OpenERP Server / Client start up

1. The PostgreSQL database starts automatically and listens locally on port 5432 as standard: check this by entering sudo netstat -anpt at a terminal to see if port 5432 is visible there.
   
   
   
   
2. The database system has a default role of postgres accessible by running under the Linux postgres user: check this by entering
    
   sudo su postgres -c psql 
   
   
   at a terminal to see the psql startup message – then type \q to quit the program.
   
   
   
   
3. Start the Open ERP server from the postgres user (which enables it to access the PostgreSQL database) by typing  
   
   
   sudo su postgres -c openerp-server
   
   
   
4. If you try to start the Open ERP server from a terminal but get the message 
   
   
   socket.error: (98, 'Address already in use') 
   
   
   then you might be trying to start Open ERP while an instance of Open ERP is already running and using the sockets that you’ve defined (by default 8069 and 8070).
   
   
   If that’s a surprise to you then you may be coming up against a previous installation of Open ERP or Tiny ERP, or something else using one or both of those ports.
   
   
   # Type 
   
   sudo netstat -anpt
   
   
   to discover what is running there, and record the PID
   
   # You can check that the PID orresponds to a program you can dispense with by typing
    
   ps aux | grep 1377
   
   # and you can then stop the program from running by typing
    
   sudo kill 1377
   
    You need additional measures to stop it from restarting when you restart the server.
   
   
5. The Open ERP server has a large number of configuration options. You can see what they are by starting the server with the argument –help By efault the server configuration is stored in the file .terp_serverrc in the user’s home directory (and for the postgres user that directory is /var/lib/postgresql .
   
   
   
   
6. You can delete the configuration file to be quite sure that the Open ERP server is starting with just the default options. It is quite common for an upgraded system to behave badly because a new version server cannot work with options from a previous version. When the server starts without a configuration file it will write a new one once there is something non-default to write to it – it will operate using defaults until then.
   
   
7. To verify that the system works, without becoming entangled in firewall problems, you can start the Open ERP client from a second terminal window on the server computer (which doesn’t pass through the firewall). Connect using the XML-RPC protocol on port 8069 or NET-RPC on port 8070. The server can use both ports simultaneously. The window displays the log file when the client is started this way.
   
   
8. The client setup is stored in the file .terprc in the user’s home directory. Since a GTK client can be started by any user, each user would have their setup defined in a configuration file in their own home directory.
   
   
9. You can delete the configuration file to be quite sure that the Open ERP client is starting with just the default options. When the client starts without a configuration file it will write a new one for itself.
   
   
10. The web server uses the NET-RPC protocol. If a GTK client works but the web server doesn’t then the problem is either with the NET-RPC port or with the web server itself, and not with the Open ERP server.
    
    

Hint

One server for several companies

You can start several Open ERP application servers on one physical computer server by using different ports. If you have defined multiple database roles in PostgreSQL, each connected through an Open ERP instance to a different port, you can simultaneously serve many companies from one physical server at one time.