Setting up AEM as a Service

Introduction#

Step-by-step guide on how-to setup AEM as a Service on a Linux server.

Setting up AEM 6.x on CentOS 7

Pre-requisites

1. AEM Installed on your server. Copy the path of the install (e.g: /mnt/crx)
2. Start AEM (e.g java -jar cq-quickstart-author-p4502.jar) once. This will generate all the necessary folders, especially /mnt/crx/crx-quickstart/bin that is required by the scripts.
3. Create a user who will have access to the service. (e.g: aem)

Step-by-step guide

1. You will need root access

2. Create these 2 files

   • aem

        #!/bin/bash
        #
        # /etc/rc.d/init.d/aem6
        #
        #
        # # of the file to the end of the tags section must begin with a #
        # character. After the tags section, there should be a blank line.
        # This keeps normal comments in the rest of the file from being
        # mistaken for tags, should they happen to fit the pattern.>
        #
        # chkconfig: 35 85 15
        # description: This service manages the Adobe Experience Manager java process.
        # processname: aem6
        # pidfile: /crx-quickstart/conf/cq.pid
         
        # Source function library.
        . /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
         
        SCRIPT_NAME=`basename $0`
        AEM_ROOT=/opt/aem6
        AEM_USER=aem
         
        ########
        BIN=${AEM_ROOT}/crx-quickstart/bin
        START=${BIN}/start
        STOP=${BIN}/stop
        STATUS="${BIN}/status"
         
        case "$1" in
        start)
        echo -n "Starting AEM services: "
        su - ${AEM_USER} ${START}
        touch /var/lock/subsys/$SCRIPT_NAME
        ;;
        stop)
        echo -n "Shutting down AEM services: "
        su - ${AEM_USER} ${STOP}
        rm -f /var/lock/subsys/$SCRIPT_NAME
        ;;
        status)
        su - ${AEM_USER} ${STATUS}
        ;;
        restart)
        su - ${AEM_USER} ${STOP}
        su - ${AEM_USER} ${START}
        ;;
        reload)
        ;;
        *)
        echo "Usage: $SCRIPT_NAME {start|stop|status|reload}"
        exit 1
        ;;
        esac

   • aem.service

     [Unit] Description=Adobe Experience Manager

     [Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/bin/aem start ExecStop=/usr/bin/aem stop ExecReload=/usr/bin/aem restart RemainAfterExit=yes

     [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target

3. Open aem script file and update the below

   • AEM_ROOT (e.g: /mnt/crx is the root, where /mnt/crx/crx-quickstart is the full path)
   • AEM_USER (e.g: aem)

4. SCP these files to the server

   • Copy aem to /usr/bin/aem
     • Example: From terminal on your desktop $ scp <filename> user@1.1.1.1:/usr/bin/aem
   • Copy aem.service to /etc/system.d/system/aem.system
     • Example: From terminal on your desktop $ scp <filename> user@1.1.1.1:/etc/system.d/system/aem.system

5. SSH to your server

   • ssh user@1.1.1.1

6. Give permissions to the files

   • sudo chmod u+rwx /usr/bin/aem
   • sudo chmod u+rwx /etc/system.d/system/aem.system

7. Update

   • cd /etc/system.d/system
   • systemctl enable aem.system

8. You can restart the server or run the below commands to start AEM. Make sure you run Pre-requisite Step 2 before running this command.

Commands to START, RESTART and STOP AEM

1. Start AEM - sudo service aem start
2. Restart AEM - sudo service aem restart
3. Stop AEM - sudo service aem stop

Notes

1. The example above was tested on CentOS 7
2. AEM 6.3 version was used. Although the above process should work for AEM 6.x