Installing on Ubuntu and Debian
- Ubuntu ISO can be downloaded from https://ubuntu.com/download/server. Please always choose a Server LTS version.
- Debian ISO can be downloaded from https://www.debian.org/download.
This installation guide works for other Ubuntu / Debian-based distributions like Linux Mint.
This guide has been validated with the following:
- Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
- Debian 13
If you use a proxy to access the Internet, please look at Using the installer.
Preliminaries
Ensure you have enough disk space to install OpenKM and to store the document repository:
$ df -h
Once verified, create the "openkm" user:
$ adduser openkm
If Java 11 is still not installed, please install the following:
$ apt install openjdk-17-jre
If Java 17 packages are unavailable in your distro repositories, you must download and install them from Eclipse Temurin.
OpenKM currently only works with Java 17, so once the installation process is completed, verify the default version is Java 17:
$ java -version
openjdk version "17.0.18" 2026-01-20
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 17.0.18+8-Ubuntu-124.04.1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0.18+8-Ubuntu-124.04.1, mixed mode, sharing)
Otherwise, set Java 8 as the default one:
$ update-alternatives --config java
If you prefer a different database, we suggest installing MariaDB:
$ apt install mariadb-server
After that, check if the MariaDB service has already started:
$ systemctl status mariadb
Installing OpenKM
You can choose between installing OpenKM in "/home/openkm" or "/opt". In any case, go to the selected path and download the installer.
It's a text-based installer, so you must execute it from the console as root. This is because it needs to install package dependencies and configure OpenKM as a service:
$ java -jar OKMInstaller.jar
Remember to check Using the installer if you are using a proxy to access the Internet.
The installer will ask for an authorized user and password. If you don't already have this information, please open a support ticket or contact your sales agent.
When the installation process has finished, please ensure that Java 17 is the default one:
$ java -version
Otherwise, set it as default:
$ update-alternatives --config java
Once verified, start the required services:
$ systemctl start xvfb openkm
You can verify the status of these services this way:
$ systemctl status xvfb openkm
Post-installation checklist
To verify the installation was successful, please use this checklist:
- Verify the default Java is Java 17.
- Verify you can access OpenKM from another computer.
- Try to log in with the default okmAdmin / admin user and password.
- Upload a Word document and check if the thumbnail is generated and the preview is shown.
Troubleshooting
If you have a problem with thumbnail generation, please verify that you have the ImageMagick package installed and that the "convert" application works.
Download a sample image from Sample PNG Image and try to generate a thumbnail:
$ wget https://www.sample-videos.com/img/Sample-png-image-1mb.png
$ convert -thumbnail '80x80>' -background 'white' -flatten Sample-png-image-1mb.png sample-output.png
