Sakai 2.3.1 Release Page

Home Release 2.3.1

## Table of Contents Links

Downloads
System Requirements
Documentation
Getting the Latest Source Code
Issue Tracking
Community
Older Releases
License

# Sakai 2.3.1 Release
(February 12, 2007)

Security Update: 2.2.3 adds a critical security fix to the 2.2.2 maintenance release and should therefore be taken to simply supersede 2.2.2 and all 2.2.x releases which came before it. Anyone running unpatched versions of earlier 2.2 releases should upgrade to 2.2.3 immediately. Unpatched systems could allow a user to view all attachments on the system through the browser ( SAK-7288) as well as alter or delete them through a WebDAV client (SAK-7672).

The Sakai 2.3 series as a whole presents more in the way of feature enhancements and less in the way of API changes than 2.2. Three new provisional tools have been added, while two very successful provisional tools have been promoted to the enterprise bundle. Several existing tools have seen significant enhancements, along with general improvements for the portal and configuration options in sakai.properties. See the release notes for more details.

### Downloads

Install Type | Description | Windows XP | Mac/*nix
--- | --- | --- | ---
Demo | The Sakai Demo is a pre-built Sakai with Tomcat and a simple configuration, perfect for a quick and easy demo of Sakai. (NOTE: The demo version is not intended for large scale implementations. It is suitable for evaluating the software and small pilot implementations on single servers) | sakai-demo_2-3-1.zip (141.2M) MD5 | sakai-demo_2-3-1.tar.gz (140.1M) MD5
Binary | The Sakai Binary is a pre-built Sakai without Tomcat, jar dependencies, or extra configuration files. Download the Binary release if you want to just drop the Sakai bundle into a pre-existing Tomcat environment. | sakai-bin_2-3-1.zip (133.1M) MD5 | sakai-bin_2-3-1.tar.gz (132.8M) MD5
Source | The Sakai Source is all the Sakai source code from this release. Start from Source if you expect to make any code-level changes to your Sakai system. | sakai-src_2-3-1.zip (30.4M) MD5 | sakai-src_2-3-1.tar.gz (21.8M) MD5

### System Requirements

Sakai is Java-based, and will therefore run on a wide variety of platforms. The platforms against which Sakai 2.3.1 has been specifically QA'ed, however, are:

| Solaris | Linux | Win 2003
MySQL 4.1 |  | * |
MySQL 5.0 |  |  |
Oracle 9i |  |  |
Oracle 10g |  | * |

| * - Sakai QA Server Dark cell - In production at a Sakai partner institution

** NOTE: MySQL 5.0 is not currently recommended for Sakai in production. During QA testing it was discovered that the query caching configuration for MySQL 4 causes problems for MySQL 5, and until we can resolve this issue MySQL 5 deployments will see poorer performance. It's worth noting, however, that MySQL 5 is being used successfully in Sakai development.

The basic underlying requirements for a successful deployment of Sakai 2.3.1 are:

Supporting Technology | Required Version | Notes
--- | --- | ---
Java SE | 1.5.0 | Java 1.5.0 is required to build and run Sakai. JSP pages (among other things) will require some compilation, so the JRE alone will not suffice. ** NOTE: Security vulnerabilities have been reported for applets under certain minor versions of the JRE. Sakai does include some applets, so see the security alert from Sun to get details on the recommended minor versions.
Tomcat | 5.5.17+ and the JDK 1.4 compatibility package | Although Tomcat is not the only available web container, it is highly recommended, and the documentation assumes Tomcat use. Sakai QA was conducted on Tomcat 5.5.17, so this is the recommended version, but the latest stable release of 5.5 will likely not present problems. ** NOTE: Problems with CAS integration were discovered with Tomcat 5.5.16, so this version is not recommended. Tomcat 5.5 requires a compatibility package in order to run with Java 1.4 code, and some Sakai dependencies will also require this package, even though Java 1.5 is used to build and run Sakai. This compatibility package is also available from the Tomcat download page.
Maven | Version 1.0.2 | Maven is the build tool used to deploy the source code, and is therefore not strictly necessary if all you're going to do is install a Demo with the default configuration, but it will be essential for a production deployment. ** NOTE: Maven 2 is not yet supported.
Database | MySQL 4.1.12+ with InnoDB OR Oracle 9i+ | Sakai uses HSQLDB as its "out of the box" database, requiring no special installation steps to set up, but this database is not recommended for any level of production deployment. Both MySQL 4.1.12+ and Oracle 9i+ are currently supported by Sakai 2.3, but setting them up to serve as Sakai's back end will require additional configuration (see the Installation Guide). Sakai requires transaction support, and so the InnoDB storage engine will be needed for MySQL deployments. It's important to note that Oracle requires the 10g driver even if Oracle 9i is used for the database. The recommended driver for MySQL is 3.1.14.

### Documentation

Release Notes | 2.3.1 Release Notes 2.3.1 Fixed Issues 2.3.1 Open Issues
HTML Guides | Installation Guide Sakai Tools
Reference Articles | Some of the most authoritative technical documentation on Sakai code and services is found in the form of .doc files in the reference module of Sakai, which can be directly reached through subversion (and is also included in release archives). The articles for the 2.3.1 release can be found at: https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/reference/tags/sakai_2-3-1/docs/architecture/
For New Developers | The best introduction for new developers is found in a wiki space called the Programmer's Cafe. A number of experienced Sakai developers have banded together there to produce guides and tutorial materials for those who wish to start hacking on Sakai.
Wiki notes | Confluence is the wiki software used by the Sakai project. Confluence is used for a wide variety of purposes: the collaborative forging of documentation and design ideas, project management reporting, and the sharing of notes on various topics. A few of the more informative spaces are identified below: Project Management and Coordination Sakaipedia Programmer's Cafe
Support Docs | JavaDocs and TagLibDocs are available on-line: JavaDocs or (download zip) TagLibDocs or (download zip)

### Getting the Latest Source Code

Sakai is using Subversion for its source control, and has maintenance branches - which include the latest bug fixes - for its most current releases. You can check out the maintenance branch for Sakai 2.3 with a subversion client:

svn co https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/sakai/branches/sakai_2-3-x/

If you don't wish to track and merge changes with subversion you can use 'svn export' instead. The Sakai development trunk can be checked out from here:

svn co https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/sakai/trunk

A minimal source tree designed for developers is also made available, called "Sakai Mini," which is meant to build and start up relatively quickly. It includes the Sakai Framework Technologies, the developer's Sakai Mercury portal, and a few of the basic applications. You can check it out of subversion, then just add your application code and any further dependencies that your application needs. You can grab it here, e.g.:

svn export https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/mini/tags/sakai_2-3-1/

(Since the mini is mainly just a convenient support for other development, it's likely that 'svn export' will be the preferred, cleaner way to get this codebase)

### Issue Tracking

Bug reports and feature requests may be created and monitored through our Jira system: Sakai Jira

### Community

The Sakai community interacts online mainly in two forums. The first is through the email archives attached to the sites on Sakai Collab. "Collab" is a Sakai-based service run by the Sakai Foundation to support the collaboration of its community. For technical questions, sakai-dev is the most active such site, but many others are available, ranging from pedagogy to UI design. We encourage you to create an account, join any groups on the collab server for which you may have an interest, and participate.

To join, for example, the developer's site, simply create an account from the gateway page, log in, and then use the "Membership" tool to join the site labeled DG: Development. By joining this site you are automatically added to the sakai-dev@collab.sakaiproject.org mailing list. To "unsubscribe" from any of the lists, simply use the same Membership tool to unjoin the sites. ** NOTE: This is not technically a listserv, so that sending an "unsubscribe" email will accomplish nothing.

The second forum is Confluence, the wiki web used by the project. Confluence is used for a wide variety of purposes: the collaborative forging of documentation or design ideas, project management reporting, and the sharing of notes on a wide array of topics. You can browse its pages there anonymously, but if you want to comment or otherwise participate you're encouraged to create an account there as well.

### Older Releases

Older Sakai Releases are still available:

2.2:
- 2.2.3

### License

The Sakai Project Software is Licensed under the:
Educational Community License Version 1.0