Installing from source code

System Requirements

GeoNetwork is a Java 8 application that runs as a servlet so the Java Development Kit (JDK) must be installed in order to build and run it. You can get a Java 8 JDK from your Linux distribution, [Oracle OpenJDK](http://openjdk.java.net/) or [AdoptOpenJDK](https://adoptopenjdk.net). Please keep in mind that [Oracle JDK](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads) Java 8 is no longer distributed for development, only testing purposes.

GeoNetwork is developed with Java 8. GeoNetwork should not be developed with newer versions, and won’t run at all with Java 7, 1.6 or earlier releases.

Being written in Java, GeoNetwork can run on any platform that supports Java, so it can run on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

Next, you need a servlet container. GeoNetwork comes with an embedded container ([Eclipse Jetty](https://www.eclipse.org/jetty/)) which is fast and well suited for most applications. If you need a stronger one, you can install Tomcat from the Apache Software Foundation (http://tomcat.apache.org). It provides load balancing, fault tolerance and other production features. If you work for an organisation, it is probable that you already use Tomcat. The tested version is 8.x.

Regarding storage, you need a Database Management System (DBMS) like Oracle, MySQL, Postgresql etc. GeoNetwork comes with an embedded DBMS (H2) which is used by default during installation. This DBMS can be used for small or desktop installations of no more than a few thousand metadata records with one or two users. If you have heavier demands then you should use a professional, stand alone DBMS.

GeoNetwork is not resource intensive and will not require a powerful machine. Good performance can be obtained with 1GB of RAM. The suggested amount is 2GB of RAM. For hard disk space, you have to consider the space required for the application itself (about 350 MB) and the space required for data, which can require 50 GB or more. A simple disk of 250 GB should be OK. You also need some disk space for the search index which is located in GEONETWORK_DATA_DIR/index (by default GEONETWORK_DATA_DIR is INSTALL_DIR/web/geonetwork/WEB_INF/data. However, even with a few thousand metadata records, the index is small so usually 500 MB of space is more than enough.

The software is run in different ways depending on the servlet container you are using:

  • Tomcat - GeoNetwork is available as a WAR file which you can put into the Tomcat webapps directory. Tomcat will deploy the WAR file when it is started. You can then use the Tomcat manager web application to stop/start GeoNetwork. You can also use the startup.* and shutdown.* scripts located in the Tomcat bin directory (.* means .sh or .bat depending on your OS) but if you have other web applications in the tomcat container, then they will also be affected.

  • Jetty - If you use the provided container you can use the scripts in GeoNetwork’s bin directory. The scripts are startup.* and shutdown.* and you must be inside the bin directory to run them. You can use these scripts just after installation.

Tools

The following tools are required to be installed to setup a development environment for GeoNetwork:

  • Java - Developing with GeoNetwork requires Java Development Kit (JDK) 1.8.

  • Maven 3.1.0+ - GeoNetwork uses [Maven](http://maven.apache.org/) to manage the build process and the dependencies. Once is installed, you should have the mvn command in your path (on Windows systems, you have to open a shell to check).

  • Git - GeoNetwork source code is stored and versioned in [a Git repository on Github](https://github.com/geonetwork/core-geonetwork). Depending on your operating system a variety of git clients are avalaible. Check in http://git-scm.com/downloads/guis for some alternatives. Good documentation can be found on the git website: http://git-scm.com/documentation and on the Github website https://help.github.com/.

  • Ant - GeoNetwork uses [Ant](http://ant.apache.org/) to build the installer. Version 1.6.5 works but any other recent version should be OK. Once installed, you should have the ant command in your path (on Windows systems, you have to open a shell to check).

  • Sphinx - To create the GeoNetwork documentation in a nice format [Sphinx](http://sphinx.pocoo.org/) is used.

  • (Optional) Python and closure - See [web-ui module documentation](/web-ui/) .

The quick way

Get GeoNetwork running - the short path:

Open your browser and check http://localhost:8080/geonetwork

How-to build ?

Check out source code

Clone the repository and build:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/geonetwork/core-geonetwork.git
cd core-geonetwork
mvn clean install -DskipTests

Submodules

GeoNetwork use submodules, these were initiziled by the --recursive option when cloning the repository.

If you missed using --recursive run the following:

cd core-geonetwork
git submodule init
git submodule update

Submodules are used to keep track of externals dependencies. It is necessary to init and update them after a branch change:

git submodule update --init

Remember to rebuild the application after updating external dependencies.

Build GeoNetwork

Once you checked out the code from Github repository, go inside the GeoNetwork’s root folder and execute the maven build command:

mvn clean install

If the build is successful you’ll get an output like:

.. code-block:: shell

[INFO] [INFO] ———————————————————————— [INFO] Reactor Summary: [INFO] ———————————————————————— [INFO] GeoNetwork opensource …………………………… SUCCESS [1.345s] [INFO] Caching xslt module …………………………….. SUCCESS [1.126s] [INFO] Jeeves modules …………………………………. SUCCESS [3.970s] [INFO] ArcSDE module (dummy-api) ……………………….. SUCCESS [0.566s] [INFO] GeoNetwork web client module …………………….. SUCCESS [23.084s] [INFO] GeoNetwork user interface module …………………. SUCCESS [15.940s] [INFO] Oaipmh modules …………………………………. SUCCESS [1.029s] [INFO] GeoNetwork domain ………………………………. SUCCESS [0.808s] [INFO] GeoNetwork core ………………………………… SUCCESS [6.426s] [INFO] GeoNetwork CSW server …………………………… SUCCESS [2.050s] [INFO] GeoNetwork health monitor ……………………….. SUCCESS [1.014s] [INFO] GeoNetwork harvesters …………………………… SUCCESS [2.583s] [INFO] GeoNetwork services …………………………….. SUCCESS [3.178s] [INFO] GeoNetwork Web module …………………………… SUCCESS [2:31.387s] [INFO] ———————————————————————— [INFO] ———————————————————————— [INFO] BUILD SUCCESSFUL [INFO] ———————————————————————— [INFO] Total time: 3 minutes 35 seconds [INFO] Finished at: Sun Oct 27 16:21:46 CET 2013

Your local maven repository now contain the GeoNetwork artifacts created ($HOME/.m2/repository/org/geonetwork-opensource).

Compilation options

Many Maven build options are available, for instance, you might like to use following options :

-- Skip test
$ mvn install -DskipTests

-- Offline use
$ mvn install -o

-- Build really fast with 2 threads per cpu core
$ mvn install -o -DskipTests -T 2C

Please refer to the maven documentation for any other options, [Maven: The Complete Reference](http://www.sonatype.com/books/mvnref-book/reference/public-book.html)

Maven Profiles

Maven profiles are used to enable additional build configuration.

Some components (eg. WFS feature indexing) of the application rely on an Elasticsearch instance. To enable those options, build the application with the `es` profile.

mvn clean install -Pes

Run embedded Jetty server

Maven comes with built-in support for Jetty via a [plug-in](http://docs.codehaus.org/display/JETTY/Maven+Jetty+Plugin)

To run GeoNetwork with the embedded Jetty server you have to change directory to the root of the web module, and then execute the following maven command:

.. code-block:: shell

mvn jetty:run -Penv-dev

After a moment, GeoNetwork should be accessible at: http://localhost:8080/geonetwork

For changes related to the user interface in the web-ui module or the metadata schemas in the schemas module, can be deployed in jetty executing the following maven command in the web module:

.. code-block:: shell

mvn process-resources