Technical Requirements

This chapter covers the technical issues of:

Supported Platforms

This document lists the supported client and server platforms for CRX. Day provides several levels of support, both for our recommended configurations and for other configurations. Please refer to the Installation Guide for detailed instructions and notes for installing and runninng CRX on the supported platforms.

Recommended Configurations

Day recommends these configurations and provides full support as part of the standard software maintenance agreement. The configuration is tested and known bugs are fixed. Issues that are submitted by customers in the form of a fully qualified request are addressed in future releases.

A: Supported Day provides full product support and maintenance for this configuration. This configuration is covered by Day's quality assurance process.

Note

Note: In previous releases, Day used three different support levels for the fully supported configurations (A,B,C). Currently the supported platforms are all on level A.

Configurations with Optional Support Agreement

Day expects these platforms to work. Support is available as an optional add on to the standard software maintenance agreement.

D: Validated, optional support available This configuration has been validated by Day or a third party, or it is or has been in productive use. This platform is only sporadically tested by Day or third parties. Day offers optional platform support service agreements for this configuration.
E: Expected to work The configuration is expected to work, and there are no reports to the contrary. Day offers optional platform support service agreements for this configuration.

Unsupported Configurations

Z: Not supported The configuration is not supported. Day does not make any statements about whether the configuration works and does not support it.

Server Platforms

CRX works with the following server platforms:
Windows Server 2008 A: Supported
Windows 2003 A: Supported
Windows XP A: Supported
Solaris 10 A: Supported
Solaris 9 A: Supported
RedHat Linux Kernel 2.6 A: Supported
HP-UX 11 A: Supported
IBM AIX 5.3 A: Supported
Windows 2000 D: Validated, optional support available
Solaris 8 D: Validated, optional support available
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 D: Validated, optional support available
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 D: Validated, optional support available
RedHat Linux Kernel 2.4 D: Validated, optional support available
IBM AIX 6.1 D: Validated, optional support available
IBM AIX 5.2 D: Validated, optional support available
Mac OS X D: Validated, optional support available
SGI IRIX 6.5 D: Validated, optional support available

Cloud Computing Environments

CRX works with virtual machines in the following cloud computing environments:

Amazon EC2
Running non-clustered CRX

CRX running in virtual machines in the cloud computing environments is supported in compliance with Day's support policy for all other system components (operating system, JVM, application server, etc).

Java Runtime Environments

CRX works with the following Java Runtime Environments (JREs):
Sun JRE 1.6.x A: Supported
Sun JRE 1.5.x A: Supported
IBM JRE 1.5 A: Supported
HP-UX JRE 1.5 A: Supported
Sun/IBM/HP-UX JRE 1.4.2 Z: Not supported

Supported Client Platforms

CRX works with the following client platforms.

  • CRX is tested with the latest Mozilla Firefox version available. All browsers are tested with the default set of plug-ins and add-ons. Some plug-ins and add-ons may interfere with CRX.

Microsoft Windows XP

Browser Support Level 
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 A: Supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 A: Supported
Mozilla Firefox 3.x A: Supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 D: Validated, optional support available.

Microsoft Windows Vista

Browser Support Level 
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 A: Supported
Mozilla Firefox 3.x A: Supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 D: Validated, optional support available.

Microsoft Windows 2000

Browser Support Level 
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 D: Validated, optional support available
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 D: Validated, optional support available
Mozilla Firefox 3.x D: Validated, optional support available

Apple Macintosh OS X

Browser Support Level 
Mozilla Firefox 3.x A: Supported

Application Servers

CRX runs on the following application servers. You can run CRX without an application server, but you need a Servlet Engine. CRX ships with Day’s Servlet Engine, formerly known as CQSE, which you can use freely and which is fully supported.
CQSE 4 A: Supported
BEA WebLogic Server 10 A: Supported
IBM WebSphere 6 A: Supported
IBM WebSphere 5 D: Validated, optional support available
BEA WebLogic Server 9
D: Validated, optional support available
BEA WebLogic Server 8.1 D: Validated, optional support available
Apache Tomcat 5, 6 D: Validated, optional support available
JBoss Application Server 4, 5
D: Validated, optional support available
Sun ONE Application Server 8 D: Validated, optional support available
Oracle Application Server 9i D: Validated, optional support available
Apache Geronimo 2 D: Validated, optional support available
Jetty 4, 5, 6 D: Validated, optional support available
Sun GlassFish 2 E: Expected to work, optional support available

Caching/Load Balancing

The following platforms are supported for the Dispatcher, Day’s caching and load balancing solution:
Apache httpd 2.2 A: Supported
Apache httpd 2.0 A: Supported
MS IIS7 (Microsoft Internet Information Server) A: Supported
MS IIS6 (Microsoft Internet Information Server) A: Supported
MS IIS5 (Microsoft Internet Information Server) A: Supported
Apache httpd 1.3.x D: Validated, optional support available
Sun Java System Web Server 6 D: Validated, optional support available
Sun Java System Web Server 5 D: Validated, optional support available

Platform Notes

This section provides special notes and more detailed information about running CRX on certain platforms.

WebDAV Clients

Windows 2003

Windows 2003 with SP2 cannot connect to WebDAV. See Microsoft - Software Update for Web Folders (KB907306) for full details of the manual updates that need to be made.

Windows Vista

Windows Vista requires SP2 to connect to WebDAV.

To successfully connect with Vista SP2, basic authentication for webclients must be enabled. This requires a change in the windows registry to enable basic authentication on the client computer:

  1. Locate the registry subkey:
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
  2. Add the BasicAuthLevel registry entry to this subkey using a value of 2 or more.

See Microsoft Support KB 841215.

Java Runtime Environments

Note

Java Distributions. The CRX application requires only a Java Virtual Machine to run, which is provided by the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) distribution. Generally Day recommends using the Java Development Kit (JDK) distribution, which is a typical requirement of the Java application servers in which CRX runs. Both JRE and JDK distributions are a part of the Java Standard Edition (Java SE).

Note

Java Environment Suppliers. The IBM and HP Java environments are only supported on IBM and HP server platforms, respectively. For all non-IBM, non-HP platforms, the Sun JRE is supported.

Application Servers

Note

Servlet API Versions. CRX Launchpad web development environment, based on Apache Sling, requires a servlet engine supporting Servlet API version 2.4. All other components of CRX, including the JCR repository and CRX web application, also work with servlet engines supporting Servlet API version 2.3.

Note

Application Server Support. CRX is expected to work with any modern application servers/servlet engines (that support at least Servlet API 2.3), including popular open source products like Jetty, Apache Tomcat, Apache Geronimo or Sun GlassFish. Day recommends stable, non-deprecated versions of these application servers (information available on supplier websites). For production use, Day offers optional support for these platforms.

Installation Prerequisites

To install a CRX instance, you need the following:

  • JRE version 1.5 or higher (available at the Sun web site.) See Supported Platforms for detailed requirements regarding the JRE.
  • 400 MB free disk space in the deployment directory.
  • 128 MB minimum memory
  • The CRX quickstart.jar file

The prerequisites above state the minimum, which is needed to start install or start a default repository. The actual resource requirements differ vastly depending on the configuration, applications running on top of the repository, or executed use cases.

Please note that you might need to start the installer with customized memory settings if you have very little free memory, as the default Quickstart memory settings are configured to allow for more flexibility in deploying bigger content applications on top of the repository.

Note

Note: The JRE is not bundled with CRX. You can obtain JRE 1.5 or higher from the Sun web site.

Note

CRX Quickstart requires create and write privileges within the installation directory. Ensure that the user installing CRX has these privileges for the chosen directory.

CRX System Architecture

The CRX repository consists of two parts: 

  • A Web application that offers the JCR-compliant API and temporary data storage (in the form of the CRX session).
  • A persistent data storage, such as a database. By default, CRX uses the tar persistence manager.

Day recommends that you use the tar persistence manager, which is preferred. If you install the two parts on separate computers (for example if you use your central database server for persistent storage, or if you run Tar persistence manager on a networked storage device, like SAN or NAS), make sure that the CRX instance has excellent network access to the repository. Lags or elongated response times in the communication between the CRX instance and the persistent storage may cause severe performance issues.

Database

If you use a database persistence manager to store the CRX data in an external database (that is, a database on a server that runs independently from CRX), you need to set up the database before installing CRX. By default, CRX uses the tar persistence manager. If you need to configure a database persistence manager, see Custom Installation.


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