Hardware and software requirements
This section presents information about the environment needed to run an OpenKM server. It lists the required and optional software and provides facts about their configuration.
This section aims to help you validate or define the production environment. However, the checklist is not exhaustive and needs to be completed with the user's experience in mind.
For best performance, OpenKM stores the binary content of the document in the filesystem. So, if you have a server for the database and another for the application itself, remember that the OpenKM server needs enough free disk space to store all these documents plus extra space for other files like preview cache and extracted text and Lucene indexes.
Requirements
OpenKM can be installed on any operating system (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X) since it is a multi-platform application.
A Linux host is a good choice because it handles heavy I/O applications, works well with OpenKM, and is conveniently priced.
The only requirement to run the OpenKM is to have Java 11 installed.
Checking the Java version
- Open a terminal:
- On Linux or Mac OS X: Open a terminal.
- On Windows: press the "Windows" key + r, type cmd (or command) in the Run window, and press "OK" or open the "Prompt command" from the "Start > Programs > Accessories" menu.
- Type java -version and press Enter.
If Java is installed correctly on your computer, the name and version of the Java virtual machine are displayed:
openjdk version "11.0.20.1" 2023-08-24
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.20.1+1-post-Ubuntu-0ubuntu120.04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.20.1+1-post-Ubuntu-0ubuntu120.04, mixed mode, sharing
If Java is not installed on your computer, it will fail to display the Java version. Then, you will need to install Java (see below).
If Java is installed but not included in the PATH, it will fail to find the Java command. Then, you will need to add $JAVA_HOME/bin/to your PATH (see How do I set or change the PATH system variable?).
Installing Java
For Windows users
If the required version of Java is not installed on your computer:
- Download it from the Microsoft website and choose the right platform for your hardware and Windows version.
- Run the MSI file and follow the instructions displayed.
More information at Installing on Windows
For Linux users
You can download it from the Linux repositories
apt install openjdk-11-jre
This way, your OpenJDK will be upgraded whenever a new release is available.
In case you have another OpenJDK installed (like GCJ), you can select the right one this way:
$ sudo update-alternatives --config Java
More information on installingInstalling on Ubuntu and Debian.
Recommendations
Hardware configuration
OpenKM runs quite well on any computer with a standard hardware configuration. For better performance, we recommend at least 4 GB RAM (have at least >=2GB of RAM) and a fast hard disk like SATA or better.
A dual-core Intel-based CPU with 3.20 GHz should be fine for fewer users (30-50 concurrent users).
Have enough disk space for the document repository and its versions.
A Linux host is a good choice because this OS handles heavy I/O applications like this quite well, and it is not expensive.
It is a highly recommended 64-bit architecture.
We suggest having a modern server that performs well.
Although OpenKM can be installed on a server with other applications, the best scenario is a dedicated server. Remember that other applications can harm OpenKM in a shared scenario.
For more information about hardware requirements, please consult with your sales and marketing representatives. They should provide you with an estimation of the hardware requirements.
(See the questionnaire at the bottom of the page)
You can use your older history of documents and folders to get some of these values.
Browser support
OpenKM user interface is based on the GWT framework, which means the supported browsers are determined by GWT browser support.
Actual browsers supported:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Google Chrome and Chromium
- Microsoft Edge
Although you can use other browsers, such as Safari or Opera, we suggest using the latest version of Google Chrome.
We encourage your browser to be updated to the newest version.
We recommend Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome because they offer the best performance, have fewer security holes, and follow the standards.
Operating systems
Linux (Known working configurations):
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- CentOS
- Red Hat Linux
Red Hat Linux is a more complex scenario because some packages aren't in the Red Hat official repositories by default.
Ubuntu is the preferred Linux choice. We run the tests against Linux distribution and build the packages for it. However, any recent Linux distribution should be usable as long as the:
- OpenJDK 11 is available.
- You can adapt the provided Linux scripts.
- Thirdparty software requirements
Windows (Known working configurations):
- For development: Windows 7, Windows 8
- For production: Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022 and upper versions
Databases
Known working configurations:
- MySQL
- Oracle
- PostgreSQL
- SQL Server
The application internally uses Hibernate; in fact, you should get it running from any supported Hibernate dialects; for more information, read Hibernate: SQL Dialects.
JVM
Although OpenKM can run with other JDK, we recommend using OpenJDK 11 64-bitts architecture is highly recommended).
LDAP
- Open LDAP
- Microsoft Active Directory
Small questionary
The average value is particularly interesting in questions where the expected answers are numerical.
Try giving them as much detailed information as possible for a more accurate estimation using this basic set of questions:
- Estimated number of concurrent users.
- Type of users (% of readers and % of writers).
- Estimated first-year number of files.
- Estimated number of files growing per year.
- Estimated document size average.
- Number of documents in the initial import
- Are these documents uploaded by users or automatically?
- Most common document types (Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, PDF, etc.).
The other more detailed questions below are a guide to describe the document management system problem to solve and may be helpful to estimate hardware requisites:
- Do you have an initial import of documents?
- If so, how many?
- If so, what is the size of the data in GB?
- How many records are created in a day?
- How many documents are made in a week?
- How many documents are made in a month?
- How many documents are made in a year?
- What is the expected repository size in GB for the first year ( initial import not included )?
- What is the typical document size in your repository?
- How many concurrent users are expected?
- How many of the simultaneous users are readers, and how many writers?
- Do you have some daily, weekly, or other kinds of periodic bulk uploads?
- If so, how many documents are uploaded?
- Can the bulk upload be done during non-working hours?
- Will you have some integration with third-party applications?
- If so, describe the usage in terms of:
- Will it be used to read data?
- Will it be used to write data?
- How many are the expected queries per minute and hour?
- If so, describe the usage in terms of:
- What kind of documents did you manage, such as standard Office documents, PDFs, or less common documents like video and large TIFF files?
- Describe them, especially what you know is not the most common in the companies.
