Checklists

You are reading the Adobe Experience Manager 5.6.1 version of Checklists.
This documentation is also available for the following versions: AEM 5.6 CQ 5.5 CQ 5.4 CQ 5.3

The following lists highlight some specific high-level points; the lists are not meant to be exhaustive but aim to give some pointers and provide a basis for your own checklists. This checklist deals with CQ issues, and should be considered together with your own System Administration tasks.

Preparation and Installation

Check	Considerations	Comments / Actions
Read First	Support Platforms	See Supported Platforms.
	Prerequisites	See Prequisites.
	Sizing	See Minimum Sizing Requirements.
	Security Considerations	See Security Checklist.
	Performance Considerations	See Performance Optimization.
New Installation or Upgrade?	From CQ 5.2.1, 5.3 or 5.4?	See Upgrading to CQ 5.5.
New Installation or Upgrade?	From Communiqué 3 or 4?	See Upgrading from Communiqué 3 or 4.
Default or Custom Installation?	Will you be using a third party application server?	See How to install CQ5 with an Application Server.
	Will you be using the default port number?	See Changing the Port Number by Renaming the File.
	Will you be using the default persistence manager (TarPM)?	See Persistance Managers and Databases. and Configuring a Persistence Manager other than Tar PM.
	Do you want to start CQ WCM as a Windows Service?	See Installing and Starting CQ5 WCM as a Windows Service.
Do you want to use the Dispatcher?		See Dispatcher.
CQ is not running as root.	Security	Start CQ using another account.
Project specific configuration.	The method of deploying your project specific configuration (for example, packages) has been tested.	May include: applications designs content user accounts group accounts amongst others.

Configuration

Check	Considerations	Comments / Actions
Do you need the geometrixx website?		If not needed Geometrixx can be removed.
Do you need all the modules that are installed as standard?		If not needed these can be removed.
Is the root mapping correct? The default root mappings are: author: /libs/wcm/content/projects.html publish: /content	On author this can be used to select the touch-optimized or classic UI.	If necessary update these as required. See CQ Root Mapping.
Do you need the Apache Sling Java Script Handler to be in development mode?	When activated a check is made for modifications every time a Java script is accessed.	If not this can be deactivated. See the Development Mode parameter for the Apache Sling Java Script Handler.
Do you need the Apache Sling JSP Script Handler to be in development mode?	When activated a check is made for modifications every time a JSP script is accessed. When deactivated a JSP script is compiled once and no checks are made for modifications.	If not this can be deactivated. See the Development Mode parameter for the Apache Sling JSP Script Handler.
Configuration of the replication agents.	Standard agents are included, but you will need to check whether these are suitable for your instance.	See Replication Agents.
Default accounts and passwords need to be changed.	Security Checklist	See Change Default Passwords.
WebDAV should be disabled.	Security Checklist	See Disable WebDAV.
Access via the Dispatcher should be restricted to the minimum necessary.	Security Checklist	See Restrict Access via the Dispatcher.
Cross-scripting	Security Checklist	See Check for Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).
Dispatcher is enabled and correctly configured for caching.		See Dispatcher.
Do you want to configure a cluster?		See Configuring Clusters.
Will you be using LDAP?		See Configuring LDAP.
Will you need to repeat the installation and configuration? For example, during development and testing, or over multiple servers?	Configurations can be made in the repository and exported as packages. However, two configurations are not saved in the repository, therefore the configuration files should be saved.	Explicitly save your OSGi configurations in the repository, then create a package for transfer to a new instance. Or take a copy of the appropriate configuration files.
Performance Considerations		Performance Optimization.
Expiration on static objects has been properly configured.		See Expiration of Static Objects.
Versioning has been configured as required on author and publish.	Space and performance.	See Configuring Version Purging.
Log level has been set to ERROR on all production systems.	You need to be informed of any errors the system might be generating. You also need to ensure that the level is not DEBUG as this will impact space and performance.	See Logging.
The number of open files in the java process is being monitored; adjust the limit to the current needs + 100%.		See Open Files in the Java Process.
If using TarPM, the settings have been optimized.	Space and performance.	See Configuring the TarPM.
Verbose garbage collection is enabled; logs are retained for a defined period of time and easily accessible.	Space and performance.	See Running Garbage Collection.
Java and system dumps are retained and accessible.	In the case of problems you will need such information to help analyze the situation.	See creating Java Heap Dumps on out of memory errors. See your operating system for documentation about generating core dumps to file.

Maintenance

Check	Considerations	Comment / Actions
Backup plan.		See how to Backup your CQ Instance.
Disaster recovery plan.	Your company's disaster recovery guidelines.
An error tracking system is available for reporting problems.	For example, bugzilla, jira, or one of many others.
File systems are being monitored.	The CRX repository will "freeze" if there is insufficient free disk space. It will resume once space becomes available.	"ERROR LowDiskSpaceBlocker" messages can be seen in the log file when free space becomes low.
Log files are being monitored.
System monitoring is (constantly) running in the background.	Including CPU, memory, disk and network usage. Using for example, iostat / vmstat / perfmon.	Logged data is visualized and can be used for tracking performance problems. Raw data is also accessible.
CQ performance is being monitored.	Including Request Counters to monitor traffic levels.	If a significant, or long term loss, of performance is seen, detailed investigation should be made.
You are monitoring your Replication Agents.

A key factor here is that to recognize potential issues you need to know how your systems looks and behaves under normal conditions. This is best done by monitoring the system and collecting information over a period of time.

Troubleshooting

Check

Considerations

Comment / Actions

Self-help.

See:

Daycare Tickets.

Information required for creating Daycare Tickets has been collected.

Including:

Account details
CQ versions
Hotfixes installed
Operating System and version
Java heap dumps
Core dumps
Log files

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