Note

title

Non-Appliance Mode Only

The steps below are only applicable for installation in Non-Appliance mode, and should be performed by your Linux your Linux administrator.

Tip
This video demonstrates how to prepare a RHEL 7.8 operating system for DPOD Non-Appliance mode installation. Use it just as a demonstration, as it is not kept up-to-date with every change in the requirements. When preparing the operating system, you should follow the procedure provided below.

Subject	Action
Supported operating system

Verify that the operation system

Install an operating system that is supported by DPOD as described in

System

Hardware and Software Requirements.

After

Verify the

server OS is installed, this can be verified

installed OS using the following command:

Code Block
cat /etc/redhat-release

Resources allocation

Allocate resources according to the chosen

architecture type

deployment profile as listed in

System

Hardware and Software Requirements.

After the server OS is installed, this can be verified

Verify the allocated resources using the following commands:

Code Block
free -h


lscpu

Network

card

requirements

Ensure you have at least one network interface installed and configured with full access to network services, such as DNS and NTP

(the same as your Gateways)

.
Some configurations, such as the Cell environment, require 2 network interfaces.

See Network Preparation for

See Firewall Requirements for more details.
Root access	The installation must be performed by a root user. You cannot use `sudo` instead.

However, you may run it after running the command: su -
The installation will add entries to the PATH variable using

Do not override the PATH variable with a fixed value during login sequence, as this will override the value set by DPOD installation in .bash_profile

. Make sure these entries are maintained during the login sequence (do not override with a fixed PATH).

and will cause various scripts to fail.
Do not use script command during the login sequence to make a typescript of the terminal session for audit, as this will cause various scripts to hang.
Do not use trap command to clear the terminal on session close, as this will cause various scripts to get extra characters as their input and fail.
Do not print a disclaimer in .bashrc, as this will cause various scripts to get the disclaimer as their input and fail.

Disks, mount points

/

, file systems and logical volumes

DPOD requires at least 3 disks (LUNs / physical / virtual):

1 disk for the operating system

,

1 disk for the application

and

/logs
At least 1 disk for the data

.

Some configurations, such as the Cell environment, require

additional

multiple disks for the data.
Please allocate the mount points / file systems on the different disks, as described in Table 1 below.

It is strongly recommended to use logical volume manager (LVM) - particularly for the data

disks

disk(s). See Example: Creating File Systems using LVM.
Once configured, you may verify

there are at least 3 disks

the configuration using the following command:

Code Block
lsblk

Tip:

to create the mount points / file systems during RHEL installation:

Choose Installation Destination option.

Select all Local Standard drives and choose option "I will configure partitioning" under the "Other Storage Options" section.

Follow the table below and add all mount points with required definitions using the "+" button.

To create a volume group (sys, app, data), when applicable, open the "Volume Group" listbox and choose "create new volume group ..."

To use LVM in AWS EC2 instances with RHEL 8.x and EBS disks, first execute dnf install lvm2 to install the LVM package, and use gdisk to create a partition. For more information, see https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/create-lv-on-ebs-partition/.

Store service dedicated OS user and group

The Store service requires a dedicated OS user and group to run. Consider executing the following command:

Code Block
groupadd storeadms && useradd -g storeadms -md /home/storeadm -s /bin/bash storeadm

OS locale

The supported OS locale is en_US.UTF-8. Check the OS Locale Configuration and change it if necessary.

SELinux configuration

Changes in SELinux configuration might be needed. Check if SELinux is enabled using the following command:

Code Block
sestatus

If SELinux is enforced on the DPOD server, please review possible required configuration changes.

Setup DNS

Setup

It is highly recommended to setup DNS - your network admin may need to assist you with this action

. Make sure you can ping to your LDAP, Mail/SMTP Server, NTP Server

.
Using yum on RedHat	For RedHat only: Your system might need to be registered and subscribed to the Red Hat Customer Portal to be able to install all prerequisites using `yum`. Registration and subscription may differ between organizations and RHEL version, so

use

consider the following commands just as

a demonstration

an example:

Code Block
subscription-manager register


subscription-manager attach --auto

For RHEL 7.x

Code Block
subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-rh-common-rpms


subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-7-server-optional-rpms

For RHEL 8.x

Code Block
subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms

Setup NTP

Setup

It is highly recommended to setup NTP - it has to be the same one configured in your IBM DataPower Gateways.

Consult your Linux and network admin about the proper way to configure this service.
For RHEL 7.x

Ensure

, ensure the NTP RPM is installed. Consider executing the following commands:
Code Block
yum install ntp

ntpdate <ntp server hostname>

systemctl enable ntpd.service

systemctl start ntpd.service
For RHEL 8.x

Ensure

, ensure the Chrony RPM is installed. Consider executing the following commands:
Code Block
yum install chrony


chronyd -q 'server {ntp_server_name} iburst'

systemctl enable chronyd.service

systemctl start chronyd.service

Setup hosts file

Verify that the /etc/hosts file includes an entry with your server name mapped to your external server IP.
To

find

display your server name, you may execute the command

:hostname

hostname.
To display your server’s IP address, you may execute the command ip a.

Required RPMs

Verify the existence of the following RPMs from the official RedHat/CentOS yum repositories:

httpd version 2.4.6-67 and above (together with the following dependencies: mailcap, apr, httpd_tools)
mod_ssl
mod_proxy_html
curl
wget
unzip
iptables
iptables-services
bc
fontconfig
squashfs-tools (make sure squashfs module is loaded - see more at https://access.redhat.com/solutions/5477831 - and that it is not disabled in /etc/modprobe.d)
numactl
pciutils
nvme-cli

The installation is usually performed by executing yum

:

. If the command fails to find the packages, you should manually download the RPM files and install them.

Code Block
yum install -y httpd


yum install -y mod_ssl


yum install -y mod_proxy_html


yum install -y curl


yum install -y wget


yum install -y unzip


yum install -y iptables


yum install -y iptables-services


yum install -y bc


yum install -y fontconfig

If this command fails to find the packages, you should manually download the RPM files and install them.


yum install -y squashfs-tools
yum install -y numactl
yum install -y pciutils
yum install -y nvme-cli

The following RPMs are recommended for system maintenance and troubleshooting, and are optional: telnet client, net-tools, iftop, tcpdump

Ensure the httpd service is enabled and started by executing the command:

Code Block
systemctl enable httpd.service && systemctl start httpd.service && systemctl status httpd.service

Optional: Install Kibana OSS (please read Kibana access limitations):

Download the RPM from: https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/kibana/kibana-oss-7.10.2-x86_64.rpm

Please follow instructions on https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/7.10/rpm.html#install-rpm

Create the following directory: /logs/kibana/ and make sure that the kibana user has permissions to this directory. Consider executing the following commands:

Code Block
mkdir -p /logs/kibana chown <kibana group name>:<kibana group name> /logs/kibana # example : chown root:kibana /logs/kibana chmod g+w /logs/kibana

Configure Kibana (edit /etc/kibana/kibana.yml):

Code Block

server.port: 5601
server.host: "montier-es-http"
server.basePath: "/op/kibana"
elasticsearch.hosts: "http://montier-es-http:9200"
elasticsearch.shardTimeout: 300000
logging.dest: /logs/kibana/kibana.log
logging.rotate.enabled: true
logging.rotate.everyBytes: 10485760
logging.rotate.keepFiles: 3

Cleanup

In case you are using yum, it is recommended to clean its cache to make sure there is enough space in /var (yum cache can take a lot of the space there). To clean yum cache, execute the following command:

Code Block
yum clean

allFirewall access to DPOD server

To configure your firewall to allow access to DPOD server at port 443, execute the following commands:

Note

These commands may not be applicable if your system has no builtin firewall.

You should open port access for the DNS Server, your DataPower Gateways, your SMTP server and others as described in Firewall Requirements.

Please assist your network admin and Linux admin to enable access on these ports.

firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=443/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload
iptables-save | grep 443

If, for any reason, you need to remove this access (close the port) - execute the following commands:
firewall-cmd --zone=public --remove-port=443/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload
iptables-save | grep 443

Table 1 - Prepare your file system

Directory / Mount Point

Disk

Space in Mib

all

Table 1 - File Systems / Mount Points

File System / Mount Point	Minimum Size	Device Type	File System
Operating System Disk (e.g.: `sda`)
biosboot

sys

2MB

2

Standard Partition

BIOS BOOT

swap

sys

8GB

8192Standard Partition

LVM	swap
/boot

sys

2048

2GB	Standard Partition	XFS
/boot/efi

sys200

200MB (for UEFI installations for GPT partition)	Standard Partition	EFI System Partition
/

sys81928192

8GB	LVM	XFS
/var

sys

8GB	LVM	XFS
/tmp	15GB

sys

LVM

4096LVMXFS

XFS

(recommended 16384)

Application/logs Disk (e.g.: `sdb`)
/shared

app512

1GB	LVM	XFS
/app

app

30GB

81924096

LVM	XFS
/app/tmp

app

8GB	LVM	XFS
/installs

app11264

30GB	LVM	XFS
/logs	15GB

app/data

LVM

12,288
(can be on other fast disk - preferred locally)

LVMXFS

XFS
Data Disk(s) (e.g.: `sdc, sdd, sde...`)
/data	As described in Hardware and Software Requirements

minimum of 100GB

or according to the sizing spreadsheet in case one was provided by the DPOD support team. Minimum of 100GB.	LVM	XFS
[Required only for cell members] /data2, /data22, /data222, /data3, /data33, /data333, /data4, /data44, /data444	Only for cell members, according to the sizing spreadsheet provided by DPOD support team. See Setup a Cell Environment for information about these disks/mount points.	LVM	XFS

Third-Party Software

Third-party software such as antivirus, cybersecurity, monitoring, APM, endpoint protection, backup, etc. might significantly decrease the performance of DPOD and impact its functionality.

In case of functionality or performance issues, try first to disable such software.

During the resolution of issues, DPOD support will ask the customer to disable any 3rd party software in order to isolate the issues and verify their source. Support cannot be provided if the 3rd party tools are not disabled.

...

Versions Compared

Old Version 219

New Version Current

Key

Table 1 - Prepare your file system

Table 1 - File Systems / Mount Points

Third-Party Software

Page Comparison

Versions Compared

Old Version 219

New Version Current

Key

Table 1 - Prepare your file system

Table 1 - File Systems / Mount Points

Third-Party Software