inheritance

may be turned off for any node.

o A permission group is a convenient grouping of permissions such as

Read. Each one of these permissions is applicable to nodes, spaces, space

properties, subspaces, content, content properties, and business rules.

The following are typical permission groups:

Read

Edit

Add

Delete

o Roles are collections of permissions assigned to a user. Alfresco comes

with a built-in set of roles which can be extended as requirements. Each

role includes set of permissions. Alfresco provides out of the box support

for the following roles:

Consumer can read content

Editor can read and edit content

Contributor can read and add content

Collaborator can read, edit, and add content

Coordinator full access

The roles and permissions of Alfresco may be extended to support your

requirements.

Each role applies only in the space in which it is assigned. For example,

you could invite a user to one of your spaces as an editor. You could invite that

same user to a different space as a collaborator. That same user could be invited

to someone else's space as a coordinator.


Users

CREATE USER

o Before adding users, you need to know the few details about user:

First name

Last name

Email ID (valid corporate email)

Company ID (for customer extranet, this could be customer's

company name)

User name (login ID)

Password

Home space name (usually the same as the user name)

o To create users you must be log in as administrator. Only admin can

create, manage and modify users. Create user and pass user ID and

password. Users have their individual space. The location and name for a

space can be specified while creating a user account. The user can have

full access to his/her space.

o USER LOGED IN


o Once a user account is created by the administrator, the user can log in to

the system. The administrator can set up an automated script to send an

email containing the user ID and password information to the user.

o After user log in with his/her credentials .They have user menu

containing my profile, status updates, change password features.

o My Profile

o Displays the User Profile page where you manage your personal and

business information

o Status update

o Allows you to post a status for colleagues to see

o Change Password

o Displays the Change Password page where you change your current user

password

SEARCH USER

o Alfresco provides a "user search" tool to find a user to find user follow

steps:

o Select any space, click the Administration Console icon. The

Administration Console pane appears.


o Click the Manage System Users link. The Manage System Users pane

appears.

o In the search box, provide the user's first name or last name to search.

Alternatively, to see all of the users, click the Show All button, without

providing any information in the search box.

MODIFY USER DETAILS & FOLLOW USERS

The Edit User Wizard enables you to modify the person and user

properties of a user’s account.

You cannot change the user’s password with this feature. Only an

Administrator can edit user details. Search for a system user as explained in the

previous section. To edit a user's information, click on the Modify icon for that

user.

The first pane of the Edit User Wizard appears. You can edit and make

corrections as required, and then click the Finish button to confirm.

You can follow users, who have important content for you. Once you

select any user to follow, you can view their activities on both the personal and

site dashboards.


GROUP

Groups are collections of authorities with a name and display name.

Groups may include other groups or people. You can include a group in

one or more other groups, as long as this inclusion does not create any cyclic

relationships.

Alfresco has one default user group called EVERYONE. The

EVERYONE group logically includes all of the system users, irrespective of the

groups they belong to. This is useful to give read access to everyone on certain

common spaces. You can create and manage your own groups.

To create group you need to log in with administrator credentials.

CREATE GROUPS

Before adding a group, you need to decide group names. The group name

should be exceptional and cannot be changed once group create.

Follow the steps that are mentioned next in order to create a group:

o Click on the more icon. In Admin tools pane appears select groups icon.

o In groups windows click in browse button, you get new group icon.

o It will open new group window pass identifier and name than click on

Create Group.

Manage group


Open the Admin Console, and then click Groups.

On the Groups page, click Browse.

The leftmost pane shows all the top-level user groups.

Navigate the group structure to locate the user group you want to work

with. Click the desired user group to select it.

Using the icons in the pane directly to the right of where you selected the

group, perform the desired action:

To add a user, click the Add User icon. Using the search feature

provided, locate the user you want to add to the selected group. Click Add to

the right of the user.

To add a group, click the Add Group icon. Using the search feature

provided, locate the group you want to add to the selected group. Click Add to

the right of the user.

The individual user or group is added as a child to the group selected in

the panel.


ADD users, DELETE group and create sub-group to GROUPS

To add users to a group, click on the Add Users icon, as shown in the

above screenshot. The Add User dialog will pop up. You can search for the

system users and add them to a group, as shown in the next screenshot. Click

on the Finish button to confirm the operation.

To delete user from group, click on Delete Group icon, as shown in

screenshot. The confirmation window will pop up. Click on delete button to

confirm delete group.

To create sub groups, click on the Create sub-group icon, as shown

screenshot. In the next window pass identifiers for the sub groups. Click on

finish button to confirm create sub-group.


Authentication

Authentication is carried required at several entry points to the repository:

o CIFS

o Web Client

o FTP

o WebDAV

o Web Services

o Spring Beans exposed as public services in Java

Authentication can be by an Alfresco ticket, a user name and password

pair, or some other methods.

Using a ticket or username/password, a number of authentication

instances may be tried for authentication, any one is sufficient.


Single sign on from the browser and via CIFS includes a multi-stage

authentication process and may comprise cooperation of the authentication

methods. There is no chaining of authentication for single sign on.

Authentication subsystems

o Authentication is one of the categories of the Alfresco subsystem. An

authentication subsystem is a coordinated stack of compatible

components responsible for providing authentication and identity-related

functionality to Alfresco.

o Alfresco offers multiple implementations of the authentication

subsystem, each engineered to work with one of the different types of

back-end authentication server that you may have available in your

enterprise.

o Password-based authentication for web browsing, Microsoft SharePoint

protocol, FTP, and WebDAV

o CIFS and NFS file system authentication

o Web browser, Microsoft SharePoint protocol, and WebDAV Single Sign-

On (SSO)

o User registry export (the automatic population of the Alfresco user and

authority database)

Authentication Chains

Integrating Alfresco with only one system is not sufficient, you may want

to combine multiple authentication protocols against a collection of servers.

Multiple instance of these can be 'chained' together to support more advanced

enterprise-level authentication requirements


Authentication and identity management functionality is providing by a

prioritized list, or chain, of configurable subsystems. The fixed authentication

chain is a priority-ordered list of authentication subsystem instances. Alfresco

compile collective functions of the subsystems in this list into a more powerful

corporation.

Chained functions combine together functions of more than one

subsystem.

For example, when a user logs in, Alfresco tries to match the user's

credentials against each of the subsystems in the chain in order.

If a chain member accepts the credentials, the login succeeds

If no chain member accepts, the login fails

User registry export is also chained. During a synchronize operation,

users and groups are exported from each member of the chain supporting user

registry export (that is, those of type LDAP) and imported into Alfresco.

Ordering in the chain is used to resolve conflicts between users and groups

existing in the same directory.


ALFRESCO USER INTERFACE

There are 3 main areas in the Alfresco user interface: a toolbar; the Sidebar; and the main

working area.

Toolbar

The toolbar contains navigation buttons that take us to the Home Space or you’re my Alfresco Dashboard, if you are a guest, and also the Company Home and Guest Home if you are logged in. There are also icons for opening the User Options and Administration Console. The toolbar also allow accessing the Search and help capabilities. We can also hide and show the Sidebar using the icon to the left of the help icon, and login as a specific user. You may also click on the Alfresco logo to get to the About page.


Sidebar

The Sidebar contains a number of different features to help you navigate, find and work

with content, such as the Navigator, Clipboard, Shortcuts, Recent Spaces and openSearch.


Working Area

The working area will change depending on what information we are looking at or what

task we are performing. The top of the working area will always have a navigation

breadcrumb that allows us to jump to any part of the breadcrumb path. For information

views we will usually have a summary area along with actions or alternative views. The

details and options will change depending on what we are looking at and doing.

Standard Interface

The Alfresco standard user interface is aimed at users with a broad spectrum of expertise

and needs, from standard users to power users and administrators. Standard interfaces

provided by the underlying Alfresco platform. Users can take advantage of using a

document management system without having to learn new applications or clutter up

their desktop with unwanted programs or plug-ins.

Documents

Alfresco Quick Start Guide - Attune · 2020. 1. 7. · Alfresco open source 4 focuses, a riches of new user features and UI enhancements that enable faster user adoption, next to