Installing Alfresco Process Services as ADF service layer

[alfresco]

This content is part of the Alfresco ADF getting started tutorials and describes how to install Alfresco Process Services as Alfresco ADF service layer. Installing Activiti BPM as Alfresco ADF service layer is quite similar to a standard installation, except for few setup and details. There are two main tasks to follow to set up an Activiti BPM service layer:

1. Installing Activiti 1.5.2.1+. In this task you are going to install a standard configuration of Activiti (from version 1.5.2.1 or more recent).

2. Enabling CORS on Activiti BPM. In this task you are going to set up the Activiti installation to admit requests from outside the domain.

Below you can find a “step by step” description of each task, assuming you are familiar with Activiti BPM and its fundamentals.

1. Installing Alfresco Process Services 1.5.2.1+

In this task you are going to set up a standard instance of Activiti BPM, paying attention to what is described below:

• Activiti Enterprise version 1.5.2.1 or newer has to be used.

The detailed description of the installation of Activiti BPM is out of the scope of this tutorial, considering that the official documentation is complete for Enterprise and Community. If you need support on the Activiti standard installation, please refer to the Community Portal dedicated to the Activiti BPM.

By default Alfresco ECM and Activiti BPM are installed using the port 8080. If you plan to install both the softwares on the same server, please ensure you change one of them to prevent conflicts. For this tutorial, we suggest to maintain Alfresco ECM running on port 8080 and Activiti BPM running on port 9999.

Using the Alfresco ADF v1.1.0 LA, if both Activiti BPM and Alfresco ECM are used, is requested to have the same credentials for the two systems. With “same credentials” we mean the same users available in Activiti and Alfresco, with the same username and password. For this purpose, we suggest to create a new user with Administrator’s permits into Alfresco with username admin@app.activiti.com and admin as password (the default Administrator credentials in Activiti).

2. Enabling CORS on Activiti BPM

Now that Activiti is up and running, we need to tell to the server to accept requests coming from the ADF application. The future ADF application will be installed on a different web server and by definition, it will be considered another domain. This can be done by enabling CORS, not admitted by default.

To enable CORS in Activiti, please follow the steps described below.

• Locate the activiti-app.properties file in the following path <activiti>tomcat/lib.

• Add the following configuration settings to the activiti-app.properties file.

cors.enabled=true
security.csrf.disabled=true

• Save the file and restart Activiti.

Please note that, by default, the CORS filter will allow any origin. This setup should be developed differently in a production environment, according with the best practices in terms of security over internet.

Next task >>