Deploying Communities deploying-communities

Prerequisites prerequisites

Installation Checklist installation-checklist

For the AEM platform

For the Communities capability

Latest Releases latest-releases

AEM 6.5 Communities GA includes Communities package. To know more about updates to AEM 6.5 Communities, see the AEM 6.5 Release Notes.

AEM 6.5 Updates aem-updates

Starting in AEM 6.4, updates to Communities are delivered as part of AEM Cumulative Fix Packs and Service Packs.

For the latest updates to AEM 6.5, see Adobe Experience Manager 6.4 Cumulative Fix Packs and Service Packs.

Version History version-history

As on AEM 6.4 and beyond, AEM Communities features and hotfixes are part of AEM Communities cumulative fix packs and service packs. There are, therefore, no separate feature packs.

JDBC driver for MySQL jdbc-driver-for-mysql

One Communities feature use a MySQL database:

The MySQL connector must be obtained and installed separately.

The necessary steps are:

Further information on installing bundles is found on the Web Console page.

Example : Installed MySQL Connector Bundle example-installed-mysql-connector-bundle

AEM Advanced MLS aem-advanced-mls

For the SRP collection (MSRP or DSRP) to support advanced multilingual search (MLS), new Solr plug-ins are required in addition to a custom schema and Solr configuration. All required items are packaged into a downloadable zip file.

The advanced MLS download (also known as phasetwo) is available from the Adobe repository :

For details and installation information, visit Solr Configuration for SRP.

About Links to Package Share about-links-to-package-share

Packages Visible in Adobe AEM Cloud

The links to packages on this page require no running instance of AEM as they are to Package Share on adobeaemcloud.com. While the packages are viewable, the Install button is for installing the packages into an Adobe hosted site. If intending to install on a local AEM instance, selecting Install results in an error.

How to Install on Local AEM Instance

To install the packages visible in adobeaemcloud.com on a local AEM instance, the package must first be downloaded to a local disk :

On the local AEM instance, use Package Manager (for example, https://localhost:4502/crx/packmgr/), to upload to the local AEM’s package repository.

Alternatively, accessing the package using Package Share from the local AEM instance (for example, https://localhost:4502/crx/packageshare/), the Download button downloads to the local AEM instance’s package repository.

Once in the local AEM instance’s package repository, use Package Manager to install the package.

For more information, visit How to Work With Packages.

Recommended Deployments recommended-deployments

In AEM Communities, a common store is used to store UGC and is often referred to as the storage resource provider (SRP). The recommended deployment centers on choosing an SRP option for the common store.

The common store supports moderation of, and analytics on, UGC in the publish environment while eliminating the need for replication of UGC.

Upgrading upgrading

When upgrading to the AEM 6.5 platform from previous versions of AEM, it is important to read Upgrading to AEM 6.5.

In addition to upgrading the platform, read Upgrading to AEM Communities 6.5 to learn about Communities changes.

Configurations configurations

Primary Publisher primary-publisher

When the deployment chosen is a publish farm, then one AEM publish instance must be identified as the primary publisher for activities which should not occur on all instances. For example, features that rely on notifications or Adobe Analytics.

By default, the AEM Communities Publisher Configuration OSGi configuration is configured with the Primary Publisher checkbox checked, such that all publish instances in a publish farm would self-identify as the primary.

Therefore, it is necessary to edit the configuration on all secondary publish instances to uncheck the Primary Publisher checkbox.

For all other (secondary) publish instances in a publish farm:

Replication Agents on Author replication-agents-on-author

Replication is used for site content created in the publish environment, such as community groups, and managing members and member groups from the author environment using the tunnel service.

For the primary publisher, ensure the Replication Agent Config correctly identifies the publish server and authorized user. The default authorized user, admin, already has the appropriate permissions (is a member of Communities Administrators).

For some other user to have the appropriate permissions, they must be added as a member to the administrators user group (also a member of Communities Administrators).

There are two replication agents in the author environment that need the transport configuration to be correctly configured.

The following images show the results of changing the port from 4503 to 6103 by:

Default Agent (publish) default-agent-publish

Reverse Replication Agent (publish reverse) reverse-replication-agent-publish-reverse

Tunnel Service on Author tunnel-service-on-author

When using the author environment to create sites, modify site properties or manage community members, it is necessary to access members (users) registered in the publish environment, not users registered on author.

The tunnel service provides this access using the replication agent on author.

To enable the tunnel service:

Replicate the Crypto Key replicate-the-crypto-key

There are two features of AEM Communities that require all AEM server instances to use the same encryption keys. These are Analytics and ASRP.

From AEM 6.3 onwards, the key material is stored in the file system and no longer in the repository.

To copy the key material from Author to all other instances, it is necessary to :

Repository Replication repository-replication

Having the key material stored in the repository, as was the case for AEM 6.2 and earlier, can be preserved. Specify the system property -Dcom.adobe.granite.crypto.file.disable=true on the first startup of each AEM instance (which creates the initial repository).

With the key material stored in the repository, the manner for replicating the crypto key from author to other instances is as follows:

Using CRXDE Lite:

Refresh the Granite Crypto Bundle refresh-the-granite-crypto-bundle

Apache HTTP Server apache-http-server

If using the Apache HTTP server, ensure that you use the correct server name for all relevant entries.

In particular, be careful to use the correct server name, not localhost, in the RedirectMatch.

httpd.conf sample httpd-conf-sample

<IfModule alias_module>
     # XAMPP does not have a favicon; this prevents any 404 errors which may arise.
     Redirect 404 /favicon.ico
     <Location /favicon.ico>
         ErrorDocument 404 "No favicon"
     </Location>

    # Return from "Sign Out" generates response header directing you to "/", generating a 404 error
    # The RedirectMatch resolves it correctly when modified for the target Community Site :
    RedirectMatch ^/$ https://[server name]/content/sites/engage/en.html
 ...
 </IfModule>

Dispatcher dispatcher

If using a Dispatcher, see:

Related Communities Documentation related-communities-documentation