Liferay allows you to easily hot deploy layout templates, JSR 168 portlets, and themes. Layout templates allow portlets to be arranged inside the constraints of custom layouts. JSR 168 portlets add functional abilities to the portal. Themes modify the look and feel of the portal. Layout templates, portlets and themes can be deployed at runtime by utilizing the hot deploy features of Liferay.
Go to the drive where you installed your server. Check to see that /home/liferay/deploy exists. If it does not, create it. You can also customize the location of this directory from the Admin portlet:
Start the server. The server will now automatically scan for *.war files.
Download one of the layout templates, sample portlets or themes to /home/liferay/deploy. Click here for a list of sample portlets, themes and layouts. (Any JSR 168 compliant portlet WAR will work as well.)
Install either JBoss+Jetty, JBoss+Tomcat, Jetty, Resin, Tomcat or WebSphere.
If you have already set up the extension environment, you can hot deploy portlets, layouts or themes by dropping them into ext/portlets, ext/layouttpl or ext/themes respectively. Then run ant deploy from that directory.
Notes: If the hot deploy feature does not work, make sure that your *.war file is a JSR 168 compliant portlet WAR, theme or layout. (You cannot use themes and layouts designed for Liferay Portal v3.6.1 or layouts and themes that were designed for other portals).