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Getting Started with the BEA WebLogic Portal

Contents

Overview

Running the Portal-in-a-Box

Setting Up a DBMS

Running with a DBMS

Creating a Portal

Appendix A - Installation Directory Structure

Appendix B - Jar Files

Overview

The BEA WebLogic Portal™ is used in conjunction with WebLogic Server 4.5.1. The JavaServer™ Pages (JSP) tag libraries, portal database, class files, and documentation for the BEA WebLogic Portal are distributed and installed by the BEA WebLogicAC setup program and scripts. This document describes the steps you should follow upon completion of the installation process.

When you install the BEA WebLogic Portal, a complete demo portal is set up for you and ready to run. For running the portal-in-a-box, see Running the Portal-in-a-Box.

For development and production systems, the BEA WebLogic Portal components require an SQL-based database to store the portal personalization data. A DBMS such as Oracle 8.0.5 database can be used to store this information. To set up a DBMS, see Setting up a DBMS.

You can run the demo portal using a DBMS but this option requires you to assemble the demo data using the Portal Administration Tool. For more information, see Creating a Portal Using the Demo Portal section of the Portal Administrator's Guide.

Running the Portal-in-a-Box

When you install the BEA WebLogic Portal, a complete demo portal is set up for you and ready to run. This portal-in-a-box uses the Cloudscape Database Management System (DBMS) to store the Portal Demo data. Use the portal-in-a-box to quick start your portal development.

To start the portal-in-a-box demo:

• Start the WebLogic server by executing the StartPortal command file in your installation directory.

• Open a web browser window.

• Enter the following demo portal page URL, http://hostname:port/exampleportal in your web browser where 'hostname' is the name of the host running your WebLogic Server, 'port' is the port number at which the WebLogic Server is listening for requests, and 'exampleportal' is the name of the Portal Service Manager servlet for the demo portal in the weblogic.properties file. The installed weblogic.properties file provides defaults for the port (7601) and the Portal Service Provider (exampleportal).

  Example,

  http://mybigbox:7601/exampleportal

Setting Up a DBMS

For development and production purposes, the BEA WebLogic Portal requires a DBMS with specific database configurations. The distribution includes several SQL scripts that create the initial database information.

Note: You must have a JDBC driver and have configured connection pools (EJB and JDBC pools) to access your database in the WebLogic Server.

To create a new Portal DBMS:

1. Create a new database user. For the current implementation, we have used a user name of 'personalization' and a password of 'personalization.'

2. Make sure the user has all the necessary permissions for creating and modifying tables, indices, etc.

3. Log in to an SQL tool, such as SQL Worksheet, and run the following scripts in the order presented here. These scripts are located in the directory install_dir\deploy\weblogic\oracle805\misc. Ignore 'not exist' errors and 'redundant index' messages.

   p13n.ddl

   create_portlet_definition.sql

   create_portlet_definition_index.sql

   create_app.sql

4. Update the DB_CLASSPATH environment variable within the setHome.bat (setHome.sh) in the installation bin/win32 (bin/solaris) directory to include your JDBC database drivers. Note: The DB_CLASSPATH is preset with hooks into the Cloudscape database. So change this environment variable to your DBMS JDBC database driver.

5. Configure your database connection pools.

   • Open the weblogic.properties file in your installation directory.

   • Change both the portal and jdbcPool connection pool properties to reflect your database configuration.

   Note: The properties file is preset with hooks into the Cloudscape database. So change the jdbc pool entries to reflect your database. For more information on the jdbc pools, see http://www.weblogic.com/docs/admindocs/properties.html#conpools.

Running with a DBMS

Once you have set up a DBMS as described in Setting Up a DBMS, you can begin running the BEA WebLogic Portal Server.

To start the server:

• Start the WebLogic server by executing the StartPortal command file in your installation directory.

You can now use the BEA WebLogic Portal Adminstration Tool to assemble the Demo Portal or assemble your own portal as described in Creating a Portal.

Creating a Portal

For more information on portals or portlets, refer to the following:

For information on creating a portal, see the Portal Administrator's Guide.

For information on building and running a Demo Portal, see the Creating a Portal Using the Demo Portal section of the Portal Administrator's Guide.

For information on creating a portlet application, see the Portlet Developer's Guide.

Appendix A - Installation Directory Structure

The following diagram shows the installation directory structured used in conjunction with the BEA WebLogic Portal.

Appendix B - Jar Files

The following table lists the installed jar files used by the BEA WebLogic Portal. These files can be found in the installation lib directory.

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