To run RCE on a system, the only prerequisite is an installed Java Runtime Environment
(JRE), version 8u161 or above. If you don't already have one on your machine, you can download it from
and install
it. Starting with RCE 8.x only 64 bit packages of RCE are made available. Therefore,
please make sure to install the 64 bit version of the JRE.http://www.java.com/download/
Some pre-installed components of RCE have additional dependencies. Please refer to Section 2.3 (Workflow Components) for more details.
On Windows, a single zip file is provided to set up client and server installations, which can be downloaded from
https://software.dlr.de/updates/rce/9.x/products/standard/releases/latest/zip/Simply extract the zip file to a location on your file system.
IMPORTANT: Please note that due to restrictions of the standard Windows file system (NTFS), you should choose a destination path that is as short as possible. Long paths are known to cause problems, as some RCE files may not be properly extracted from the zip file.
Starting with RCE 6.x, we provide digital signatures for our releases. These can be used to verify the integrity of the downloaded files, as any unsigned software can be tampered with while downloading it over an unsecured (HTTP) connection. This is especially important when installing RCE from a user account with administrator privileges, for example as a Windows service
For each type of release files (.zip, .deb, and .rpm files), a
SHA256SUM.asc file is provided next to the actual files. This file
contains checksums for each release file, and these checksums are signed with our
release key. It is named "RCE 6.x-9.x Automatic Signing Key", has the id 9DC1CE34, and
is valid until Nov 22, 2020. Its full fingerprint is 258B C129 EDA2 389D 3ECD 2DE6
BA88 0CB3 9DC1 CE34.
On Windows, you need to install gpg4win
(http://www.gpg4win.org/) to verify the digital signature. You can
use the Get-FileHash cmdlet of the Windows PowerShell to verify the checksum. The
cmdlet is available since version 4.0 of the Windows PowerShell. Windows PowerShell
4.0 is already built-in to some Windows versions (Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows
8.1) or can manually be installed (Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012,
Windows 7). To perform the actual verification:
Execute
gpg --recv-key 258BC129EDA2389D3ECD2DE6BA880CB39DC1CE34
to import the signing key. This only needs to be done once per key, e.g. once for all RCE 9.x releases.
If you see a message containing the text "RCE 6.x-9.x
Automatic Signing Key
<rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>", the key
import was successful. Sometimes, this step fails with the message
"key [...] not found on keyserver; gpg: no valid OpenPGP
data found." If this happens, just repeat the command a
few times until it works. This issue may also be caused by an
outdated gpg version (gpg version 2.0.9 on SUSE Linux Enterprise
Desktop 11 is known to be problematic, while gpg version 2.0.22
works).
The RCE signing key is published on the keyserver
pool.sks-keyservers.net, which is the default
keyserver for most distributions of gpg. If your installation does
not default to that keyserver, you may try to explicitly specify the
keyserver at hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net or at
hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net. Please consult the
documentation of your installation of gpg to determine how to
specify the keyserver.
If you cannot access keyservers at all for some reason, you can also download the key manually from
https://github.com/rcenvironment/rce-signing/blob/master/rce_9.x_signing_key.asc
After the download has completed, you can import the key by executing
apt-key adv --import rce_9.x_signing_key.asc
from the command line.
Download the SHA256SUMS.asc file from the same location as
the installation package and place it in the same folder as the downloaded
.zip-file. Run
gpg --verify --yes SHA256SUMS.asc
in the
location where you saved it to; this verifies the digital signature. Inspect
the output to see if it is correct; you should find the text "Good signature
from "RCE 6.x-9.x Automatic Signing Key
<rcenvironment-builds@lists.sourceforge.net>" (or a similar translation).
Once the command has terminated, you should find a file
SHA256SUMS in the current folder.
When following these steps, it is normal to receive a warning about the fact that the owner of this key cannot be verified. If you have received this user guide from a trustworthy source (e.g. an official RCE project site secured with HTTPS), you can assume that the key is correct, as the command used to import the key has already verified the key's integrity. Alternatively, you can fetch the key's fingerprint from a trustworthy source (e.g. from a secure intranet page, or the official @rcenvironment Twitter feed accessed via HTTPS) and compare it with the one shown in the command's output. If they match, you can trust that you are using the authentic key.
Adapt the following command to the RCE version you downloaded previously and run
Get-FileHash -Algorithm sha256 rce-9.0.0.201903131329-standard-win32.x86_64.zip
in the same folder from a PowerShell. The cmdlet will compute the hash for the specified file and print it to the screen. You need to compare the calculated hash with the hash in the SHA256SUMS file. If both are equal, this verifies that the actual download matches what has been digitally signed for the release.
To use RCE with a graphical user interface (GUI), simply start the "rce" executable from Windows Explorer. Optionally, create a desktop icon from the right-click menu using the "send to > desktop" option.
Once your RCE instance has started, you can open the configuration file with the menu option "Help > Open Configuration File". Edit the file, save it, and then restart RCE using the "File > Restart" menu option to apply the changes. There are configuration templates and other information available via the "Help > Open Configuration Information" option. The available configuration settings are described in the configuration chapter.
RCE can also be run from the command line without a graphical user interface (which is called "headless" mode), which uses less system resources and is therefore recommended when the GUI is not needed.
To run a headless RCE instance, open a command prompt and run the command
rce --headless -console
While RCE is running, you can
enter various console commands described in Section 3.3, “Commands”; note that
you need to prefix all RCE commands with "rce" here. To perform a clean shutdown, for
example, type rce stop and press enter.
For ad-hoc or temporary RCE network setups, running a headless RCE from the command line is perfectly fine. For more permanent installations, however, we recommend installing RCE as a Windows service instead. This has the advantage that RCE automatically shuts down when the server is shut down, and automatically restarts when the server does.
Executing the following steps will install RCE as service. An RCE service will start automatically on system boot and stop before system shutdown.
Navigate to the extras\windows_service folder inside your
installation folder of RCE named rce
Open the file install_as_service.bat and adjust these
settings:
Set RCE_ROOT_PATH to the location of your RCE installation (typically, the location which you are editing these files in). RCE must already be present (and unpacked) in this location; the daemon installer does not copy any files there.
Set RCE_SERVICE_USER to the name of the existing user account that the RCE service should run as.
This user account will be used to run RCE and all local tools that are invoked by it. Make sure that this user has appropriate system permissions to run these tools' executables, and read/write all related files.
Execute with administrator rights
install_as_service.bat
by double-clicking or on the command line
Open the Windows Service Managment Console (e.g. execute "services.msc" on the command line)
Look for entry "RCE Service", do a right-click and click "Properties"
Click on the "Log On" tab and fill in the correspondig password for the user account set to the RCE_SERVICE_USER variable. By clicking the "Apply" button a message should inform you that the privilege to "Log on as service" was added to the account.
To add the "Log on as a service" right to an account on your local computer manually:
Open Local Security Policy.
In the console tree, double-click Local Policies, and then click User Rights Assignments.
In the details pane, double-click Log on as a service.
Click Add User or Group and add the appropriate account to the list of accounts that possess the Log on as a service right.
Close the properties dialog by clicking "Ok"
To manually start the RCE service:
Open the Windows Service Managment Console (e.g. execute
services.msc on the command line)
Right-click on the entry "RCE Service" and select "Start"
To stop the RCE service:
Open the Windows Service Managment Console (e.g. execute
services.msc on the command line)
Right-click on the entry "RCE Service" and select "Stop"
To uninstall the RCE service:
Navigate to the extras\windows_service folder inside your
installation folder of RCE named rce
Open the file uninstall_service.bat and set the absolute
path of the variable RCE_ROOT_PATH to the location of your RCE
installation
Execute with administrator rights
uninstall_service.bat
by double-clicking or on the command line
After installation, the service instance will be started automatically. This will create a default configuration file if it does not exist yet.
To configure the service instance, locate the RCE configuration file
in the service user's home directory - by default, it is located at
C:\users\<user id>\.rce\default\configuration.json. Edit this
file and restart the service to apply the changes.
The need to restart the service is temporary; future versions of RCE will apply configuration changes as soon as the configuration file is changed.