Alfresco Community 26.x

This is a build of Alfresco Community 26.x with LDAP, a Python MCP server, LDAP server, and other goodies.

https://connect.hyland.com/t5/alfresco-blog/alfresco-community-edition-26-1-release-notes/ba-p/497107

Getting Started

Quick Start

./start.sh

Opens http://localhost:9700 with a Hyland-branded header. On page load, Docker presence is checked. If Docker is unavailable, an overlay prompts accordingly:

• Docker not installed — shows a Download Docker Desktop link (opens docker.com) and a Check Again button.
• Docker not running — shows Launch Docker (opens Docker Desktop) and Check Again buttons, then polls until Docker is ready.

Manual Start

python3 mgr/server.py

Services Panel

Lists all services from docker-compose.yaml sorted with alfresco and share first, then alphabetically.

Per-service controls:

• Start / Stop / Restart buttons
• "starting…" indicator — when a service is starting (via bulk or per-service start), its status row shows an animated pulsing dot with "starting…" text that persists until the container reports healthy
• ▶ Show Logs accordion — expands to show the last 20 log lines (fetched via docker logs --tail 20 --timestamps), collapsed by default
• Dozzle ↗ link — opens that container's logs in Dozzle (http://localhost:9999)
• ▶ Edit Global Properties button (alfresco only) — inline textarea editor for alfresco-global.properties with Save/Discard & Reload buttons and a status indicator

Global controls:

• Start All / Stop All / Restart All buttons
• Refresh button
• Status badge showing X/Y running — green when all running, red otherwise
• Open Alfresco / Kibana links — appear in the header when respective services are running (Alfresco on port 8080, Kibana on port 5601)
• Dark mode toggle button with moon/sun icon in the header

Services with profiles: [donotstart] are tagged with a badge and excluded from the default start.

Available Files

Two tabs: Content (installs/content/) and Share (installs/share/).

Each file shows:

• Install AMP / Install JAR button — copies the file into the container and (for AMPs) runs alfresco-mmt install

  • Already-installed files show a disabled (done) button
  • Buttons are disabled when Docker is not running; a message indicates they will be enabled once Docker starts

• Delete button — removes the file from the directory, with a confirmation warning

• Install All button — batch-installs all uninstalled JARs and AMPs in sequence, with a progress counter (X/Y) shown on the button

Upload:

• Upload File button opens a file picker; any file type is accepted
• After upload, a confirm() dialog asks if you want to install .jar / .amp files immediately

AMPs Panel

Alfresco and Share tabs, plus an All Services tab aggregating both. Each tab shows:

• Installed — modules in a table (Title, Version, ID) with a Remove button per module (MMT uninstall; the module then reappears in Available for reinstall)
• Available (in installs/) — AMP files from the local installs/ directory not yet installed, with Install buttons
• Pending — AMP files in the container's amps/ or amps_share/ directory (filtered to exclude AMPs already installed via MMT)

JARs Panel

Alfresco and Share tabs, plus an All Services tab with service badges. Each tab shows:

• Installed — .jar files in WEB-INF/lib/ with a Remove button per file (deletes from the running container; only JARs installed through the UI are removable)
• Available (in installs/) — JAR files from the local installs/ directory not yet deployed, with Install buttons

Quay Login & Pull Images

When the Start All button is clicked, the UI first checks for missing quay.io images:

• If images need to be pulled, a Quay.io Login overlay prompts for quay.io credentials (username + password/token). After successful login, a Pull overlay opens showing streaming docker compose pull output with a Skip (start anyway) button.
• If all images are cached, the pull step is skipped and containers start immediately.
• The Quay button in the header can manually trigger the login flow at any time.

The pull runs in a background thread (_pull_images()) on the Python server, streaming line-by-line to the GET /api/pull-status endpoint, which the frontend polls every 600ms.

Restart Prompt

After installing an AMP, JAR, saving properties, or uninstalling an AMP, a Restart Required overlay appears asking to restart the container. Click Restart Now to restart immediately, or Later to dismiss. When restarting Alfresco, an animated wait banner appears at the top of the page with a spinning Alfresco logo.

Auto-Refresh

All panels (services, AMPs, JARs, files) refresh every 5 seconds. During a pending start, stop, or restart action (both Start All and individual Start/Restart), the refresh interval accelerates to 1 second via startFastRefreshUntil(). The pending action completes when all appropriate services (excluding donotstart profile) reach the target state. Use the Refresh button to force-update all panels immediately.

Guided Tour

On first visit, a guided tour appears 2 seconds after data loads, walking through 6 areas of the UI:

1. Service Controls — Start All / Stop All / Restart All buttons
2. Services Table — per-service status and Start/Stop/Restart
3. Logs & Monitoring — Show Logs accordion and Dozzle ↗ link
4. File Management — Upload, Install, and Delete
5. Installed Modules — AMPs panel with installed + pending lists
6. Library JARs — WEB-INF/lib listing with Remove

Each step dims the background, highlights the target element, and floats a tooltip with an OK button to advance. Click Skip tour at any point to dismiss. The tour runs only once per browser (tracked via localStorage).

To restart the tour on demand, click the ? button in the top-right header next to Refresh.

Alfresco Ready Prompt

When the Alfresco service transitions from stopped to running and its health probe returns healthy, a popup overlay asks if you'd like to open Alfresco at http://localhost:8080/alfresco. Click Open Alfresco to launch it in a new tab, or Not now to dismiss. The Open Alfresco ↗ link in the header also appears whenever any services are running.

While waiting for Alfresco to become healthy (e.g., during start or restart), an animated Alfresco logo banner displays at the top of the page. The petals cycle through green, blue, orange, and yellow colors. The banner disappears once the health probe passes or the prompt is shown.

Demo Materials

• DEMO_SCRIPT.md — step-by-step walkthrough script for recording a video demo (12 scenes, ~8 minutes) covering services, logs, Dozzle, guided tour, file upload/install/delete, AMPs, JARs, Alfresco ready prompt, and Docker startup flows
• Alfresco_Control_Plane_Features.pptx — PowerPoint presentation covering all features (dark theme)

Technical Notes

• AI assistance: This project was built with opencode using the zen mode with the big-pickle model.

• Backend: Single-file Python http.server (stdlib only). All Docker interaction via subprocess.run.

• Frontend: Single HTML file with inline CSS/JS. Zero dependencies (2394 lines). Uses async/await, Fetch API, innerHTML rendering.

• Styling: Dark theme via CSS variables (--bg, --card, --border, --text, --accent, etc.), Hyland brand colors (teal #13eac1, gold #f1cb61), Inter font.

• File uploads: Base64-encoded in JSON body (not multipart, since http.server has no multipart parser).

• Service ordering: list_services() sorts with alfresco (priority 0) and share (priority 1) first, then alphabetical.

• Profile detection: _parse_compose_profiles() uses regex to parse profiles: [donotstart] from the YAML directly for badge display.

• Service name extraction: _parse_all_service_names() reads docker-compose.yaml directly to capture all services (including profile-gated ones). Merged with docker compose config --services output.

• AMP lifecycle: Files are renamed .amp → .applied after MMT install. Uninstall runs MMT and removes the matching .applied marker from the container (or reverts it to .amp if no source exists in installs/), so the AMP shows up as Available again for reinstall.

• JAR tracking: Only JARs installed through the UI are removable. Persisted to mgr/data/installed_jars.json.

• Background pull: docker compose pull runs in a background threading with line-by-line streaming. State tracked via _pull_state dict protected by _pull_lock.

• Delete path validation: /api/delete-file resolves the path and verifies it's within installs/ to prevent directory traversal.

• Auto-refresh: 5s cycle; accelerates to 1s during pending start/stop/restart actions via startFastRefreshUntil(); pendingAction resolves when all appropriate services reach target state.

• Container detection: detect_containers() uses docker compose ps -q + docker inspect to discover actual container names (project-name agnostic).

• Start error reporting: do_start() runs docker compose up -d as a batch, but on failure inspects docker compose ps --format json post-attempt to report per-service results — services that started are marked "started", only failed services get the Docker error message.

MCP Server

The container wildsalfmcp starts an MCP server for use with Copilot or Claude Desktop.

For local models with a dedicated chat client, install Ollama, pull a model (ollama pull llama3), restart Docker services, then access the Open WebUI interface at http://localhost:3000. Configure tools under Settings to point to http://localhost:8001.