Install liferay framework and integrate with MySql or other database

I am asked to learn liferay,which is an open source portal framework, to make a demo as soon as possible. Unluckily, I have never heard of it before. have no choice, I have to google about it, go to the related forms I can found,etc.


The first problem I need to resolve is to install liferay with mysql.

how to Install liferay:
* go to http://www.liferay.com/web/guest/downloads/portal , and select one of the recommended bundle version 'liferay portal v5.2.3 Bundled with Tomcat 5.5' to download.

* unzip the downloaded file to folder c:/liferay-portal-sql-5.2.3,

then you got LIFERAY_HOME=c:/liferay-portal-sql-5.2.3 ,

TOMCAT_HOME=c:/liferay-portal-sql-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27

* set your JAVA_HOME correctly in your system

* if you have never set your CATALINA_BASE or CATALINA_HOME in your system environment, you can ignore this step, otherwise,

you need to set CATALINA_BASE=C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27 and CATALINA_HOME=C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27 in your system environment,which location is Control Panel - System - Advanced System Settings - Advanced tab - Environment Variables...

* run startup.bat in folder C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27/bin and welcome page will launch automatically. then you can login as admin to use default admin account 'test@liferay.com' and password 'test' to play it.

but this installation is to use default database HSQL, it is not good for development and production environment. so how to integrate with other database ? I take mysql as example to show you the steps.

how to integrate with MySql:

* download mysql database with the latest version ,such as v5.4 and later, do not waste your time to try v5.1 or earlier versions.

* go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/lportal/ to dowload liferay-portal-sql-5.2.3.zip .

* open script file create/create-mysql.sql in zip file liferay-portal-sql-5.2.3.zip and execute it in mysql , this script will create liferay database and insert initial data.

* put the mysql jdbc driver file, such as mysql-connector-java-5.1.7-bin.jar, to folder C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27/common/lib/ext.

* add a resource between and in the file C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27/conf/Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml, I paste the resource settings here.

<Resource name="jdbc/LiferayPool" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" url="jdbc:mysql://localhost/lportal?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8" username="root" password="" maxActive="20" maxIdle="30" maxWait="10000" />

take note I use default admin account root and empty password to login mysql.

* add a new config file portal-ext.properties in folder C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes ,and put a config item in this file.

jdbc.default.jndi.name=jdbc/LiferayPool

* run startup.bat in folder C:/liferay-portal-5.2.3/tomcat-5.5.27/bin , you will find liferay would access mysql database,rather than default HSQL database.