Sakai 2.4.0 Release
(May 21, 2007)

 

Downloads

		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_2-4-0.zip (170M) MD5	sakai-demo_2-4-0.tar.gz (169M) MD5
Binary	The Sakai Binary is a pre-built Sakai without Tomcat or extra configuration files. Download the Binary release if you want to just drop the Sakai bundle into a pre-existing Tomcat environment. (NOTE: post-release patches are not made available as jar files, so the binary is not so easily updated with security patches, etc., between releases)	sakai-bin_2-4-0.zip (163M) MD5	sakai-bin_2-4-0.tar.gz (163M) 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_2-4-0.zip (34M) MD5	sakai-src_2-4-0.tar.gz (25M) MD5

System Requirements

Sakai is Java-based, and will therefore run on a wide variety of platforms.  The platforms against which Sakai 2.4.0 has been specifically QA'ed, however, are indicated in the chart below:

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

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

** NOTE: MySQL 5.0 is not currently recommended for Sakai in production because the query caching configuration available for MySQL 4 does not function for MySQL 5, resulting in poorer performance for the more recent version. It's worth noting, however, that MySQL 5 is being used successfully in Sakai development, it's simply performance in production environments that's a concern.

 

The basic underlying requirements for a successful deployment of Sakai 2.4.0 are:

Supporting Technology	Required Version	Notes
Java SE	1.5.0	Java 1.5 is required to build and run Sakai. JSP pages (among other things) will require some compilation, so the JRE alone will not suffice.
Tomcat	5.5.23	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 5.5.23, 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.
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 support has been included, but it is not yet uniformly supported across all modules, and so is not recommended.
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 2.4, 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 Documentation	2.4.0 Release Notes 2.4.0 Fixed Issues 2.4.0 Open Issues
Guides	Installation Guide Sakai Tools Sys Admin Guide
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 2.4.0 release can be found at: https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/reference/tags/sakai_2-4-0/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 uses 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 2.4 with a subversion client:

svn co https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/sakai/branches/sakai_2-4-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_2-4-0/

(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:

2.3:
• 2.3.1

2.2:
• 2.2.3

 

License

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