All Versions
- DSpace 7.x (Current Release)
- DSpace 8.x (Unreleased)
- DSpace 6.x (EOL)
- DSpace 5.x (EOL)
- More Versions...
Unreleased Documentation
This documentation is unreleased and still in development. It may describe features which are not yet released in DSpace.
Looking for another version? See all documentation
Try out DSpace before you install
If you'd like to quickly try out DSpace 8 before a full installation, see Try out DSpace 7 for instructions on a quick install via Docker.
As of version 7 (and later), the DSpace application is split into a "frontend" (User Interface) and a "backend" (Server API). Most institutions will want to install BOTH. However, you can decide whether to run them on the same machine or separate machines.
We recommend installing the Backend first, as the Frontend requires a valid Backend to run properly.
Make sure to install the JDK and not just the JRE
DSpace requires the full JDK (Java Development Kit) be installed, rather than just the JRE (Java Runtime Environment). So, please be sure that you are installing the full JDK and not just the JRE.
Prior versions of Java are not supported
Older versions of Java are unsupported. This includes JDK v11-v16. You MUST be running JDK v17+
We highly recommend running only Java LTS (Long Term Support) releases in Production, as non-LTS releases may not receive ongoing security fixes. As of this DSpace release, JDK 17 and JDK 21 are the two most recent Java LTS releases. As soon as the next Java LTS release is available, we will analyze it for compatibility with this release of DSpace. For more information on Java releases, see the Java roadmaps for Oracle and/or OpenJDK.
We recommend using the most recent version of Maven that you can, as newer releases may include performance improvements and security updates. We recommend avoiding any that are "end of life" per https://maven.apache.org/docs/history.html
Maven is necessary in the first stage of the build process to assemble the installation package for your DSpace instance. It gives you the flexibility to customize DSpace using the existing Maven projects found in the [dspace-source]/dspace/modules directory or by adding in your own Maven project to build the installation package for DSpace, and apply any custom interface "overlay" changes.
Maven can be downloaded from http://maven.apache.org/download.html It is also provided via many operating system package managers.
You can configure a proxy to use for some or all of your HTTP requests in Maven. The username and password are only required if your proxy requires basic authentication (note that later releases may support storing your passwords in a secured keystore‚ in the meantime, please ensure your settings.xml file (usually ${user.home}/.m2/settings.xml) is secured with permissions appropriate for your operating system).
Example:
<settings> . . <proxies> <proxy> <active>true</active> <protocol>http</protocol> <host>proxy.somewhere.com</host> <port>8080</port> <username>proxyuser</username> <password>somepassword</password> <nonProxyHosts>www.google.com|*.somewhere.com</nonProxyHosts> </proxy> </proxies> . . </settings>
Apache Ant is required for the second stage of the build process (deploying/installing the application). First, Maven is used to construct the installer ([dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-installer
), after which Ant is used to install/deploy DSpace to the installation directory.
Ant can be downloaded from the following location: http://ant.apache.org It is also provided via many operating system package managers.
postgresql.conf
: uncomment the line starting: listen_addresses = 'localhost'
. This is the default, in recent PostgreSQL releases, but you should at least check it.Then tighten up security a bit by editing pg_hba.conf
and adding this line:
host dspace dspace 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 md5
This should appear before any lines matching all
databases, because the first matching rule governs.
Solr 8.11.1 or above is recommended as all prior 8.x releases are vulnerable to CVE-2021-44228 (log4j critical vulnerability). If you must use a prior version of 8.x, make sure to add "-Dlog4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true" to your SOLR_OPTS environment variable, see https://solr.apache.org/security.html#apache-solr-affected-by-apache-log4j-cve-2021-44228
Solr 9 is not yet fully supported, but can be used provided that you make minor modification to the out-of-the-box "search/conf/solrconfig.xml" that comes with DSpace. See this below comment for details.
Make sure to install Solr with Authentication disabled (which is the default). DSpace does not yet support authentication to Solr (see https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/3169). Instead, we recommend placing Solr behind a firewall and/or ensuring port 8983 (which Solr runs on) is not available for public/anonymous access on the web. Solr only needs to be accessible to requests from the DSpace backend.
Solr can be obtained at the Apache Software Foundation site for Solr. You may wish to read portions of the quick-start tutorial to make yourself familiar with Solr's layout and operation. Unpack a Solr .tgz or .zip archive in a place where you keep software that is not handled by your operating system's package management tools, and arrange to have it running whenever DSpace is running. You should ensure that Solr's index directories will have plenty of room to grow. You should also ensure that port 8983 is not in use by something else, or configure Solr to use a different port.
If you are looking for a good place to put Solr, consider /opt
or /usr/local
. You can simply unpack Solr in one place and use it. Or you can configure Solr to keep its indexes elsewhere, if you need to – see the Solr documentation for how to do this.
It is not necessary to dedicate a Solr instance to DSpace, if you already have one and want to use it. Simply copy DSpace's cores to a place where they will be discovered by Solr. See below.
Tomcat is optional depending on the installation approach you choose
As of DSpace 8, two deployment options exist for the backend:
If you choose the first approach, Tomcat is required. If you choose the second, you no longer need to install Tomcat.
Older versions of Tomcat or Jetty are not supported
The DSpace backend can no longer be run on Tomcat 9 as it has been updated to Spring 6 / Spring Boot v3 to support Jakarta Enterprise Edition 9+.
If you are using a different servlet engine, you must ensure it is compatible with Jakarta EE 9+ (e.g. Jetty must be version 11 or later)
[dspace]
). There are a few common ways this may be achieved:One option is to specifically give the Tomcat user (often named "tomcat") ownership of the [dspace] directories, for example:
# Change [dspace] and all subfolders to be owned by "tomcat" chown -R tomcat:tomcat [dspace]
On Debian systems, you may also need to modify or override the "tomcat.service" file to specify the DSpace installation directory in the list of ReadWritePaths. For example:
# Replace [dspace] with the full path of your DSpace install ReadWritePaths=[dspace]
Modifications in [tomcat]/conf/server.xml : You also need to alter Tomcat's default configuration to support searching and browsing of multi-byte UTF-8 correctly. You need to add a configuration option to the <Connector> element in [tomcat]/config/server.xml: URIEncoding="UTF-8" e.g. if you're using the default Tomcat config, it should read:
<!-- Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080 --> <Connector port="8080" minSpareThreads="25" enableLookups="false" redirectPort="8443" connectionTimeout="20000" disableUploadTimeout="true" URIEncoding="UTF-8"/>
You may change the port from 8080 by editing it in the file above, and by setting the variable CONNECTOR_PORT in server.xml. You should set the URIEncoding even if you are running Tomcat behind a reverse proxy (Apache HTTPD, Nginx, etc.) via AJP.
Optionally, if you wish to record the geographic locations of clients in DSpace usage statistics records, you will need to install (and regularly update) one of the following:
geoipupdate
tool directly via their package manager. You will still need to configure your license key prior to usage.usage-statistics.dbfile
in your local.cfg
configuration file. usage-statistics.dbfile
in your local.cfg
configuration file. Create a DSpace operating system user (optional) . As noted in the prerequisites above, Tomcat (or Jetty, etc) must run as an operating system user account that has full read/write access to the DSpace installation directory (i.e. [dspace]
). Either you must ensure the Tomcat owner also owns [dspace]
, OR you can create a new "dspace" user account, and ensure that Tomcat also runs as that account:
useradd -m dspace
The choice that makes the most sense for you will probably depend on how you installed your servlet container (Tomcat/Jetty/etc). If you installed it from source, you will need to create a user account to run it, and that account can be named anything, e.g. 'dspace'. If you used your operating system's package manager to install the container, then a user account should have been created as part of that process and it will be much easier to use that account than to try to change it.
dspace-8.0
) or branch.Zip file. If you downloaded dspace-8.0.zip do the following:
unzip dspace-8.0.zip
.gz file. If you downloaded dspace-8.0.tar.gz do the following:
gunzip -c dspace-8.0.tar.gz | tar -xf -
For ease of reference, we will refer to the location of this unzipped version of the DSpace release as [dspace-source] in the remainder of these instructions. After unpacking the file, the user may wish to change the ownership of the dspace-8.x folder to the "dspace" user. (And you may need to change the group).
Create a dspace
database user (this user can have any name, but we'll assume you name it "dspace"). This is entirely separate from the dspace
operating-system user created above:
createuser --username=postgres --no-superuser --pwprompt dspace
You will be prompted (twice) for a password for the new dspace
user. Then you'll be prompted for the password of the PostgreSQL superuser (postgres
).
Create a dspace
database, owned by the dspace
PostgreSQL user. Similar to the previous step, this can only be done by a "superuser" account in PostgreSQL (e.g. postgres
):
createdb --username=postgres --owner=dspace --encoding=UNICODE dspace
You will be prompted for the password of the PostgreSQL superuser (postgres
).
Finally, you MUST enable the pgcrypto extension on your new dspace database. Again, this can only be enabled by a "superuser" account (e.g. postgres
)
# Login to the database as a superuser, and enable the pgcrypto extension on this database psql --username=postgres dspace -c "CREATE EXTENSION pgcrypto;"
The "CREATE EXTENSION" command should return with no result if it succeeds. If it fails or throws an error, it is likely you are missing the required pgcrypto extension (see Database Prerequisites above).
Alternative method: How to enable pgcrypto via a separate database schema. While the above method of enabling pgcrypto is perfectly fine for the majority of users, there may be some scenarios where a database administrator would prefer to install extensions into a database schema that is separate from the DSpace tables. Developers also may wish to install pgcrypto into a separate schema if they plan to "clean" (recreate) their development database frequently. Keeping extensions in a separate schema from the DSpace tables will ensure developers would NOT have to continually re-enable the extension each time you run a "./dspace database clean
". If you wish to install pgcrypto in a separate schema here's how to do that:
# Login to the database as a superuser psql --username=postgres dspace # Create a new schema in this database named "extensions" (or whatever you want to name it) CREATE SCHEMA extensions; # Enable this extension in this new schema CREATE EXTENSION pgcrypto SCHEMA extensions; # Grant rights to call functions in the extensions schema to your dspace user GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA extensions TO dspace; # Append "extensions" on the current session's "search_path" (if it doesn't already exist in search_path) # The "search_path" config is the list of schemas that Postgres will use SELECT set_config('search_path',current_setting('search_path') || ',extensions',false) WHERE current_setting('search_path') !~ '(^|,)extensions(,|$)'; # Verify the current session's "search_path" and make sure it's correct SHOW search_path; # Now, update the "dspace" Database to use the same "search_path" (for all future sessions) as we've set for this current session (i.e. via set_config() above) ALTER DATABASE dspace SET search_path FROM CURRENT;
[dspace-source]/dspace/config/local.cfg
configuration file. You may wish to simply copy the provided [dspace-source]/dspace/config/local.cfg.EXAMPLE
. This local.cfg file can be used to store any configuration changes that you wish to make which are local to your installation (see local.cfg configuration file documentation). ANY setting may be copied into this local.cfg file from the dspace.cfg or any other *.cfg file in order to override the default setting (see note below). For the initial installation of DSpace, there are some key settings you'll likely want to override. Those are provided in the [dspace-source]/dspace/config/local.cfg.EXAMPLE
. (NOTE: Settings followed with an asterisk (*) are highly recommended, while all others are optional during initial installation and may be customized at a later time.)dspace.dir*
- must be set to the [dspace] (installation) directory (NOTE: On Windows be sure to use forward slashes for the directory path! For example: "C:/dspace
" is a valid path for Windows.)dspace.server.url*
- complete URL of this DSpace backend (including port and any subpath). Do not end with '/'. For example: http://localhost:8080/serverdspace.ui.url*
- complete URL of the DSpace frontend (including port and any subpath). REQUIRED for the REST API to fully trust requests from the DSpace frontend. Do not end with '/'. For example: http://localhost:4000dspace.name
- Human-readable, "proper" name of your server, e.g. "My Digital Library".solr.server
* - complete URL of the Solr server. DSpace makes use of Solr for indexing purposes. http://localhost:8983/solr unless you changed the port or installed Solr on some other host.default.language -
Default language for all metadata values (defaults to "en_US")db.url* -
The full JDBC URL to your database (examples are provided in the local.cfg.EXAMPLE
)
db.driver* -
Which database driver to use for PostgreSQL (default should be fine)
db.dialect* -
Which database dialect to use for PostgreSQL (default should be fine)db.username
* - the database username used in the previous step.db.password
* - the database password used in the previous step.db.schema
* - the database schema to use (examples are provided in the local.cfg.EXAMPLE)mail.server
- fully-qualified domain name of your outgoing mail server.mail.from.address
- the "From:" address to put on email sent by DSpace.feedback.recipient
- mailbox for feedback mail.mail.admin
- mailbox for DSpace site administrator.alert.recipient
- mailbox for server errors/alerts (not essential but very useful!)registration.notify
- mailbox for emails when new users register (optional)
Your local.cfg file can override ANY settings from other *.cfg files in DSpace
The provided local.cfg.EXAMPLE
only includes a small subset of the configuration settings available with DSpace. It provides a good starting point for your own local.cfg
file.
However, you should be aware that ANY configuration can now be copied into your local.cfg
to override the default settings. This includes ANY of the settings/configurations in:
[dspace]/config/dspace.cfg
)[dspace]/config/modules/*.cfg
files)[dspace-src]/dspace-server-webapp/src/main/resources/application.properties
)Individual settings may also be commented out or removed in your local.cfg
, in order to re-enable default settings.
See the Configuration Reference section for more details.
DSpace Directory: Create the directory for the DSpace backend installation (i.e. [dspace]
). As root (or a user with appropriate permissions), run:
mkdir [dspace] chown dspace [dspace]
(Assuming the dspace UNIX username.)
Build the Installation Package: As the dspace UNIX user, generate the DSpace installation package.
cd [dspace-source] mvn package
Install DSpace Backend: As the dspace UNIX user, install DSpace to [dspace]
:
cd [dspace-source]/dspace/target/dspace-installer ant fresh_install
To see a complete list of build targets, run: ant help
The most likely thing to go wrong here is the test of your database connection. See the Common Installation Issues Section below for more details.
Initialize your Database: While this step is optional (as the DSpace database should auto-initialize itself on first startup), it's always good to verify one last time that your database connection is working properly. To initialize the database run:
[dspace]/bin/dspace database migrate
[dspace]/webapps/server
). You need to deploy this webapp into your Servlet Container (e.g. Tomcat). Generally, there are two options (or techniques) which you could use...either configure Tomcat to find the DSpace "server" webapp, or copy the "server" webapp into Tomcat's own webapps folder.Technique A. Tell your Tomcat/Jetty/Resin installation where to find your DSpace web application(s). As an example, in the directory [tomcat]/conf/Catalina/localhost
you could add files similar to the following (but replace [dspace]
with your installation location):
<?xml version='1.0'?> <Context docBase="[dspace]/webapps/server"/>
The name of the file (not including the suffix ".xml") will be the name of the context, so for example server.xml
defines the context at http://host:8080/server
. To define the root context (http://host:8080/
), name that context's file ROOT.xml
. Optionally, you can also choose to install the old, deprecated "rest" webapp if you
cp -R [dspace]/webapps/* [tomcat]/webapps
(This will copy all the web applications to Tomcat). cp -R [dspace]/webapps/server [tomcat]/webapps
(This will copy only the Server web application to Tomcat.)To define the root context (http://host:8080/
), name that context's directory ROOT
.
Deploy Runnable JAR application (NEW) : The DSpace backend now builds a Runnable JAR application made with SpringBoot
. After building DSpace, a new "server-boot.jar" will be available at [dspace]/webapps/server-boot.jar
. This JAR file contains the entire "server" webapp, embedded Tomcat, and the "dspace.dir" configuration made during the build phase. You can execute this JAR with the following command:
java -jar [dspace]/webapps/server-boot.jar
By running it, the server will boot with the configuration that you've made during the build phase. There are optional parameters that you can use to override the build values:
spring.config.location
- reference to the application.properties file to use
--spring.config.location=file:///path/to/target/application.properties
dspace.dir
- reference to the installation directory of the application, ( default value in application.properties
)
--dspace.dir=/path/to/install/folder
logging.config
- log configuration file of the project ( default value in application.properties )
--logging.config=file:///path/to/target/file/log2.xml
These are only the main ones, obviously , you can override every property that can be found inside the configuration files just by appending it as argument of the execution command, just like this: --[prop]=[value]
. Or you may choose to use Environment Variable overriding as described in the Configuration Reference
Copy Solr cores: DSpace installation creates a set of six empty Solr cores already configured.
Copy them from [dspace]
/solr to the place where your Solr instance will discover them. For example:
# [solr] is the location where Solr is installed. # NOTE: On Debian systems the configsets may be under /var/solr/data/configsets cp -R [dspace]/solr/* [solr]/server/solr/configsets # Make sure everything is owned by the system user who owns Solr # Usually this is a 'solr' user account # See https://solr.apache.org/guide/8_1/taking-solr-to-production.html#create-the-solr-user chown -R solr:solr [solr]/server/solr/configsets
Start (or re-start) Solr. For example:
[solr]/bin/solr restart
You can check the status of Solr and your new DSpace cores by using its administrative web interface. Browse to ${solr.server}
(e.g. http://localhost:8983/solr/)
to see if Solr is running well, then look at the cores by selecting (on the left) Core Admin or using the Core Selector drop list.
${solr.server}/search/select
. It should run an empty query against the "search" core, returning an empty JSON result. If it returns an error, then that means your "search" core is missing or not installed properly.Create an Administrator Account: Create an initial administrator account from the command line:
[dspace]/bin/dspace create-administrator
sudo apt install apache2
sudo a2enmod headers; sudo a2enmod proxy; sudo a2enmod proxy_ajp
Alternatively, you can choose to use mod_proxy_http to create an http proxy. A separate example is commented out below
For mod_proxy_ajp to communicate with Tomcat, you'll need to enable Tomcat's AJP connector in your Tomcat's server.xml:
<Connector protocol="AJP/1.3" port="8009" redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8" />
Now, setup a new VirtualHost for your site (using HTTPS / port 443) which proxies all requests to Tomcat's AJP connector (running on port 8009)
<VirtualHost _default_:443> # Add your domain here. We've added "my.dspace.edu" as an example ServerName my.dspace.edu .. setup your host how you want, including log settings... .. setup your host how you want, including log settings... # Most installs will need these options enabled to ensure DSpace knows its hostname and scheme (http or https) # Also required to ensure correct sitemap URLs appear in /robots.txt for User Interface. ProxyPreserveHost On RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto https SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile [full-path-to-PEM-cert] SSLCertificateKeyFile [full-path-to-cert-KEY] # LetsEncrypt certificates (and possibly others) may require a chain file be specified # in order for the UI / Node.js to validate the HTTPS connection. #SSLCertificateChainFile [full-path-to-chain-file] # Proxy all HTTPS requests to "/server" from Apache to Tomcat via AJP connector ProxyPass /server ajp://localhost:8009/server ProxyPassReverse /server ajp://localhost:8009/server # If you would rather use mod_proxy_http as an http proxy to port 8080 # then use these settings instead #ProxyPass /server http://localhost:8080/server #ProxyPassReverse /server http://localhost:8080/server </VirtualHost>
Sample NGinx "server block" configuration. Keep in mind we are only providing basic example settings.
# Setup HTTP to redirect to HTTPS server { listen 80; # Add your domain here. We've added "my.dspace.edu" as an example server_name my.dspace.edu; rewrite ^ https://my.dspace.edu permanent; } # Setup HTTPS access server { listen 443 ssl; # Add your domain here. We've added "my.dspace.edu" as an example server_name my.dspace.edu; # Add your SSL certificate/key path here # NOTE: For LetsEncrypt, the certificate should be the full certificate chain file ssl_certificate my.dspace.edu.crt (or PEM); ssl_certificate_key my.dspace.edu.key; # Proxy all HTTPS requests to "/server" from NGinx to Tomcat on port 8080 location /server { proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host; proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/server; } }
dspace.server.url
) in your local.cfg to match the new URL of your backend (REST API). This will require briefly rebooting Tomcat.Yarn v1.x is available at https://classic.yarnpkg.com/. It can usually be install via NPM (or through your Linux distribution's package manager). We do NOT currently support Yarn v2.
# You may need to run this command using "sudo" if you don't have proper privileges npm install --global yarn
PM2 is very easily installed via NPM
# You may need to run this command using "sudo" if you don't have proper privileges npm install --global pm2
dspace-8.0
) or branch.[dspace-angular].
Install Dependencies: Install all required local dependencies by running the following from within the unzipped [dspace-angular]
directory
# change directory to our repo cd [dspace-angular] # install the local dependencies yarn install # NOTE: Some dependencies occasionally get overly strict over exact versions of Node & Yarn. # If you are running a supported version of Node & Yarn, but see a message like # `The engine "node" is incompatible with this module.`, you can disregard it using this flag: # yarn install --ignore-engines
Build/Compile: Build the User Interface for Production. This builds source code (under [dspace-angular]/src/
) to create a compiled version of the User Interface in the [dspace-angular]
/dist
folder. This /dist
folder is what we will deploy & run to start the UI.
yarn build:prod
[dspace-angular]/src/
). Simply changing the configurations (e.g. config.prod.yml, see below) do not require a rebuild, but only require restarting the UI.Deployment (to [dspace-ui-deploy]): (Only recommended for Production setups) Choose/Create a directory on your server where you wish to run the compiled User Interface. We'll call this [dspace-ui-deploy].
[dspace-ui-deploy] vs [dspace-angular]
[dspace-angular]
is the directory where you've downloaded and built the UI source code (per the instructions above). For deployment/running the UI, we recommend creating an entirely separate [dspace-ui-deploy]
directory. This keeps your running, production User Interface separate from your source code directory and also minimizes downtime when rebuilding your UI. You may even choose to deploy to a [dspace-ui-deploy]
directory on a different server (and copy the /dist
directory over via FTP or similar).
If you are installing the UI for the first time, or just want a simple setup, you can choose to have [dspace-ui-deploy] and [dspace-angular] be the same directory. This would mean you don't have to copy your /dist folder to another location. However, the downside is that your running site will become unresponsive whenever you do a re-build/re-compile (i.e. rerun "yarn build:prod") as this build process will first delete the [dspace-angular]/dist
directory before rebuilding it.
Copy the entire [dspace-angular]
/dist/
folder to this location. For example:
cp -r [dspace-angular]/dist [dspace-ui-deploy]
WARNING: At this time, you MUST copy the entire "dist" folder and make sure NOT to rename it. Therefore, the directory structure should look like this:
[dspace-ui-deploy] /dist /browser (compiled client-side code) /server (compiled server-side code, including "main.js") /config (Optionally created in the "Configuration" step below) /config.prod.yml (Optionally created in the "Configuration" step below)
[dspace-ui-deploy]
directory (because on startup, the runtime configuration is written to [dspace-ui-deploy]/dist/browser/assets/config.json
)Configuration: You have two options for User Interface Configuration, Environment Variables or YAML-based configuration (config.prod.yml
). Choose one!
YAML configuration: Create a "config.prod.yml" at [dspace-ui-deploy]/config/config.prod.yml
. You may wish to use the [dspace-angular]/config/config.example.yml
as a starting point. This config.prod.yml
file can be used to override any of the default configurations listed in the config.example.yml
(in that same directory). At a minimum this file MUST include a "rest" section (and may also include a "ui" section), similar to the following (keep in mind, you only need to include settings that you need to modify).
# The "ui" section defines where you want Node.js to run/respond. It often is a *localhost* (non-public) URL, especially if you are using a Proxy. # In this example, we are setting up our UI to just use localhost, port 4000. # This is a common setup for when you want to use Apache or Nginx to handle HTTPS and proxy requests to Node on port 4000 ui: ssl: false host: localhost port: 4000 nameSpace: / # This example is valid if your Backend is publicly available at https://api.mydspace.edu/server/ # The REST settings MUST correspond to the primary/public URL of the backend. Usually, this means they must be kept in sync # with the value of "dspace.server.url" in the backend's local.cfg rest: ssl: true host: api.mydspace.edu port: 443 nameSpace: /server
Environment variables: Every configuration in the UI may be specified via an Environment Variable. See Configuration Override in the User Interface Configuration documentation for more details. For example, the below environment variables provide the same setup as the config.prod.yml example above.
# All environment variables MUST # (1) be prefixed with "DSPACE_" # (2) use underscores as separators (no dots allowed), and # (3) use all uppercase # "ui" section DSPACE_UI_SSL = false DSPACE_UI_HOST = localhost DSPACE_UI_PORT = 4000 DSPACE_UI_NAMESPACE = / # "rest" section DSPACE_REST_SSL = true DSPACE_REST_HOST = api.mydspace.edu DSPACE_REST_PORT = 443 DSPACE_REST_NAMESPACE = /server
NOTE: When using PM2, some may find it easier to use Environment variables, as it allows you to specify DSpace UI configs within your PM2 configuration. See PM2 instructions below.
[dspace-angular]/config/config.prod.yml
[dspace-angular]
, run yarn test:rest
This script will attempt a basic Node.js connection to the REST API that is configured in your "config.prod.yml" file and validate the response.Quick Start: To quickly startup / test the User Interface, you can just use Node.js. This is only recommended for quickly testing the UI is working, as no logs are available.
# You MUST start the UI from within the deployment directory cd [dspace-ui-deploy] # Run the "server/main.js" file to startup the User Interface node ./dist/server/main.js # Stop the UI by killing it via Ctrl+C
First you need to create a PM2 JSON configuration file which will run the User Interface. This file can be named anything & placed where ever you like, but you may want to save it to your deployment directory (e.g. [dspace-ui-deploy]/dspace-ui.json
).
{ "apps": [ { "name": "dspace-ui", "cwd": "/full/path/to/dspace-ui-deploy", "script": "dist/server/main.js", "instances": "max", "exec_mode": "cluster", "env": { "NODE_ENV": "production" } } ] }
[dspace-ui-deploy]
folder path.NOTE #3: If you wanted to configure your UI using Environment Variables, specify those Environment Variables under the "env" section. For example:
"env": { "NODE_ENV": "production", "DSPACE_REST_SSL": "true", "DSPACE_REST_HOST": "demo.dspace.org", "DSPACE_REST_PORT": "443", "DSPACE_REST_NAMESPACE": "/server" }
NOTE #4: If you are using Windows, there are two other rules to keep in mind in this JSON configuration. First, all paths must include double backslashes (e.g. "C:\\dspace-ui-deploy"). Second, "cluster" mode is required. Here's an example configuration for Windows:
{ "apps": [ { "name": "dspace-ui", "cwd": "C:\\full\\path\\to\\dspace-ui-deploy", "script": "dist\\server\\main.js", "instances": "max", "exec_mode": "cluster", "env": { "NODE_ENV": "production" } } ] }
Now, start the application using PM2 using the configuration file you created in the previous step
# In this example, we are assuming the config is named "dspace-ui.json" pm2 start dspace-ui.json # To see the logs, you'd run # pm2 logs # To stop it, you'd run # pm2 stop dspace-ui.json # If you need to change your PM2 configs, delete the old config and restart # pm2 delete dspace-ui.json
sudo apt install apache2
sudo a2enmod proxy; sudo a2enmod proxy_http
Apache HTTPD sample configuration:
Now, setup (or update) the new VirtualHost for your UI site (preferably using HTTPS / port 443) which proxies all requests to PM2 running on port 4000.
<VirtualHost _default_:443> # Add your domain here. We've added "my.dspace.edu" as an example ServerName my.dspace.edu .. setup your host how you want, including log settings... # Most installs will need these options enabled to ensure DSpace knows its hostname and scheme (http or https) # Also required to ensure correct sitemap URLs appear in /robots.txt for User Interface. ProxyPreserveHost On RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto https # These SSL settings are identical to those for the backend installation (see above) # If you already have the backend running HTTPS, just add the new Proxy settings below. SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile [full-path-to-PEM-cert] SSLCertificateKeyFile [full-path-to-cert-KEY] # LetsEncrypt certificates (and possibly others) may require a chain file be specified # in order for the UI / Node.js to validate the HTTPS connection. #SSLCertificateChainFile [full-path-to-chain-file] # These Proxy settings are for the backend. They are described in the backend installation (see above) # If you already have the backend running HTTPS, just append the new Proxy settings below. # Proxy all HTTPS requests to "/server" from Apache to Tomcat via AJP connector # (In this example: https://my.dspace.edu/server/ will display the REST API) ProxyPass /server ajp://localhost:8009/server ProxyPassReverse /server ajp://localhost:8009/server # [NEW FOR UI:] Proxy all HTTPS requests from Apache to PM2 on localhost, port 4000 # NOTE that this proxy URL must match the "ui" settings in your config.prod.yml # (In this example: https://my.dspace.edu/ will display the User Interface) ProxyPass / http://localhost:4000/ ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4000/ </VirtualHost>
Sample NGinx "server block" configuration. Keep in mind we are only providing basic example settings.
# Setup HTTPS access server { listen 443 ssl; # Add your domain here. We've added "my.dspace.edu" as an example server_name my.dspace.edu; # Add your SSL certificate/key path here # NOTE: For LetsEncrypt, the certificate should be the full certificate chain file # These SSL settings are identical to those for the backend installation (see above) # If you already have the backend running HTTPS, just add the new Proxy settings below. ssl_certificate my.dspace.edu.crt (or PEM); ssl_certificate_key my.dspace.edu.key; # Proxy all HTTPS requests to "/server" from NGinx to Tomcat on port 8080 # These Proxy settings are for the backend. They are described in the backend installation (see above) location /server { proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host; proxy_pass http://localhost:8080/server; } # [NEW FOR UI:] Proxy all HTTPS requests from NGinx to PM2 on localhost, port 4000 # NOTE that this proxy URL must match the "ui" settings in your config.prod.yml # (In this example: https://my.dspace.edu/ will display the User Interface) location / { proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host; proxy_pass http://localhost:4000/; } }
[dspace-ui-deploy]/config/ssl/
folder and add a key.pem
and cert.pem
to that folder (they must have those exact names)After a successful installation, you may want to take a closer look at
If you've run into installation problems, you may want to...
See the Troubleshoot an error guide, look for the section on "DSpace 7.x or 8.x". This will provide you hints on locating error messages both in the User Interface (frontend) and in the REST API (backend)
Chances are your User Interface (UI) is throwing a severe error or not starting properly. The best way to debug this issue would be to start the User Interface in development mode to see if it can give you a more descriptive error.
[dspace-ui-deploy]/config/config.dev.yml
configuration file for development. This file supports the same configs as your existing config.prod.yml. So, you can copy over any settings you want to test out.Start the UI in development mode (this doesn't require a proxy like Apache or Nginx)
yarn start:dev
Once you've found the underlying error, it may be one of the "common installation issues" listed below.
Chances are your User Interface (UI) is throwing an error or receiving an unexpected response from the REST API backend. Since the UI is Javascript based, it runs entirely in your browser. That means the error it's hitting is most easily viewed in your browser (and in fact the error may never appear in log files).
See the Troubleshoot an error page, look for the section on "DSpace 7.x or 8.x". It has a guide for locating UI error messages in your browser's Developer Tools.
This error is saying that the frontend is working, but it is unable to communicate with your backend. It's the same as the "No _links section found at..." error described in the next section. Please follow the troubleshooting details in that section.
When starting up the User Interface for the first time, you may see an error that looks similar to this...
No _links section found at [rest-api-url] ERROR Error: undefined doesn't contain the link sites at MapSubscriber.project
This error means that the UI is unable to contact the REST API listed at [rest-api-url]
and/or the response from that [rest-api-url]
is unexpected (as it doesn't contain the "_links" to the endpoints available at that REST API). A valid DSpace [rest-api-url]
will respond with JSON similar to our demo API at https://demo.dspace.org/server/api
First, test the connection to your REST API from the UI from the command-line.
# This script will attempt a basic Node.js connection to the REST API # configured in your "[dspace-angular]/config/config.prod.yml" and # validate the response.(NOTE: config.prod.yml MUST be copied to # to [dspace-angular]/config/ for this script to find it!) yarn test:rest
Usually, the core problem is caused by one of the following scenarios:
config.*.yml
configuration file for the User Interface. That configuration section defines which REST API the UI will attempt to use. If the settings do NOT map to a valid DSpace REST API, then you will see this "No _links section found.." error. Keep in mind, the REST API must use HTTPS (the only exception is if both the frontend and backend are running on "localhost"-based URLs)If you are using a Let's Encrypt style certificate, you may need to modify your backend's Apache settings to also provide a Chain File as follows:
# For example: /etc/letsencrypt/live/[domain]/cert.pem SSLCertificateFile [full-path-to-PEM-cert] # For example: /etc/letsencrypt/live/[domain]/privkey.pem SSLCertificateKeyFile [full-path-to-cert-KEY] # For example: /etc/letsencrypt/live/[domain]/chain.pem SSLCertificateChainFile [full-path-to-chain-file]
Verify that you can access the REST API from the machine where Node.js is running (i.e. your UI is running). For example try a simple "wget" or "curl" to verify the REST API is returning expected JSON similar to our demo API at https://demo.dspace.org/server/api
# Attempt to access the REST API via HTTPS from command-line on the machine where Node.js is running. # If this fails or throws a SSL cert error, you must fix it. wget https://[rest.host]/server/api
If none of the above suggestions helped, you may want to look closer at the request logs in your browser (using browser's Dev Tools) and server-side logs, to be sure that the requests from your UI are going where you expect, and see if they appear also on the backend. Tips for finding these logs can be found in the "DSpace 7.x or 8.x" section of our Troubleshoot an error guide.
When starting up the User Interface for the first time, you may see an error that looks similar to this...
ERROR RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded
This error means that the UI is trying to contact your REST API, but is having issues doing so (possibly because either a proxy or an HTTP→HTTPS redirect is causing issues or a redirect loop).
Double check your "dspace.server.url
" setting in your local.cfg on the backend. Is it the same URL you use in your browser to access the backend? Keep in mind the mode (http vs https), domain, port, and subpath(s) all must match, and it must not end in a trailing slash.
Also double check the "rest" section of your config.*.yml
configuration file for the User Interface. Make sure it's also pointing to the exact same URL as that "dspace.server.url
" setting. Again, check the mode, domain, port and paths all match exactly.
If you are seeing a CORS error in your browser, this means that you are accessing the REST API via an "untrusted" client application. To fix this error, you must change your REST API / Backend configuration to trust the application.
dspace.ui.url
. Therefore, you should first verify that your dspace.ui.url
setting (in your local.cfg) exactly matches the primary URL of your User Interface (i.e. the URL you see in the browser). This must be an exact match: mode (http vs https), domain, port, and subpath(s) all must match.rest.cors.allowed-origins
configuration. See REST API for details on this configuration.If you modify either of the above settings, you will need to restart Tomcat for the changes to take effect.
If you cannot login via the user interface with a valid password, you should check to see what underlying error is being returned by the REST API. The easiest way to do this is by using your web browser's Dev Tools as described in our Troubleshoot an error guide (see the "Try this first" section for DSpace 7).
If the password is valid, more than likely you'll see the underlying error is "403 Forbidden" error with a message that says "Access is denied. Invalid CSRF Token" (see hints on solving this in the very next section)
First, double check that you are seeing that exact error message. A 403 Forbidden
error may be thrown in a variety of scenarios. For example, a 403 may be thrown if a page requires a login, if you have entered an invalid username or password, or even sometimes when there is a CORS error (see previous installation issue for how to solve that).
If you are seeing the message "Invalid CSRF Token" message (especially on every login), this is usually the result of a configuration / setup issue.
Here's some things you should double check:
DSPACE-XSRF-COOKIE
cookie in your browser just got "out of sync" (this can occur if you are logging into the REST API and UI separately in the same browser).DSPACE-XSRF-COOKIE
cookie with a value of SameSite=Lax
. This setting means that the cookie will not be sent (by your browser) to any other domains. Effectively, this will block all logins from any domain that is not the same as the REST API (as this cookie will not be sent back to the REST API as required for CSRF validation). In other words, running the REST API on HTTP is only possible if the User Interface is running on the exact same domain. For example, running both on 'localhost' with HTTP is a common development setup, and this will work fine.DSPACE-XSRF-COOKIE
cookie being set to SameSite=None; Secure
. This setting means the cookie will be sent cross domain, but only for HTTPS requests. It also allows the user interface (or other client applications) to be on any domain, provided that the domain is trusted by CORS (see rest.cors.allowed-origins
setting in REST API)dspace.server.url
" configuration on the Backend. This simply ensures your UI is sending requests to the correct REST API. Also pay close attention that both specify HTTPS when necessary (see previous bullet).dspace.server.url
" configuration on the Backend matches the primary URL of the REST API (i.e. the URL you see in the browser). This must be an exact match: mode (http vs https), domain, port, and subpath(s) all must match, and it must not end in a trailing slash (e.g. "https://demo.dspace.org/server" is valid, but "https://demo.dspace.org/server/" may cause problems).dspace.ui.url
" configuration on the Backend matches the primary URL of your User Interface (i.e. the URL you see in the browser). This must be an exact match: mode (http vs https), domain, port, and subpath(s) all must match, and it must not end in a trailing slash (e.g. "https://demo.dspace.org" is valid, but "https://demo.dspace.org/" may cause problems).DSPACE-XSRF-COOKIE
cookie and a matching X-XSRF-TOKEN
header back to the REST API for validation. See our REST Contract for more details https://github.com/DSpace/RestContract/blob/main/csrf-tokens.mdFor additional information on how DSpace's CSRF Protection works, see our REST Contract at https://github.com/DSpace/RestContract/blob/main/csrf-tokens.md
If you setup the backend to use HTTPS with a self-signed SSL certificate, then Node.js (which the frontend runs on) may not "trust" that certificate by default. This will result in the Frontend not being able to make requests to the Backend.
One possible workaround (untested as of yet) is to try setting the NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS environment variable (which tells Node.js to trust additional CA certificates).
# May be necessary for self-signed certificates. export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS="/etc/ssl/my.dspace.pem"
Another option is to avoid using a self-signed SSL certificate. Instead, create a real, issued SSL certificate using something like Let's Encrypt (or similar free services)
This scenario may occur when you are running the REST API behind an HTTP proxy (e.g. Apache HTTPD's mod_proxy_http
, Ngnix's proxy_pass
or any other proxy that is forwarding from HTTPS to HTTP).
The fix is to ensure the DSpace REST API is sent the X-Forwarded-Proto
header (by your proxying service), telling it that the forwarded protocol is HTTPS
X-Forwarded-Proto: https
In general, when running behind a proxy, the DSpace REST API depends on accurate X-Forwarded-* headers to be sent by that proxy.
This scenario may occur when you are running the User Interface behind an HTTP proxy (e.g. Apache HTTPD's mod_proxy_http
, Ngnix's proxy_pass
or any other proxy that is forwarding from HTTPS to HTTP).
The fix is to ensure the DSpace User Interface (frontend) is sent the correct X-Forwarded-Proto
and Host
(or X-Forwarded-Host) headers to tell it the correct hostname and scheme (HTTP or HTTPS)
ProxyPreserveHost on RequestHeader set X-Forwarded-Proto https
If everything seems to be working, but you cannot upload files, it's important to first check your logs for any possible backend errors. See the Troubleshoot an error page.
If you are running DSpace on a Debian-based system (e.g. Ubuntu), some users have reported that it's required grant "ReadWrite" access to Apache Tomcat (where the backend is running) via the service file (e.g. /lib/systemd/system/tomcat9.service). In the [Service]
section you need to add something like this:
# Give Tomcat read/write on the DSpace installation # Make sure to update the "/PATH/TO" to be the full path of your DSpace install ReadWritePaths=/PATH/TO/dspace # NOTE: If you don't want to give Tomcat read/write to all of DSpace, # you could limit this further to just these folders # dspace/assetstore # dspace/solr # dspace/log
On some versions of Node.js or some operating systems, sites have reported seeing a "Javascript heap out of memory" error when trying to run the User Interface in development mode (`yarn start:dev`). This does not seem to occur on every system, but the fix is always the same. You should ensure that Node.js is given at least 4GB of memory via the "NODE_OPTIONS" environment variable
# Set the "NODE_OPTIONS" environment variable on your system. This example will work for Linux/macOS # Ensure the "max-old-space-size" is set to 4GB (4096MB) or greater. export NODE_OPTIONS=--max-old-space-size=4096
NOTE: More discussion on this issue can be found in https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/2259 It appears to only occur on systems where the default memory allocated for Node isn't sufficient to build DSpace in development mode.
This same setting may also be used in production scenarios to give Node.js more memory to work with. See Performance Tuning DSpace for more details.
This error occurs when Solr is either not initialized properly, or your DSpace backend is unable to find/communicate with Solr. Here's a few things you should double check:
[solr]/bin/solr restart
), and verify it's accessible via wget or a web browser (usually at a URL like http://localhost:8983/solr)
solr.server
setting (in local.cfg) is correct for your Solr installation. This should correspond to the main URL of your Solr site (usually something like http://localhost:8983/solr
). If you use wget
or a browser from the machine running your DSpace backend, you should get a response from that URL (it should return the Solr Admin UI).${solr.server}/search/select
should run an empty query against the "search" core, returning an empty JSON result.solr.server
is set properly, double check that nothing else could be blocking the DSpace backend from accessing Solr. For instance, if Solr is on a separate machine, verify that there is no firewall or proxy that could be blocking access between the DSpace backend machine and the Solr machine.ant fresh_install
There are two common errors that occur.
If your error looks like this:
[java] 2004-03-25 15:17:07,730 INFO org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Initializing Database [java] 2004-03-25 15:17:08,816 FATAL org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Caught exception: [java] org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: Connection refused. Check that the hostname and port are correct and that the postmaster is accepting TCP/IP connections. [java] at org.postgresql.jdbc1.AbstractJdbc1Connection.openConnection(AbstractJd bc1Connection.java:204) [java] at org.postgresql.Driver.connect(Driver.java:139)
it usually means you haven't yet added the relevant configuration parameter to your PostgreSQL configuration (see above), or perhaps you haven't restarted PostgreSQL after making the change. Also, make sure that the db.username and db.password properties are correctly set in [dspace]/config/dspace.cfg. An easy way to check that your DB is working OK over TCP/IP is to try this on the command line:
psql -U dspace -W -h localhost
Enter the dspace database password, and you should be dropped into the psql tool with a dspace=> prompt.
Another common error looks like this:
[java] 2004-03-25 16:37:16,757 INFO org.dspace.storage.rdbms.InitializeDatabase @ Initializing Database [java] 2004-03-25 16:37:17,139 WARN org.dspace.storage.rdbms.DatabaseManager @ Exception initializing DB pool [java] java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.postgresql.Driver [java] at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:198) [java] at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) [java] at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:186)
This means that the PostgreSQL JDBC driver is not present in [dspace]/lib. See above.