Deployment Topology

AEM Forms add-on package is an application deployed onto AEM. You require only a minimum of one AEM Author and AEM Publish instance to run AEM Forms data capture capabilities. The following topology is suggested to run AEM Forms AEM Forms data capture capabilities. For detailed information about the topology, see Architecture and deployment topologies for AEM Forms.

recommended-topology

System Requirements

Before you begin to install and configure data capture capability of AEM Forms, ensure that:

  • Hardware and software infrastructure is in place. For a detailed list of supported hardware and software, see technical requirements.

  • Installation path of the AEM instance does not contain white-spaces.

  • An AEM instance is up and running. For Windows users, install the AEM instance in elevated mode. In AEM terminology, an “instance” is a copy of AEM running on a server in the author or publish mode. You require at least two AEM instances (one Author and one Publish) to run AEM Forms data capture capabilities:

    • Author: An AEM instance used to create, upload, and edit content and to administer the website. Once content is ready to go live, it is replicated to the publish instance.
    • Publish: An AEM instance that serves the published content to the public over the internet or an internal network.
  • Memory requirements are met. AEM Forms add-on package requires:

    • 15 GB of temporary space for Microsoft Windows-based installations.
    • 6 GB of temporary space for UNIX-based installations.
  • Replication and reverse replication for the author and publish instances is set. For details, see Replication.

  • For UNIX-based systems:

    • Install the following 32-bit packages from the installation media:
expatfontconfigfreetypeglibc
libcurllibICElibiculibSM
libuuidlibX11libXaulibxcb
libXextlibXineramalibXrandrlibXrender
nss-softokn-freeblOpenSSLzlib
NOTE
  • If OpenSSL is already installed on the server, upgrade it to the latest version.
  • Create libcurl.so, libcrypto.so, and libssl.so symlinks pointing to the latest version of the libcurl, libcrypto, and libssl libraries respectively.

Install AEM Forms add-on package

AEM Forms add-on package is an application deployed onto AEM. The package contains AEM Forms data capture and other capabilities. Perform the following steps to install the add-on package:

  1. Open Software Distribution. You require an Adobe ID to log in to the Software Distribution.

  2. Select Adobe Experience Manager available in the header menu.

  3. In the Filters section:

    1. Select Forms from the Solution drop-down list.
    2. Select the version and type for the package. You can also use the Search Downloads option to filter the results.
  4. Select the package name applicable to your operating system, select Accept EULA Terms, and select Download.

  5. Open Package Manager and click Upload Package to upload the package.

  6. Select the package and click Install.

    You can also download the package via the direct link listed in the AEM Forms releases article.

  7. After the package is installed, you are prompted to restart the AEM instance. Do not immediately restart the server. Before stopping the AEM Forms server, wait until the ServiceEvent REGISTERED and ServiceEvent UNREGISTERED messages stop appearing in the [AEM-Installation-Directory]/crx-quickstart/logs/error.log file and the log is stable.

    NOTE
    It is recommended to use the ‘Ctrl + C’ command to restart the SDK. Restarting the AEM SDK using alternative methods, for example, stopping Java processes, may lead to inconsistencies in the AEM development environment.
  8. Repeat steps 1-7 on all the Author and Publish instances.

(Windows only) Automatic installation of Visual Studio redistributables

If you install an AEM instance in elevated mode, the 32-bit Visual Studio redistributables are installed automatically during the installation of AEM Forms add-on package.

To evaluate if the Visual Studio redistributables are installed automatically, open the error.log file available at the /crx-repository/logs/ directory. The logs include the following message:

Redist <service name> already installed on system, will not attempt re-installation

If the redistributables fail to install, the logs include the following message:

Current user does not have elevated privileges, aborting installation of redist <service name>

To resolve the issue, restart the AEM server, install AEM in elevated mode, and then install the AEM Forms add-on package.

If the privilege check fails, the logs include the following message:

Privilege escalation check failed with error: <error message>

Post-installation configurations

AEM Forms has a few mandatory and optional configurations. The mandatory configurations include configuring BouncyCastle libraries and serialization agent. The optional configurations include configuring dispatcher, Forms portal, Adobe Sign, Adobe Analytics, and Adobe Target.

Mandatory post-installation configurations