Installing Mingle
Introduction
If you are evaluating Mingle and do not need to install on a production environment, the Mingle Evaluation image, which does not require you to install a database, is easier and quicker to setup.
There are three steps to install Mingle:
- Configure a database
- Download and Install Mingle (this topic).
- Configure Mingle
If you are using Apache, you may also want to check out the Apache settings page for some setup recommendations.
How to install Mingle for Windows
You must be logged in as a user with Admin privileges to install the Mingle service under Windows.
Installing Mingle for the first time
- Double-click the Mingle installer file and follow the prompts to install Mingle.
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During installation, Mingle will ask you to:
- select a destination directory. This is where Mingle will be installed.
- select a data directory to store data. This is where Mingle will store project data including configuration files and attachments. It is not the database location.
- select a swap directory to store temporary data. This will act as a tmp space in which to store intermediate data such as project exports (.mingle files) while they are being created, project import files that are being imported, excel import content that is being processed for preview and excel import content that is being processed for import.
- select a config directory to store configuration data. This is where Mingle will store project configuration files such as database.yml. This is not the database location.
- select a port from which to run Mingle. The default for this is '8080' but you can set it to any port that is not currently being used.
If you have previously installed Mingle in the selected destination directory, all Mingle files from the existing instance will be deleted except log files, cache and any contents in /vendor/plugins.
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At the end of the installation, Mingle opens the configuration wizard in your default web browser.
- If you have issues starting Mingle please refer to Mingle's troubleshooting help.
Installing Mingle when there is an existing installation of Mingle
Beginning with 2.3, Mingle allows the user to follow the Mingle installation process without restarting the computer even if Mingle is already installed. When you install the same or a newer version of Mingle at the same location as an existing installation of Mingle, the existing installation will be uninstalled before the new version is installed.
- If any version of Mingle is already installed and is currently running, the server will be stopped and the existing installation of Mingle with be uninstalled.
- If any version of Mingle is already installed but the server is not running, the existing installation of Mingle with be uninstalled.
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Uninstalling Mingle involves deleting all Mingle related files except:
- The all contents of the data directory (and the database used)
- The config directory
- The swap directory
- The installation folder log directory - contains all mingle log files
- The /vendor/plugins directory - contains any custom plugins (if there are any)
- The installation folder tmp directory - contains temporary files and cache
How to install Mingle for Linux/Unix/Mac OSX
Installation Steps
During installation of Mingle you will need to set the location of the Mingle data directory (dataDir).
The dataDir is where Mingle will store project data including configuration files and attachments. This is not the database location.
This directory should not be within the Mingle installation folder. To avoid problems with future upgrades, keep these directory separate from the Mingle installation.
Installation steps:
- Move the downloaded Linux/Unix installer file into the directory where you want to install Mingle.
- Untar the file using tar -xzvf mingle_unix_X_X_XXXX.tar.gz (where the Xs should be replaced with the downloaded file's revision number as shown in the filename).
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Start the Mingle server and specify the data directory
cd into the Mingle install directory and type:
./MingleServer --mingle.dataDir=/path/to/your/data start
where /path/to/your/data is the location of your data directory.
You will need to be logged in as a user with the appropriate permissions to create the data directory in the location you specify. Otherwise when the Mingle Server starts up, it will not be able to create the data directory or swap directory.
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Open a browser to the Mingle root.
If you were configuring Mingle on the same machine the server was running on, this would be http://localhost:8080. Open your browser to the correct host and port for your installation.
The browser displays the configuration wizard.
- If you have issues starting Mingle please refer to Mingle's troubleshooting help.
If Safari was used to download the file you may find that the file was already unzipped. If this is the case the file will now have the extension .tar and you can use the command tar -xvf mingle_unix_X_X_XXXX.tar to extract the files.
You may also optionally, set other advanced configuration options when starting Mingle or by editing the mingle.properties file located in the data directory. Refer to the mingle.properties.example file in your Mingle installation folder to see other properties that can be set to configure Mingle. If you do not manually set these options defaults will be used.