Installing MOTECH

This installation guide is used for demo systems based on 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. It assumes you are running on the same and is not suitable for a full production install which requires additional steps to ensure security of the system. For example, it’s not advisable to use the root username in MySQL to setup the databases. MOTECH will run on other operating systems but the commands required and external packages will change. The changes shouldn’t be drastic but they aren’t documented here.

Install and Configure Dependencies

MOTECH version 0.27 and prior depends on the following software:

Tomcat7

Java7 (OpenJDK or OracleJDK) OpenJDK installs as a dependency of Tomcat7

ActiveMQ

MySQL

MOTECH version 0.28 has upgraded to Java 8:

Tomcat7

Java8 (OpenJDK or Oracle JDK) Installed through a PPA because these versions were not supported in Ubuntu 14.04

ActiveMQ

MySQL

1. Install Java, Tomcat7, ActiveMQ and MySQL

   Skip this next code-block (java installation) if installing MOTECH v.0.27 and prior

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install -y openjdk-8-jdk
   

   sudo apt-get install -y tomcat7
   sudo apt-get install -y activemq mysql-server
   

   Note

   MySQL is going to ask you for a root password. You have to input it twice. Remember it because we’ll use this later.

2. Change memory allocation for catalina when it starts and the ownership of the tomcat7 directories

   #Note, you can change the memory allocation to anything, but we recommend at least 512m.

   sudo service tomcat7 stop
   echo 'CATALINA_OPTS="-Xms512m -Xmx512m"' | sudo tee --append /usr/share/tomcat7/bin/setenv.sh
   sudo chown -R tomcat7:tomcat7 /var/lib/tomcat7/ /usr/share/tomcat7/ /var/log/tomcat7/
   

3. Set JAVA_HOME in the default tomcat startup

   Skip this step if installing MOTECH v.0.27 and prior

   echo 'JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64"' | sudo tee --append /etc/default/tomcat7
   

4. Configure ActiveMQ

   ActiveMQ needs an enabled instance to run. Use the following command to create a symbolic link from instances-available to instances-enabled.

   sudo ln -s /etc/activemq/instances-available/main /etc/activemq/instances-enabled/main
   sudo sed -e 's/<broker /<broker schedulerSupport="true" /' -i /etc/activemq/instances-enabled/main/activemq.xml
   
   #Then start ActiveMQ
   sudo service activemq restart
   

Deploy MOTECH .war file

We have to deploy the MOTECH .war file from our Nexus repository. The following code uses curl to download the latest released version of the motech-platform-server to your home directory. If you would like to choose another version, please visit our release notes page, which has all of the artefacts for download.

After downloading the appropriate .war file, you must then copy the file to the tomcat webapps folder so it will automatically deploy. Once downloaded, we start tomcat7.

sudo curl -L "http://nexus.motechproject.org/service/local/artifact/maven/redirect?r=releases&g=org.motechproject&a=motech-platform-server&v=RELEASE&e=war" -o ~/motech-platform-server.war
sudo cp ~/motech-platform-server.war /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/motech-platform-server.war
sudo chown -R tomcat7:tomcat7 /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/motech-platform-server.war
sudo service tomcat7 start

Navigate to http://localhost:8080/motech-platform-server

Complete the Bootstrap Form

You will be redirected to the bootstrap form the first time. Complete the form by clicking the ‘use’ button under each field. The MySQL username is ‘root’ and password is what you entered during the MySQL installation.

Once complete, test the MySQL connection by clicking the ‘Verify SQL Connection’ button. Then, click ‘Continue’

Complete Startup Settings

The MOTECH startup settings screen asks you to choose a language and select a login mode. Choose ‘Repository’ to create a new admin username and password.

You will be redirected to the MOTECH login screen where you enter the admin username and password you just created and your installation is complete.