4/19/2018 How to install CKAN 2.4.

1 on CentOS 7 · ckan/ckan Wiki · GitHub

ckan / ckan

How to install CKAN 2.4.1 on CentOS 7

Facgure Team edited this page on Feb 12 · 9 revisions

Precondition Pages 82

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This guide is supposed that you have installed Java and python on your computer. For example, I
have installed Java 1.7 and python 2.7. Home

API
Step 1 Install basic package
CKAN and CMS Integration

Use the rpm -qa | grep selinux , rpm -q policycoreutils , and rpm -qa | grep setroubleshoot CKAN API Clients
commands to confirm that you have installed SELinux packages. If not, install it. CKAN High Availability

Verify that you have installed the following packages: selinux-policy-targeted, selinux-policy, CKAN hosting guidelines
libselinux, libselinux-python, libselinux-utils, policycoreutils, setroubleshoot, setroubleshoot-server,
CKAN Transformations
setroubleshoot-plugins, iptables-services.
Contrib and Tools
As the Linux root user, install the above packages you have not installed via the following
Contributions, Roadmap and
command:
Project Membership

Contributor policy and

yum install package-name
guidelines

Converters and Validators in

The following packages are optional: policycoreutils-gui, selinux-policy-devel, and mcstrans.
navl Schemas

Data dashboards
Step 2 Enable SELinux
Data quality
Use the /usr/sbin/getenforce or /usr/sbin/sestatus commands to check the status of SELinux. Dataset Classification: Orgs
The getenforce command returns Enforcing , Permissive , or Disabled . The getenforce command Types Groups Tags
returns Enforcing when SELinux is enabled (SELinux policy rules are enforced):
Dataset relationships

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# /usr/sbin/getenforce
Enforcing
Clone this wiki locally

If SELinux is disabled, you should enable it before install ckan. https://github.com/ckan/cka

Before SELinux is enabled, each file on the file system must be labeled with an SELinux context. Clone in Desktop
Before this happens, confined domains may be denied access, preventing your system from
booting correctly. To prevent this, configure ELINUX=permissive in /etc/selinux/config :

[root@localhost ~]# vi /etc/selinux/config

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
# enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
# permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
# disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=permissive
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
# targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
# mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

As the Linux root user, run the reboot command to restart the system. During the next boot, file
systems are labeled.
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Step 3 Install python package

The WSGI file in the 9th step need the paste.deploy and paste.script package of python. You
can verify via the following command:

# python
>>> from paste.deploy import loadapp
>>> from paste.script.util.logging_config import fileConfig

If it does not return error massage, you can do nothing. If it does and you have installed pip , you
can install the two packages via the following command:

pip install PasteDeploy

pip install PasteScript

Hint: The paste.deploy and paste.script are different from paste package. You can exit the
python environment with Ctrl+D or exit commond.

Now you can start to install CKAN!

1. Install the required packages

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 required 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-1.7.0-openjdk-devel java-1.7.0-openjdk tomcat tomcat-webapps \
tomcat-admin-webapps xalan-j2 unzip policycoreutils-python mod_wsgi httpd

2. Install CKAN
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.

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# 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

Modify the defaults and the current file context of the newly created directory such that it is able to
be served out via httpd.

# semanage fcontext --add --ftype - --type httpd_sys_content_t "/usr/lib/ckan(/.*)?"

# semanage fcontext --add --ftype d --type httpd_sys_content_t "/usr/lib/ckan(/.*)?"
# restorecon -vR /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

Download and install version 2.4.1 of CKAN.

(default)# pip install --ignore-installed -e git+https://github.com/okfn/ckan.git@ckan-

2.4.1#egg=ckan

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

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

Return back to root user by

(default)# exit()

or pressing Ctrl+D .

3. Configure PostgreSQL
Enable PostgreSQL to start on system boot

# chkconfig postgresql on

Initialize the PostgreSQL database

# service postgresql initdb

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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

# service postgresql start

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

4. Create a CKAN Configuration

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

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(default)# cd /usr/lib/ckan/default/src/ckan
(default)# 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_url = http://default.yourdomain.com
ckan.site_id = default
solr_url = http://127.0.0.1:8080/solr/ckan-schema

Replace pass with the password that you created in 3. Setup a PostgreSQL database above.
Replace http://default.yourdomain.com with the ckan.site_url that you want to use when update
file or other functions.

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

5. Setup Apache SOLR

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.

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# 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>

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" 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>

Set Permissions

Make tomcat the owner of the Solr directories.

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

Enable Tomcat

Configure Tomcat to start on system boot.

# chkconfig tomcat on

Start Tomcat

# service tomcat start

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

http://localhost:8080/

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

http://localhost:8080/solr/

6. Create the Database Tables

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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
(default)# cd default/src/ckan

Initialize the CKAN database.

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

You may see the output:

Initialising DB: SUCCESS.

This line should be the only output. If there is other output before it, you must find the error line
and find out the reason to fix it.

7. Setup the Datastore (Optional)

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.

8. Link to who.ini
You should still be in the python virtualenv for this step, if not, do the following:

# su -s /bin/bash - ckan
# . default/bin/activate
(default)# 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:

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

9. Create a WSGI file

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

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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 .

10. Create the Apache config file

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 http://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 Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
# Require for apache 2.4.6
Require all granted
</Directory>

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

Replace default.yourdomain.com and http://default.yourdomain.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.

And then edit /etc/hosts with command:

# vi /etc/hosts

Add a line to this file at last:

127.0.0.1 default.yourdomain.com

Replace the default.yourdomain.com with the domain name of your site you have just set in the
/etc/httpd/conf.d/ckan_default.conf .

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11. Configure Apache

Enable httpd to make network connections

# setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect 1

Enable httpd to start on system boot

# chkconfig httpd on

Start httpd

# service httpd start

12. Configure iptables

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

13. Connect to CKAN

Open your browser and head to your domain, you should see CKAN running. For example, my
domain is default.yourdomain.com .

14. Create sysadmin account

Back to your terminal and enter to python virtualenv.

# su -s /bin/bash - ckan
# . default/bin/activate
# (default)# paster --plugin=ckan sysadmin add admin --config=/etc/ckan/std/std.ini -c
/etc/ckan/default/development.ini

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