Retain Getting Started

Retain is a robust archiving and eDiscovery solution. Archiving has traditionally been focused on corporate email systems, but Retain not only archives more email systems than your typical solution (GroupWise, Exchange, Google Apps) - it also can archive Android SMS, Blackberry, Facebook, and Twitter.

For a comprehensive list of supported operating systems, database systems, email systems, etc, see Retain System Requirements.

Installation Pre-Reqs

Before you install Retain, there are some other pieces required depending upon the operating system. The reason for this is Retain runs under the Tomcat environment and Tomcat requires Java.

Linux

• Install Apache2.2
• Install your DBMS.

• If using MySQL, Retain will install and configure a "retain" database for you; however, you must first download the MySQL 5.5 server and client RPMs. They must be accessible to the Retain installation program, so it is best if the RPMs are on a drive local to the installer.
• If using MS SQL or Oracle, your database adminstrator will need to create the "retain" database in advance. See the appendix of the Linux Install Guide for instructions.

Windows Server

• Install Apache2.2 or IIS
• Download Java from the GWAVA download website and install it.
• Install your DBMS and configure a "retain" database. See the appendix of the Windows Install Guide for instructions.

Typical "Gotcha" When Installing Retain for the First Time on Linux

If you do not go with the default storage paths that Retain defaults to (which is perfectly OK), then you'll need to assign ownership of the directory to "tomcat" after installing Retain but before you access the RetainServer web interface for the first time (to configure your Retain system).

For example, if my Retain storage path were going to be "/data", I would first install Retain so that Tomcat gets installed. Tomcat would have to be installed and registered on the server before you could assign it as a directory owner. To assign "tomcat" as the owner of "/data", I would type this command: chown tomcat:tomcat /data.

If you miss this step, Retain will not be able to write files to your storage directory.