How to install CKAN 2.x on CentOS 7 - ckan/ckan GitHub Wiki

Install and activate the CentOS Release Repository

yum install centos-release

Update and reboot your system

yum update
shutdown -r now

Install wget and policycoreutils-python, which we'll need later.

yum install wget policycoreutils-python

Install and activate the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) Repository (it may already be installed)

rpm -Uvh http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/7/x86_64/e/epel-release-7.5.noarch.rpm

Install the packages

yum install xml-commons git subversion mercurial postgresql-server postgresql-devel \
postgresql python-devel libxslt libxslt-devel libxml2 libxml2-devel python-virtualenv \
gcc gcc-c++ make java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel java-1.6.0-openjdk redis tomcat tomcat-webapps \
tomcat-admin-webapps xalan-j2 unzip policycoreutils-python mod_wsgi httpd 

First, create a CKAN User. The ckan user is created with a shell of /sbin/nologin and a home directory of /usr/lib/ckan to mirror what is shown in the CKAN Deployment documentation.

useradd -m -s /sbin/nologin -d /usr/lib/ckan -c "CKAN User" ckan

Open the newly created directory up for read access so that the content will eventually be able to be served out via httpd.

chmod 755 /usr/lib/ckan

Switch to the ckan user.

su -s /bin/bash - ckan

Install an isolated Python environment, called default, to host CKAN from.

virtualenv --no-site-packages default

Activate the newly installed Python environment.

. default/bin/activate

Check for the latest release version of CKAN: https://github.com/ckan/ckan/blob/master/CHANGELOG.rst

Download and install CKAN. For example, for version 2.4.1:

 pip install --ignore-installed -e git+https://github.com/okfn/[email protected]#egg=ckan

Download and install the necessary Python modules to run CKAN into the isolated Python environment

pip install --ignore-installed -r default/src/ckan/pip-requirements-docs.txt

Return back to root user by typing exit or pressing Ctrl + D.

Enable PostgreSQL to start on system boot

systemctl enable postgresql.service

Initialize the PostgreSQL database

service postgresql initdb

Edit /var/lib/pgsql/data/pg_hba.conf so it will accept passwords for login while still allowing the local postgres user to manage via ident login. The relevant changes to pg_hba.conf are as follows:

local	all         postgres                          ident
local   all         all                               md5
# IPv4 local connections:
host    all         all         127.0.0.1/32          md5
# IPv6 local connections:
host    all         all         ::1/128               md5

Start PostgreSQL

systemctl start postgresql.service

Switch to postgres user

su - postgres

List existing databases:

psql -l

Check that the encoding of databases is UTF8, if not internationalisation may be a problem. Since changing the encoding of PostgreSQL may mean deleting existing databases, it is suggested that this is fixed before continuing with the CKAN install.

Next you’ll need to create a database user if one doesn’t already exist. Create a new PostgreSQL database user called ckan_default, and enter a password for the user when prompted. You’ll need this password later

createuser -S -D -R -P ckan_default

Create a new PostgreSQL database, called ckan_default, owned by the database user you just created.

createdb -O ckan_default ckan_default -E utf-8

Exit the postgres user environment with Ctrl + D or exit

Switch back to root user and create a directory to contain the site’s config files:

mkdir -p /etc/ckan/default
chown -R ckan /etc/ckan/

Switch to ckan user and create a CKAN config file:

su -s /bin/bash - ckan
. default/bin/activate
cd /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan
paster make-config ckan /etc/ckan/default/development.ini

Edit the development.ini file in a text editor, changing the following options:

sqlalchemy.url = postgresql://ckan_default:pass@localhost/ckan_default
ckan.site_id = default
solr_url = http://127.0.0.1:8080/solr/ckan-schema-2.3

Exit from running as the ckan user with Ctrl + D or exit.

CKAN can not use the latest version of Apache SOLR and requires version 1.4.1.

Download and extract Apache SOLR

curl http://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/1.4.1/apache-solr-1.4.1.tgz | tar xzf -

Create directories to hold multiple SOLR cores.

mkdir -p /usr/share/solr/core0 /usr/share/solr/core1 /var/lib/solr/data/core0 \
/var/lib/solr/data/core1 /etc/solr/core0 /etc/solr/core1

Copy the Apache SOLR war to the desired location.

cp apache-solr-1.4.1/dist/apache-solr-1.4.1.war /usr/share/solr

Copy the example Apache SOLR configuration to the core0 directory.

cp -r apache-solr-1.4.1/example/solr/conf /etc/solr/core0

Edit the configuration file, /etc/solr/core0/conf/solrconfig.xml, as follows:

<dataDir>${dataDir}</dataDir>

Copy the core0 configuration to core1.

cp -r /etc/solr/core0/conf /etc/solr/core1

Create a symbolic link between the configurations in /etc and /usr.

ln -s /etc/solr/core0/conf /usr/share/solr/core0/conf
ln -s /etc/solr/core1/conf /usr/share/solr/core1/conf

Remove the provided schema from the two configured cores and link the schema files in the CKAN source.

rm -f /etc/solr/core0/conf/schema.xml
ln -s /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan/ckan/config/solr/schema.xml /etc/solr/core0/conf/schema.xml
rm -f /etc/solr/core1/conf/schema.xml
ln -s /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan/ckan/config/solr/schema-1.4.xml /etc/solr/core1/conf/schema.xml

Create a new file, called /etc/tomcat/Catalina/localhost/solr.xml, with the following contents:

<Context docBase="/usr/share/solr/apache-solr-1.4.1.war" debug="0" privileged="true" allowLinking="true" crossContext="true">
    <Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/usr/share/solr" override="true" />
</Context>

Note: Check that the directory is /etc/tomcat and not /etc/tomcat6.

Create a new file, called /usr/share/solr/solr.xml, with the following contents:

<solr persistent="true" sharedLib="lib">
    <cores adminPath="/admin/cores">
        <core name ="ckan-schema-2.3" instanceDir="core0"> <property name="dataDir" value="/var/lib/solr/data/core0" /></core>
        <core name="ckan-schema-1.4" instanceDir="core1"> <property name="dataDir" value="/var/lib/solr/data/core1" /></core>
    </cores>
</solr>

Make tomcat the owner of the Solr directories.

chown -R tomcat:tomcat /usr/share/solr /var/lib/solr

Configure Tomcat to start on system boot.

systemctl enable tomcat.service

Start Tomcat

systemctl start tomcat.service

If Tomcat installation was successfull, you may find its web interface at:

 http://www.yourdomain.com:8080/

If Apache Solr installation was successfull, you may find its web interface at:

 http://www.yourdomain.com:8080/solr

Switch back to running as the ckan user, activate the isolated Python environment, and change to the CKAN source directory.

su -s /bin/bash - ckan
. default/bin/activate
cd default/src/ckan

Initialize the CKAN database.

paster db init -c /etc/ckan/default/development.ini

You may see a few errors but then Initialising DB: SUCCESS.

Follow the instructions in Setting up the DataStore to create the required databases and users, set the right permissions and set the appropriate values in your CKAN config file.

Note: You'll need to run the paster --plugin=ckan datastore set-permissions -c /etc/ckan/default/development.ini command as root user, since we've not set a sudo password for the ckan user.

Note: Setting up the DataStore is optional.

You should still be in the python virtualenv for this step, if not, do the following:

su -s /bin/bash - ckan
. default/bin/activate
cd default/src/ckan

who.ini (the Repoze.who configuration file) needs to be accessible in the same directory as your CKAN config file, so create a symlink to it:

ln -s /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan/who.ini /etc/ckan/default/who.ini

Create your site’s WSGI script file /etc/ckan/default/apache.wsgi with the following contents:

import os
activate_this = os.path.join('/usr/lib/ckan/default/bin/activate_this.py')
execfile(activate_this, dict(__file__=activate_this))

from paste.deploy import loadapp
config_filepath = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), 'development.ini')
from paste.script.util.logging_config import fileConfig
fileConfig(config_filepath)
application = loadapp('config:%s' % config_filepath)

The modwsgi Apache module will redirect requests to your web server to this WSGI script file. The script file then handles those requests by directing them on to your CKAN instance (after first configuring the Python environment for CKAN to run in).

Exit the ckan user with Ctrl + D or exit.

Create your site’s Apache config file at /etc/httpd/conf.d/ckan_default.conf, with the following contents:

WSGISocketPrefix /var/run/wsgi
<VirtualHost 0.0.0.0:80>
    ServerName default.yourdomain.com
    ServerAlias www.default.yourdomain.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /etc/ckan/default/apache.wsgi

    # Pass authorization info on (needed for rest api).
    WSGIPassAuthorization On

    # Deploy as a daemon (avoids conflicts between CKAN instances).
    WSGIDaemonProcess ckan_default display-name=ckan_default processes=2 threads=15

    WSGIProcessGroup ckan_default

    # Add this to avoid Apache show error: 
    # "AH01630: client denied by server configuration: /etc/ckan/default/apache.wsgi" 
    <Directory /etc/ckan/default>
    Options All
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/ckan_default.error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/ckan_default.custom.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Replace default.ckanhosted.com and www.default.ckanhosted.com with the domain name for your site.

This tells the Apache modwsgi module to redirect any requests to the web server to the WSGI script that you created above. Your WSGI script in turn directs the requests to your CKAN instance.

Enable httpd to start on system boot

chkconfig httpd on

Start httpd

service httpd start

Edit the file /etc/sysconfig/iptables by inserting the following line near the middle of the file:

-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

Restart iptables

service iptables restart

Start your web browser

 systemctl start httpd.service

and head to your domain and you should see CKAN running.

For customization, CKAN is located at /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan/ckan