Novell
exteNd Director 5.0

RELEASE NOTES

December 2003

Welcome to Novell® exteNd DirectorTM, Version 5.0. These release notes include the following sections:

Installing exteNd Director How to prepare for installing Novell exteNd Director
System requirements Software and hardware needed to run Novell exteNd Director
What's new New features in this version of Novell exteNd Director
Known issues Known problems with this version of Novell exteNd Director (with workarounds, if available)

Release note updates   To check for updates to these release notes, click here.

exteNd Director Web site   For the latest exteNd Director downloads, discussion forums, news, and information, click here.

Installing exteNd Director

For a complete guide to installing exteNd Director 5.0 and the exteNdTM 5 Suite, see Installing Novell exteNd in the exteNd 5 Suite help.

System requirements

This section describes the software and hardware needed to run exteNd Director 5.0:

Development environment

Topic

What's required

Operating system One of the following:
  • Windows 2003
  • Windows 2000 with Service Pack 1 or higher
  • Windows XP Professional
Minimum RAM (memory) 128 MB (256 MB recommended)
Disk space 250 MB
Display mode True Color (32-bit), 800 x 600 or higher (1024 X 768 minimum recommended)
Java 2 Runtime Environment JRE 1.4.2_01-b06 (installed automatically)

Server environment

Topic

What's required

Application server

One of the following:

Supported in exteNd 5:

  • Novell exteNd Application Server Version 4.0.1
  • Novell exteNd Application Server Version 5.1
  • BEA WebLogic Server Version 6.1 Service Pack 4
  • BEA WebLogic Server Version 8.1 Service Pack 1
  • IBM WebSphere Server Advanced Edition Version 5.0
  • Jakarta Tomcat Version 4.1
Operating system

One of the following:

Supported in exteNd 5:

  • SuSE Enterprise 8
  • RedHat Advanced Server 2.1
  • NetWare® 6.5
  • Windows 2000, 2003
  • Solaris 8,9
Database support

One of the following:

Shipping with exteNd 5:

  • MySQL 4.1 (alpha) - For development only. Not supported in production.

Supported by exteNd 5:

  • Oracle 8i and 9i
  • IBM DB2 7.2.4, 8.1
  • Microsoft SQL Server 7.0/2000
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) 11.9.2, 12, 12.5
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere 8
LDAP directory (Optional) exteNd Director supports the following:
  • Novell eDirectoryTM 8.6.2, 8.7
  • Novell exteNd LDAP Utility (included) - For development only
Web browser One of the following:
  • For the PAC and Portal tiers:

    • Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher (recommended)
    • Netscape 6.x
    • Mozilla 1.4

  • For the PMC:

    • Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher

Project setup

Topic

What's required

Express Portal The Express and Server Express install options of exteNd 5 will automatically deploy a starter project called Express Portal.
  • View running project: http://localhost/ExpressPortal/portal/main
  • Edit project: %NOVELL_EXTEND_HOME%\Projects\ExpressPortal\ExpressPortal.spf.
NOTE: Multiple-project deployment is supported in non-sharedlib mode only. Express Portal is installed by default in non-sharedlib mode. If you want to use the sharedlib feature, you must first undeploy the Express Portal.
  • Open the Server Management Console at Start->Programs->Novell exteNd 5.0->AppServer->Server Management Console (your server must be running for the console to open).
  • At the top left, there are four icons. Click the last icon (called Deployment).
  • Expand the SilverMaster50 tree and select the ExpressPortal_war deployment.
  • Click undeploy.
exteNd Director database connection pool You should store your exteNd Director Content Management files in a separate database. Connection pools can be set up using the Server Management Console that installs with the Novell exteNd Application Server:
  • Create a database to store your exteNd Director Content Management information using MySQL or another commercially available database from our list of supported database platforms.
  • Open the Server Management Console at Start->Programs->Novell exteNd 5.0->AppServer->Server Management Console (your server must be running for the console to open).
  • Click the Databases tab.
  • Create a new Connection Pool specifying the newly created exteNd Director database as your data source.
  • When going through the File->New Project wizard, specify this connection pool on the data sources tab.

 

Shared libraries

exteNd Director 5.0 introduces the concept of shared libraries to share commonly used JARs across multiple projects. To set up shared libraries:

  1. Once your project has been created, open exteNd Director, go to Project->Director->Shared Lib, and click the Shared Jars tab.
  2. Click the Copy Jars button.
  3. Click the Update AgJARs.conf button.
  4. Restart your Application Server if it is already running.
NOTE: Multiple-project deployment is only supported in non-sharedlib mode. Express Portal is installed by default in non-sharedlib mode. If you wish to use the sharedlib feature, you must first undeploy the Express Portal. See above for instructions on how to do this.
Deployment

You must deploy your projects to SilverMaster. When you install exteNd 5, the install sets up the SilverMaster for you. In your deployment settings, specify your server name and use SilverMaster50 as the database entry. This is a separate database from the connection pool above. For more information on this, see the Installing Novell exteNd.



J2EE compatibility

This version of exteNd Director enables you to develop applications for Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Version 1.3.

What's new

For a summary of the new features in this version of exteNd Director, see What's New in the exteNd Director help.

Known issues

This version of exteNd Director has the following issues you should be aware of:

exteNd Director functionality

The following list represents current known issues with exteNd Director 5.0. Note that this is a high-level summary of known issues. You may encounter others; go to release notes updates for more information.

MySQL 4.1 is not supported in production environments at this time. MySQL 4.1 ships with exteNd 5 on Windows, Linux, and Solaris at this time. This software is alpha quality at the time of the exteNd 5 ship and is not supported in any production environment. Novell recommends that you use another commercially available database from the exteNd list of supported database vendors for any production application. Note that MySQL 4.1 for NetWare was not available at the time of the exteNd 5 ship. When MySQL 4.1 becomes stable on all platforms, work will be done to certify exteNd 5 against the database and add it to the exteNd list of supported databases for production.

Components are deprecated in exteNd Director 5.0. In exteNd Director 5.0, the Portlet 1.0 standard has been implemented. The use of components has been. Some public API will be in the javadoc for components. Some of these are there for the portlet support, and others will be deprecated in exteNd 5 point releases.

Do NOT lock down the Application Server at installation. During the installation, instead of Application Server lockdown as suggested by default, select not to restrict Application Server access. Otherwise, after you deploy the project you will have to unlock the Application Server in order to access the application deployed.

Restart Application Server after redeploy if project is using shared libraries. Restart the Application Server after you redeploy any shared library project due to existing classloading issues with shared library mode.

Project names must not begin with a number. If the project name begins with a number, you will not be able to access the Portal. (PPR 43193)

There are many known issues with MBCS (multibyte character support) in exteNd Director 5.0. Novell will be addressing all of these in the next point release. MBCS will work in some places, but you may encounter problems in many areas of the product. Some known issues include:

 

Portal

exteNd Director development environment

Content management and search



Administration console

 

Installation

Platform

MySQL functionality


Issues remaining from previous versions

 

Development issues

Development environment issues

Project issues

Web Services issues

Compile and build issues

Deployment issues

 


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