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Requirements

Submitted by Guest on Wed, 22/12/2021 - 09:43

OpenVPMS can be installed on either a unix system (most commonly a Ubuntu* server), or a Windows system.  For Windows, for small practices you can install on a desktop or laptop running Windows 7, 8 or 10; for larger practices it may be better to use a Windows Server operating system.

Both Java and MySQL are available in 32 and 64 bit versions.
If your system has more than 4GB of memory, use the 64 bit version.

See the following sections for the software requirements for OpenVPMS:

 

Server Software

Java

OpenVPMS may be run using Java 8 or Java 11. Java 11 is preferred.

There are multiple providers:
 

Java 8

The mimum supported version of Java 8 is Java 8 update 161.
Earlier versions may not include the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files. These are required for strong password encryption. If Java is already installed, its version can be determined by running java -version  e.g.:

> java -version
java version "1.8.0_191"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_191-b12)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.191-b12, mixed mode)

Java 11

There are a number of locale changes in Java 11, compared to Java 8.
This causes differences in formatting for date functions that use the LONG, MEDIUM and SHORT date formats, or include MMM (e.g., MMM yyyy). This will affect JasperReports in particular.
E.g. in Java 8, a MEDIUM date format in the en_AU locale would display:

20/09/2006

whereas in Java 11 displays:

20 Sep. 2006

The Java 8 functionality can be retained by passing the following argument to java:
 

-Djava.locale.providers=COMPAT,CLDR

When using the standard Tomcat scripts, this can be done by setting the CATALINA_OPTS environment variable:

Windows
In a setenv.bat script in the same directory as catalina.bat, add:

set CATALINA_OPTS=-Djava.locale.providers=COMPAT,CLDR

Unix
In a setenv.sh script in the same directory as catalina.sh, add:

export CATALINA_OPTS=-Djava.locale.providers=COMPAT,CLDR

Tomcat

Tomcat 9.x is supported.

See https://tomcat.apache.org/download-90.cgi
On Windows, select the 32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer

If OpenVPMS is hosted behind a proxy or load balancer, Tomcat needs to be configured to pass the correct client IP addresses. See Tomcat Configuration for details.

MySQL

NOTE: when upgrading from an earlier MySQL release, see the relevant MySQL manual for migrating the MySQL data e.g.:

MySQL:

  • should be on the same host as Tomcat
  • should accept connections on port 3306
  • include the following lines in my.ini
    max_allowed_packet=16M
    innodb_file_per_table
    character-set-server = utf8
    innodb_buffer_pool_size = 512M

NOTES:

  • If character-set-server is not set to utf8, some characters may not be stored correctly. E.g, μ may be replaced with ?
  • The innodb_buffer_pool_size value should be seen as a minimum only.  See Memory below.

MySQL Connector/J JDBC driver 8.0.x

See https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

This may already be included in the MySQL server installation.

OpenOffice

OpenOffice 4.0.x or higher
See http://www.openoffice.org/download/

NOTE: several users have indicated that LibreOffice 5 is not 100% compatible with OpenOffice. Fields may not merge correctly, and documents created in LibreOffice may look different when printed via OpenVPMS.
 

Memory

A host with 4GB memory is the minimum recommended size for a server running OpenVPMS, with at least:

  • 1024M allocated to Tomcat
  • 1024M allocated to MySQL via the innodb_buffer_pool_size property

 

To set Tomcat's memory allocation, see How do I adjust memory settings?

Also see:

Locale and Fonts

For unix systems see Unix Locale and Fonts
For windows systems see Windows Locale and Fonts

Workstation Software

If you wish to use the External Edit facility, the following software is required on all workstations that will edit documents in OpenVPMS:

Optional Software

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