The CE version of Liferay is freely downloadable from our web site at
http://www.liferay.com. Click the Downloads link at
the top of the page and you are presented with multiple options for getting a
copy of Liferay, including our convenient bundles or a .war package for
installation on your application server of choice.
The EE version of Liferay is provided to you as a result of your support
subscription. Everything you need is provided in the Customer Portal, including
download links that allow you to obtain a copy of a Liferay bundle or a .war
package for installation on your application server of choice.
So what is a bundle anyway? A bundle is an open source application server with Liferay preinstalled. This is the most convenient way to install Liferay. Liferay is bundled with a number of open source application servers; all you need to do is choose the one that best fits your needs. If you don’t currently have an application server, you may want to start with the Tomcat bundle, as Tomcat is one of the smallest and most straightforward bundles to configure. If you have an open source application server preference, choose the server you prefer from the available Liferay Portal bundles. All of the bundles ship with a Java Runtime Environment for Windows; if you are using a different operating system, you will need to have a JDK (Java Development Kit) installed prior to launching Liferay.
Please note that Liferay is not able to provide application server bundles for
proprietary application servers such as WebLogic or WebSphere, because the
licenses for these servers don’t allow for redistribution. Liferay Portal,
however, runs just as well on these application servers as it does on open
source application servers. A .war file and dependency .jars are provided
for proprietary application servers and you’ll need to follow a procedure to
install Liferay on them.
First we’ll go over installing Liferay from a bundle and after this we’ll provide instructions for installing Liferay manually on all the application servers it supports.