Installing the standalone distribution of Archiva is quite simple - for an example, see the Quick Start guide.
However, the best way to use this installation technique is to separate the configuration from the installation to make it easy to upgrade to newer versions in the future.
Archiva can be run using one of two techniques:
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.
This is achieved by the following steps:
Note, that Archiva still needs write access to the installation directory, as the application server needs to extract the WAR and services.
Archiva's configuration is loaded from the following files, in order of most precedent:
When Archiva saves it's configuration, all configuration is stored to a single file. The file chosen is by the following rules:
The configuration will never be saved in $ARCHIVA_HOME.
Note that the configuration can be edited, but only when Archiva is not running as it will not reload a changed configuration file, and will save over it if something is changed in the web interface.
By default, Archiva uses embedded Apache Derby to store the user information. It can be configured to use an external database by providing a JDBC driver and editing the plexus.xml file.
For example:
<!-- Datasources --> <resource> <name>jdbc/users</name> <type>javax.sql.DataSource</type> <properties> <property> <name>driverClassName</name> <value>org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver</value> </property> <property> <name>url</name> <value>jdbc:derby://localhost:1527/archiva-users;create=true</value> </property> <property> <name>username</name> <value>user1</value> </property> <property> <name>password</name> <value>user1</value> </property> </properties> </resource>
More information about using Derby Network Server as an external user database for Archiva can be found on the wiki: Archiva User DB on Derby Network Server
Upgrading Archiva is straightforward if the directions for separating the base from the installation above are followed. Simply retain the data directories (the repositories and database), and the configuration files (in the conf directory, or the other locations specified above) and use a new extracted installation of Archiva.
Note that the users database must always be retained as it contains the permissions and user information across versions. However, should it be necessary, the archiva database can be removed at any time and re-created by scanning the repositories again.
The repository data is portable across versions, and multiple versions can be configured to look at the same repositories (though not run simultaneously). When scanned, an index is also created in the root directory - while this shold remain portable across versions, it can also be removed and regenerated by scanning the given repository again from the web interface.