These instructions describe how to deploy GeoExplorer assuming you have a copy of the application source code from GitHub.

To get a copy of the application source code, use subversion:

you@prompt:~$ git clone git://github.com/opengeo/GeoExplorer.git

The GeoExplorer repository contains what you need to run the application as a servlet with an integrated persistence layer.

To assemble the servlet or run in development mode, you need Ant. In addition, to pull in external dependencies, you'll neeed Git installed.

Before running in development mode or preparing the application for deployment, you need to pull in external dependencies. Do this by running ant init in the geoexplorer directory:

you@prompt:~$ cd geoexplorer/
you@prompt:~/geoexplorer$ ant init

The application can be run in development or distribution mode. In development mode, individual scripts are available to a debugger. In distribution mode, scripts are concatenated and minified.

To run the application in development mode, run ant debug:

you@prompt:~$ cd geoexplorer
you@prompt:~/geoexplorer$ ant debug

If the build succeeds, you'll be able to browse to the application at http://localhost:8080/.

By default, the application runs on port 9080. To change this, you can set the app.port property as follows (setting the port to 8000):

you@prompt:~/geoexplorer$ ant -Dapp.port=8000 debug

In addition, if you want to make a remote GeoServer available at the /geoserver/ path, you can set the app.proxy.geoserver system property as follows:

you@prompt:~/geoexplorer$ ant -Dapp.proxy.geoserver=http://example.com/geoserver/ debug

Running GeoExplorer as described above is not suitable for production because JavaScript files will be loaded dynamically. Before moving your application to a production environment, run ant with the "dist" target. The "dist" target will result in a directory that can be dropped in a servlet container.

you@prompt:~$ cd geoexplorer
you@prompt:~/geoexplorer$ ant dist

Move the build/geoexplorer directory to your production environment (e.g. a servlet container).

GeoExplorer writes to a geoexplorer.db when saving maps. The location of this file is determined by the GEOEXPLORER_DATA value at runtime. This value can be set as a servlet initialization parameter or a Java system property.

The GEOEXPLORER_DATA value must be a path to a directory that is writable by the process that runs the application. The servlet initialization parameter is given precedence over a system property if both exist.

As an example, if you want the geoexplorer.db file to be written to your /tmp directory, modify GeoExplorer's web.xml file to include the following:

<init-param>
    <param-name>GEOEXPLORER_DATA</param-name>
    <param-value>/tmp</param-value>
</init-param>

GeoExplorer uses Cargo to deploy apps to a remote OpenGeo Suite instance's servlet container. The name of the app is set in root element of the build.xml file and defaults to geoexplorer:

<project name="geoexplorer" default="dist" basedir=".">

A typical ant command to deploy your app to http://my.host.com:8080/geoeplorer/` would be

ant deploy -Dcargo.host=my.host.com -Dcargo.password=abc123

To undeploy the app, use

ant undeploy -Dcargo.host=my.shost.com -Dcargo.password=abc123

There are more Cargo options available to the ant deploy and ant undeploy commands, and all are appended by using -D<option>=<value>:

* *cargo.host*: The OpenGeo Suite host to deploy to. Default is `localhost`.
* *cargo.port*: The port the OpenGeo Suite's servlet container runs on. Default is `8080`.
* *cargo.container*: The servlet container used by the OpenGeo Suite. Available values are `glassfish3x`, `jboss4x`, `jboss42x`, `jboss5x`, `jboss51x`, `jboss6x`, `jboss61x`, `jboss7x`, `jboss71x`, `jetty6x`, `jetty7x`, `jetty8x`. Default is `tomcat6x`.
* *cargo.username*: The username for the container management servlet. Default is `manager`.
* *cargo.password*: The password for the container management servlet. No default.
* *cargo.context*: The name of the servlet context for the app (i.e. the url path for the app). Default is the project name specified in the `build.xml` file.