How do I create an Alfresco site programmatically from a repository webscript?

Question

I've implemented an Alfresco repository webscript (in Java) to programmatically create a new site.

I notice that there's a SiteService interface which I thought could be used to do this -

SiteInfo site = siteService.createSite("site-dashboard", "mySite", 
"mySite", "", SiteVisibility.PUBLIC);

However, this results in the creation of a non-functional site, and although it's visible within the Alfresco Share dashboard, I'm not able to use it.

I then came across this code sample, which is doing exactly what I want. BUT the code includes a section to do authentication, involving sending the user's login and password details to a dologin web service. Don't really want to do this.

But as the user has already logged in via Alfresco Share, they should already be authenticated.

If I call the create-site webscript from my code, as shown in the example (without the initial call to dologin), I'm getting a 401 (unauthorised) return code.

So my question is, how do I tell the create-site webscript about my authentication? I read about using an authentication ticket here. Is this ticket stored in the session, and if so, how do I access it within my Java code? If I could get the ticket, then this would be sufficient to invoke the create-site webscript.

Update: I've added the alf_ticket parameter as suggested by the comment, but I'm still getting a 401 response.

My current code is:

    public NodeRef createServiceChange(String serviceChangeName) {

        HttpClient client = new HttpClient();

        String ticket = authService.getCurrentTicket();

        PostMethod createSitePost = new PostMethod("http://localhost:8081/share/service/modules/create-site");

        JSONObject siteObject = new JSONObject();
        try {
            siteObject.put("shortName", serviceChangeName);
            siteObject.put("visiblity", "Public");
            siteObject.put("sitePreset", "site-dashboard");
            siteObject.put("title", serviceChangeName);
            siteObject.put("description", serviceChangeName);
            siteObject.put("alf_ticket", ticket);

            createSitePost.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
            createSitePost.setRequestHeader("Accept", "application/json");
            createSitePost.setRequestEntity(new StringRequestEntity(siteObject.toString(), "application/json", "UTF-8"));

            int status = client.executeMethod(createSitePost);
            System.out.println("create a site script status :: " + status);

            if (status == HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
                System.out.println("Site created OK");
            }
            else{
                System.out.println("There is error in site creation");
            }
        } catch (JSONException err) {
            err.printStackTrace();
        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (HttpException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }

Answer 1

So I've managed to successfully create a site, programmatically, and here's what I did:

First, forget about writing a repository (platform) webscript. Creation of sites in Alfresco is done by invoking a Share module, so you'll need to implement either a page, or custom menu item to create a site. I was also getting a lot of problems with authentication, but if you log in to the system via Alfresco Share, and in your Javascript, use the provided Alfresco Ajax request, then authentication shouldn't be a problem.

Here are the components I used:-

1. Create a Share page to create your site. In the Freemarker template (.ftl) add a form to collect the site details.

2. Attach a button on the form to the following Javascript function. Note that I cobbled this together from various code fragments on the web, so it could use some cleaning up. But it basically works for me -

   function create_site()
   {
   var sc_form = document.forms.namedItem('sc_form');
   var name = sc_form.elements.namedItem('name').value;
   
   var url = Alfresco.constants.URL_CONTEXT + "service/modules/create-site";
   
   Alfresco.util.Ajax.request({
   
       method : Alfresco.util.Ajax.POST,
   
       url : url,
   
       dataObj: {
           sitePreset: "site-dashboard",
           visibility: "PUBLIC",
           title: name,
           shortName: name,
           description: name
       },
   
       requestContentType: Alfresco.util.Ajax.JSON,
   
       successCallback: 
       {
           fn: function(res){
              alert("success");
              alert(res.responseText);                                                                                            
           },
   
           scope: this
   
       },
   
       failureCallback: 
       {
          fn: function(response)
          {
             Alfresco.util.PopupManager.displayPrompt(
             {
                title: Alfresco.util.message("message.failure", this.name),
                text: "search failed"
             });                                          
          },
          scope: this
       }
   });
   }