An Ant build script is used for initializing, installing, and upgrading Centric CRM from source. The same script is used on Linux, Mac, Sun and Windows systems.

Ant Targets

Executing "ant" without any parameters will display a list of ant targets.

Buildfile: build.xml

usage:
     [echo] Further instructions will appear if settings are missing

     [echo] ant deploy: compile, build, copy, and generate web application (production)
     [echo] ant dev: same as deploy, but doesn't do a clean compile (development)
     [echo] ant installdb: create tables, insert base records and permissions into new database
     [echo]     install.database: just create the tables
     [echo]     install.help: just install the help contents
     [echo] ant upgradedb: upgrades database with a specified script file
     [echo] ant docs: generate JavaDocs for all packages
     [echo] ant test: compile deployed JSPs to check for errors
     [echo] ant war: generate a .war file for manual deployment
     [echo] ant clean: delete the temporary build folder used by the install

Configuration Steps

The build process needs to be configured before Centric CRM can be compiled and deployed.

Each time "ant deploy" is executed, the build process verifies the Centric CRM environment, alerting you to any changes that need to be made.

Configuration Steps:

1. Stop Tomcat
2. In your working source code directory, copy home.properties.example to home.properties
3. Edit home.properties
• Map CATALINA_HOME to the Tomcat base directory
• Map CENTRIC_HOME to "centric" in Tomcat's webapps directory
• Map CENTRIC_FILELIBRARY to a directory outside of Tomcat that will be used for storing Centric CRM data
4. Run "ant deploy" to initialize the configuration paths and files
5. Ant will instruct you to modify "build.properties" in the CENTRIC_FILELIBRARY path
• Make sure to read the instructions in build.properties
• Make sure to configure and uncomment one of the database connection types
• Uncomment the PROPERTIES=configured line when finished making changes
6. Run "ant deploy" to compile and install Centric CRM
7. Run "ant installdb" to install the Centric CRM database
8. Start Tomcat
9. Using a browser navigate to the deployed Centric CRM for additional configuration options

Build.Properties

After configuration, all properties are updated and stored in the build.properties file of the file library.

Advanced Configuration (Optional)

Web-based configuration of Centric CRM is recommended and is the default setting. However, this option has an override so that the developer can work with multiple databases based on virtual hosts.

Without overriding, all requests to Centric CRM use the exact same settings and database. In this case, http://127.0.0.1/centric always uses the same database.

When CONTROL=BYPASS_WEB-BASED_APPLICATION_SETUP is uncommented, Centric CRM can use multiple databases based on the virtual host and a mapping in the [sites] table.

"ant install.addsite" will ask for a virtual host name and a database to map to. No you can have "postgresql.localhost" which uses a PostgreSQL database and "mssql.localhost" which uses a MS SQL database. This capability uses a single webapp instance which supports separate and secure databases based on the virtual host setting.