Installing Archiva

My first impression with Apache Archiva(1.0.1) is not very good.

First, I tried to install Archiva 1.0.1 on Linux as a standalone application. Here is what document say

…The standalone instance of Archiva uses the Plexus application server, which is capable of separating it's configuration from installation, in much the same way Tomcat does, for example, with it's CATALINA_BASE and CATALINA_HOME environment variables…

I can separate configuration from installation but definitely not as nice as Tomcat. When the server starts, it will write files to the installation. So sharing a single installation with multiple configurations is not possible. It would be easier if you just keep the installation and the configuration to the same user. Also, the installation document is just not right.

In step 2 “…Move the conf and data directories from the Archiva installation…”; it should be “ …Copy the conf and data directories from the Archiva installation…”, as the server expect file such as “classworlds.conf” existing in the “conf”. Details can be found here

Login problem

Due to Redback problem, newly added user just cannot login, you need to resend the validation email again (yes! email server is a requirement by default if you want to use Archiva!) Details can be found here

If you want to disable the email verification, add a security.properties file in the conf directory of the installation with the following line:

email.validation.required=false

Detail about the security.properties(Redback configuration file) can be found here

Also, I need to explicitly set the smtp server to localhost, if you get the following error when the server try to send out mail

501 5.0.0 HELO requires domain address

Try adding this line to security.properties as well(assume your localhost can handle smtp)

email.smtp.host=localhost