Installation considerations for Rational Test Control Panel
Consider the following information before you install Rational Test Control Panel
Hardware and software requirements
For a list of hardware and software requirements for Rational Test Control Panel, see the system requirements document at http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/rtw#tab_othertab1.Networking considerations
Security considerations
Ensure that you review the security considerations for installing the software. For more information, see Security considerations for Rational Test Control Panel.
Installation considerations for the HTTP/TCP proxy
- Network segments.
- The proximity of the HTTP/TCP proxy to client and server applications because all traffic goes from client applications to the proxy and then to the server applications.
- Systems that use HTTPS are sometimes locked down to accept communications from a specific source only, which could force the location of the HTTP/TCP proxy to be the same as the client applications.
Before you uninstall the HTTP/TCP proxy, copy the registration.xml file (which contains the Rational Test Control Panel location, https set up, and forwarding rules) so that these values can be reapplied after upgrading the proxy to the latest version. After you install Rational Test Control Panel, upgrade the existing Rational Integration Tester JDBC driver installations by copying the new driver over the existing files.
Security model planning
Rational Test Control Panel has a simple security model. The features available within Rational Test Control Panel depend on the security model chosen during installation.
The following table describes the security model options.
| Security Model Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Active Directory | Rational Test Control Panel uses
one or more Active Directory servers to authenticate the user name
and password provided by each user. This process enables you to use
your Windows domain user
names to log in to Rational Test Control Panel.
However, Rational Test Control Panel does
not store or maintain any user name and password information itself. For an Active Directory server, only the Security group type (groupType=-2147483643) is supported. To use other group types, you must treat the server as an LDAP server and set up the user and group filters to match the appropriate attributes. You must create two Active Directory groups:
Active Directory users must be put into these Active Directory groups and the names of these two groups must be specified in the fields provided on the Rational Test Control Panel Security Configuration screen in the Rational Test Control Panel installation program. |
| Local Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) | This option is similar to the Active Directory security model
option but it authenticates against a single LDAP server. However,
the basic approach of having two groups defined for user and administrators
is the same. Even when you are using an LDAP URL as an Active Directory server, you must select "Active Directory" as the LDAP provider in the LDAP list box, and then, specify the host name or IP address and port number of the LDAP server to use. |
| Rational Test Control Panel Built-in | User names and passwords are managed by the Rational Test Control Panel and
each user must enter a user name and password to log in. Thus, only
authenticated users can control the IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server environment. In addition, users who are identified as administrators can create other users. However, you must enter a user name and password for the first user, who will be created as an administrator. After Rational Test Control Panel is installed, you can log in as the administrator and create additional users. |
| None | There is no user authentication. Users are not required to log in (by using a user name and password), which means that anyone who knows the Rational Test Control Panel URL can control, say, the Rational Test Virtualization Server environment. |
Before installing Rational Test Control Panel, it is important to consider whether and how you want Rational Test Control Panel to authenticate users:
- To use either Active Directory or LDAP, you need the assistance of an Active Directory or LDAP administrator.
- If your organization does not have any Active Directory or LDAP servers or if you are unsure about the configuration details of any such servers in your organization, you can use the Rational Test Control Panel Built-in authentication-type.
Reusing the workspace
Before you upgrade, back up the Rational Test Control Panel workspace. The workspace is the directory where Rational Test Control Panel stores its data (for example, published stubs), which is separate from the installation directory. After the upgrade, the contents of the workspace directory might change to work with the newer version of Rational Test Control Panel. Because Installation Manager supports rolling back the Rational Test Control Panel installation directory, but not the workspace directory, you must manually roll back the workspace while rolling back the installation.
To preserve your Rational Test Control Panel workspace (published stubs, user configuration, domains, and environments) when you uninstall the previous version, ensure that you do not select the option to remove the workspace. When you install the latest version, ensure that the workspace directory is set to the same location as your existing workspace.
The uninstallation process of Rational Test Control Panel version 8.5 and later specifies the location of the workspace directory. Make note of this directory.
For Rational Test Control Panel versions earlier than 8.5, the uninstaller does not provide this information.
To determine the workspace location, open the container.server.properties file that is available in Rational Test Control Panel installation directory\usr\servers\RTCPServer\apps\RTCP.war\WEB-INF\classes directory to determine the workspace location.
- On Windows, workingDirectory=C\:\\IBM\\RTCP-Workspace
- Non-Windows, workingDirectory=/var/rtcp