This guide assumes you are using a Mac but we do have pages for Windows and Ubuntu.
Dataverse is developed on Java 8.
The use of Oracle’s version of Java is recommended, which can be downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
The version of OpenJDK available from package managers from common Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora is probably sufficient for small changes as well as day to day development.
As a Java Enterprise Edition 7 (Java EE 7) application, Dataverse requires an applications server to run.
Glassfish 4.1 is required (not 4.1.1 until https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/2628 is resolved), which can be downloaded from http://glassfish.java.net . If you have downloaded Glassfish as part of a Netbeans bundle, you can manually add the proper version by clicking “Tools”, “Servers”, “Add Server”.
PostgreSQL 9.x is required and can be downloaded from http://postgresql.org
Dataverse depends on Solr for browsing and search.
Solr 4.6.0 is the only version that has been tested extensively and is recommended in development. Download and configuration instructions can be found below. An upgrade to newer versions of Solr is being tracked at https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/456
A command-line tool called curl ( http://curl.haxx.se ) is required by the setup scripts and it is useful to have curl installed when working on APIs.
A command-line tool called jq ( http://stedolan.github.io/jq/ ) is required by the setup scripts.
If you are already using brew, apt-get, or yum, you can install jq that way. Otherwise, download the binary for your platform from http://stedolan.github.io/jq/ and make sure it is in your $PATH (/usr/bin/jq is fine) and executable with sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/jq.
The setup of a Dataverse development environment assumes the presence of a Unix shell (i.e. bash) so an operating system with Unix underpinnings such as Mac OS X or Linux is recommended. (The development team at IQSS has standardized Mac OS X.) Windows users are encouraged to install Cygwin.
While developers are welcome to use any editor or IDE they wish, Netbeans 8+ is recommended because it is free of cost, works cross platform, has good support for Java EE projects, and happens to be the IDE that the development team at IQSS has standardized on.
NetBeans can be downloaded from http://netbeans.org. Please make sure that you use an option that contains the Jave EE features when choosing your download bundle. While using the installer you might be prompted about installing JUnit and Glassfish. There is no need to reinstall Glassfish, but it is recommended that you install JUnit.
This guide will assume you are using Netbeans for development.
Please see also the Tools page, which lists additional tools that very useful but not essential.
You can use git with passwords over HTTPS, but it’s much nicer to set up SSH keys. https://github.com/settings/ssh is the place to manage the ssh keys GitHub knows about for you. That page also links to a nice howto: https://help.github.com/articles/generating-ssh-keys
From the terminal, ssh-keygen will create new ssh keys for you:
Before making commits, please read about our Branching Strategy to make sure you commit to the right branch.
Developers who are not part of the development team at IQSS should first fork https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse per https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/
From NetBeans, click “Team” then “Remote” then “Clone”. Under “Repository URL”, enter the “ssh clone URL” for your fork (if you do not have push access to the repo under IQSS) or git@github.com:IQSS/dataverse.git (if you do have push access to the repo under IQSS). See also https://netbeans.org/kb/docs/ide/git.html#github
If you prefer using git from the command line, you can clone the project from a terminal and later open the project in Netbeans.
If you do not have push access to https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse clone your fork:
git clone git@github.com:[your GitHub user or organization]/dataverse.git
If you do have push access to https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse clone it:
git clone git@github.com:IQSS/dataverse.git
A Dataverse-specific schema.xml configuration file (described below) is required.
Download solr-4.6.0.tgz from http://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/4.6.0/solr-4.6.0.tgz to any directory you like but in the example below, we have downloaded the tarball to a directory called “solr” in our home directory. For now we are using the “example” template but we are replacing schema.xml with our own. We will also assume that the clone on the Dataverse repository was retrieved using NetBeans and that it is saved in the path ~/NetBeansProjects.
Please note: If you prefer, once the proper schema.xml file is in place, you can simply double-click “start.jar” rather that running java -jar start.jar from the command line. Figuring out how to stop Solr after double-clicking it is an exercise for the reader.
Once Solr is up and running you should be able to see a “Solr Admin” dashboard at http://localhost:8983/solr
Once some dataverses, datasets, and files have been created and indexed, you can experiment with searches directly from Solr at http://localhost:8983/solr/#/collection1/query and look at the JSON output of searches, such as this wildcard search: http://localhost:8983/solr/collection1/select?q=*%3A*&wt=json&indent=true . You can also get JSON output of static fields Solr knows about: http://localhost:8983/solr/schema/fields
Once you install Glassfish and PostgreSQL, you need to configure the environment for the Dataverse app - configure the database connection, set some options, etc. We have a new installer script that should do it all for you. Again, assuming that the clone on the Dataverse repository was retrieved using NetBeans and that it is saved in the path ~/NetBeansProjects:
cd ~/NetBeansProjects/dataverse/scripts/installer
./install
The script will prompt you for some configuration values. It is recommended that you choose “localhost” for your hostname if this is a development environment. For everything else it should be safe to accept the defaults.
The script is a variation of the old installer from DVN 3.x that calls another script that runs asadmin commands. A serious advantage of this approach is that you should now be able to safely run the installer on an already configured system.
All the future changes to the configuration that are Glassfish-specific and can be done through asadmin should now go into scripts/install/glassfish-setup.sh.
If you are working on anything related to users, please keep in mind that your changes will likely affect Shibboleth users. Rather than setting up Shibboleth on your laptop, developers are advised to simply add a value to their database to enable Shibboleth “dev mode” like this:
curl http://localhost:8080/api/admin/settings/:DebugShibAccountType -X PUT -d RANDOM
For a list of possible values, please “find usages” on the settings key above and look at the enum.
Now when you go to http://localhost:8080/shib.xhtml you should be prompted to create a Shibboleth account.
If you have an old copy of the database and old Solr data and want to start fresh, here are the recommended steps: