This document provides an overview of the CGSpace technical stack, which is based on DSpace. It discusses the key components including Nginx as the web server, Tomcat as the application server, PostgreSQL for metadata storage, and the Ubuntu operating system. It describes the Git-based development workflow using branches on GitHub for testing and deploying changes to the production and development instances.

1. CGSpace Technical Overview
Alan Orth
IITA/AfricaRice CGSpace Training
Ibadan, Nigeria, 19 October 2015

2. What is DSpace?
Java!
Relies heavily on XML and XSL
Web interfaces are written in XSLT and CSS (or
JSP, but eww!)
Build process uses maven and ant
Roughly follows semantic versioning (aka semver),
aka: MAJOR.MINOR
Current version is 5.3, with 5.4 coming soon

3. CGSpace Technology Stack
NGINX HTTP server
●TLS termination, SPDY, redirects, virtual hosts
Tomcat servlet engine
●Runs DSpace, bound to localhost
PostgreSQL database server
Ubuntu 14.04 GNU/Linux OS
●Long-term support release, good mix of stable / new

4. CGSpace Technology Stack
NGINX
Tomcat
https://cgspace.cgiar.org
http://localhost
PostgreSQLhttp://localhost
HTTP, virtual
hosting, redirects
Java application
server
Metadata, users,
etc

5. Nginx (“Engine X”)
●High-performance web server
●Much easier to do things like redirects, set HTTP
headers, virtual hosting (domains, ports, etc)
●Provides more robust TLS (HTTPS) support
●Gives us SPDY/HTTP2!
●Serves static files like CSS, JS, and images directly
from the disk—so we can send file modified time
and gzip compress!

6. Nginx Configuration
●Nginx from official nginx.org repository (distro
version is too old)
●Config is in /etc/nginx
●Strong TLS cipher suites ("forward secret")
●Redirect almost all requests to TLS (except RSS,
because Google Feedburner is lame)

7. Tomcat Configuration
Latest Tomcat 7 in Ubuntu 14.04
Config in /etc/tomcat7
JAVA_OPTS are in /etc/default/tomcat7
(memory settings!)
Runs as tomcat7 user
Bind on localhost interfaces only (security and
peace of mind)
Get all requests from nginx with Host header
intact

8. Upstream Git Branches
master
Development on
master branch
Once a year a new
major release is
branched (eg, 5_x)
New minor releases
are tagged on
branches (eg, 5.4)

9. CGSpace Git Branches
Don’t worry about upstream master!
We base 5_x-prod on the 5_x branch
We merge point releases into 5_x-prod
Develop in “topic” branches, ie 5_x-iita-theme
Short-lived 5_x-dev branch for testing all changes
5_X
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4

10. “CGSpace”
nginx 1.8
Runs 5_x-prod branch
8GB RAM, 6CPU
Production and Development
“DSpace Test”
nginx 1.9
Runs 5_x-dev branch
4GB RAM, 4CPU
All changes tested on DSpace Test first,
deployed on CGSpace every 1–2 weeks

11. https://github.com/ilri/DSpace
Open Source Workflow on GitHub

12. Open Source Workflow on GitHub
Keep your 5_x-prod 100% in sync with ILRI
Develop your changes in topic branches
Push code to your fork on GitHub
Make “Pull Requests” against ILRI’s 5_x-prod

13. Preparation
Sign up for GitHub
Fork the ILRI DSpace repository:
https://github.com/ilri/DSpace

14. Setup VirtualBox Appliance
Install 64-bit VirtualBox
Import DSpace 5 appliance
Boot it
Wait a minute or two for Tomcat to start
Check DSpace:
http://dspace.127.0.0.1.nip.io:8080

15. This presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work for non-commercial purposes,
provided credit is given to ILRI.
better lives through livestock
ilri.org
Box 30709, Nairobi 00100, Kenya
Phone +254 20 422 3000
Fax +254 20 422 3001
Email ilri-kenya@cgiar.org
ilri.org
better lives through livestock
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