Simple SSL proxy for Alfresco share

Introduction

After installing Alfresco, you will typically be accessing it using a URL like http://mydomain.com:8080/share.  The problem with that, particularly if your server is internet-facing, is that each time you log in, your username and password are sent as plain text across the network. This is a security risk. If you login via a SSL proxy server, though, your credentials and data are encrypted.  This article outlines a simple method that has worked for me on both Alfresco 4.2 and Alfresco 5.0.d – both running on Ubuntu 14.04.  Many thanks to Bob Johnson for his reply to an Alfresco forums article in 2013 – this post reflects my adaptation of Bob’s instructions.

Use javascript console to create a folder rule script in Alfresco

Introduction

Javascript Console is a nice tool for helping you code server-side javascript in Alfresco using the ‘repository javascript API’.  In this post I describe how to use the Javascript Console to create a script for use in a Folder Rule.  This post follows on from a previous post – Use Alfresco folder rules to manage admin tasks

Javascript console in Alfresco 5.0.d

Use Alfresco folder rules to perform admin tasks

Introduction

Folder rules are ordinarily used to initiate tasks when files are created or updated, but they can also be a convenient way to manage admin or migration tasks.  For example, you might need to perform bulk changes to properties of files.

WebDAV, Cyberduck – upload bulk files into Alfresco

Introduction

WebDAV is very convenient way to upload multiple files and even folder structures into Alfresco.  Unlike FTP and CIFS, it is ready to use when you install Alfresco, and because it is HTTP-based it works fairly trouble-free through firewalls.

Cyberduck is a very nice GUI tool for transferring files to various types of servers, including WebDAV, and is available for Mac OSX and Windows.

Python CMIS Scripts for Alfresco

Introduction

CMIS stands for Content Management Interoperability Services.  Using CMIS within Python scripts is a handy way to export/import data from/to Alfresco (or any other CMIS-compliant document management system) or do mass updates of data within Alfresco.  This can be changes to document attributes or even changes to the documents themselves.  If you come from a relational database background, think of CMIS scripts fulfilling a similar role with Alfresco as SQL scripts do with relational databases.

Python cmislib from Apache Chemistry is a CMIS client library for Python.  This tutorial shows you how to install Python and CMIS on a Ubuntu computer.

Alfresco 5.0 & LDAP Authentication

Introduction

If you have only one Alfresco server, then you might just use the in-built Alfresco authentication system, but if you have multiple Alfresco servers, and want to maintain only one list of users, then creating an LDAP server is a way to achieve this.  This tutorial describes how to install OpenLDAP on Ubuntu and then configure Alfresco 5.0 to use OpenLDAP as its authentication mechanism.

Alfresco 5.0, SDK 2.1 and Field Photos

Introduction

This article might be of interest to you if you about to embark on creating a new content model for photos (or any other type of file) in Alfresco, and you want to get started quickly. If you have not already done so, though, you may wish to install Alfresco using a setup wizard first, to see how a fresh install of Alfresco handles photos. By default, when you upload photos, Alfresco will read EXIF data including latitudes and longitudes, and description, author, and a number of other fields. See http://docs.alfresco.com/community/concepts/download-community.html to download and install Alfresco using a set up wizard, and then experiment by uploading photos into the ‘My Files’ area.