Before you can install IBM®
WebSphere® Application Server products on Solaris operating systems, you must
take steps to prepare the operating system.
Important: On 30 September 2022, the
WebSphere Application Server
family of products discontinued support for the Solaris operating system. You can purchase extended
support for this operating system. For details about the end of support, extended support, and
suggested migration options, see the
Software support discontinuance announcement.
Before you begin
The installation uses Installation Manager. You can
use the graphical interface, the command line, or a response file.
Restriction: There are known issues with using Cygwin/X to run Eclipse-based
applications on remote Solaris machines. This affects your use of the Profile Management Tool. With
Cygwin/X on remote Solaris, for example, the Profile Management Tool welcome panel appears but no
keyboard or mouse input is accepted. If a different X server (such as Hummingbird Exceed) is used,
these problems do not occur.
Important: On the Solaris platform, remote IBM Installation Manager graphical user
interface (GUI) processing is only supported with VNC because of problems with X servers.
About this task
Preparing the operating system involves such changes as allocating disk space
and installing patches to the operating system. IBM tests WebSphere Application Server products on each operating
system platform. Such tests verify whether an operating system change is required for WebSphere Application Server products to run correctly.
Without the required changes, WebSphere Application
Server products do not run correctly.
Procedure
-
Log on to the operating system.
You can log on as root or as a nonroot installer.
Select a umask that allows the owner to read/write to the files, and allows others to access them
according to the prevailing system policy. For root, a umask of 022 is recommended. For nonroot
users a umask of 002 or 022 can be used, depending on whether the users share the group. To verify
the umask setting, issue the following command:
umask
To set the umask setting to 022, issue the following command:
umask 022
- Make sure that you select the Entire Group option on the Select
Solaris Software Group panel when you set up your system.
- Optional: Download and install the Mozilla Firefox web
browser.
- Optional:
Export the location of the supported browser.
Export the location of the supported browser using a command that identifies the actual location
of the browser.
If the Mozilla Firefox package is in the
/opt/bin/firefox directory, for
example, use the following command:
export BROWSER=/opt/bin/firefox
-
Stop all Java™ processes related to WebSphere Application Server on the machine where you are installing the
product.
-
Stop any web server process such as the IBM HTTP
Server.
- Provide adequate disk space.
The amount of disk space required varies with
the number of features or products installed. If you are installing the product using Installation
Manager, the installation summary panel indicates the approximate amount of disk space required
based on the features and products you have selected.
Installing all features and products
requires approximately 2 GB of disk space. This estimate includes the following products,
components, and features:
- Main application server product installation
- Profiles
- Sample applications
- IBM HTTP Server
- Web Server Plug-ins
- Application Client for WebSphere Application Server
If you plan to migrate applications and the configuration from a previous version,
verify that the application objects have enough disk space. As a rough guideline, plan for space
equal to 110 percent of the size of the applications.
-
Set kernel values to support Application Server.
Several Solaris kernel values are typically too small.
Before installing, review the
machine configuration:
sysdef -i
The kernel values are set in the
/etc/project file.
The resource controls are set in the
/etc/system project file. Resource controls are new for Solaris 11 and are replacing the
use of some kernel values.
An example of some settings for kernel values and how they have
changed are shown in the following
example.
set semsys:seminfo_semmni = 1024 (a resource control in Solaris 11)
set semsys:seminfo_semmns = 16384 (removed in Solaris 11)
set semsys:seminfo_semmsl = 100 (a resource control in Solaris 11)
set semsys:seminfo_semopm = 100 (a resource control in Solaris 11)
set semsys:seminfo_semmnu = 2048 (removed in Solaris 11)
set rlim_fd_cur=1024
The
Solaris 11 operating system
uses the following resource controls to replace the
/etc/system kernel
values:
Old Old New New
Resource control tunable default Max default
Value
---------------------- ------------- ------- --------- -----
process.max-msg-qbytes msginfo_msgmnb 4096 ULONG_MAX 65536
process.max-msg-messages msginfo_msgtql 40 UINT_MAX 8192
process.max-sem-ops seminfo_semopm 10 INT_MAX 512
process.max-sem-nsems seminfo_semmsl 25 SHRT_MAX 512
project.max-shm-memory shminfo_shmmax 0x800000 UINT64_MAX 1/4*
* (New default is 1/4 of physical memory)
project.max-shm-ids shminfo_shmmni 100 2**24 128
project.max-msg-ids msginfo_msgmni 50 2**24 128
project.max-sem-ids seminfo_semmni 10 2**24 128
The
following tunables are now obsolete in the
Solaris 11 operating
system:
Shared Memory Semaphores Message-Queue
-------------- -------------- ---------------
shminfo_shmseg seminfo_semmns msginfo_msgmax
shminfo_shmmin seminfo_semvmx msginfo_msgssz
shminfo_shmmax* seminfo_semmnu msginfo_msgmni*
shminfo_shmmni* seminfo_semaem msginfo_msgtql*
seminfo_semume msginfo_msgmnb*
seminfo_semusz msginfo_msgmap
seminfo_semmap msginfo_msgseg
seminfo_semmsl*
seminfo_semopm*
seminfo_semmni*
values ending in * are technically obsolete, but if they are present
in the /etc/system file then at system boot, the kernel will translate the
values into global resource controls.
The
following are important resource
controls:
*project.max-shm-ids: Maximum shared memory IDs for a project.
Replaces shmmni
*project.max-sem-ids: Maximum semaphore IDs for a project.
Replaces semmni
*project.max-msg-ids: Maximum message queue IDs for a project.
Replaces msgmni
*project.max-shm-memory: Total amount of shared memory allowed for a project.
Replaces shmmax
*process.max-sem-nsems: Maximum number of semaphores allowed persemaphore set.
Replaces semmsl
*process.max-sem-ops: Maximum number of semaphore operations allowed persemop.
Replaces semopm
*process.max-msg-qbytes: Maximum number of bytes of messages on a message queue.
Replaces msgmnb
*process.max-msg-messages: Maximum number of messages on a message queue.
Replaces msgtql
For
specific recommendations for tuning Solaris to work with WebSphere Application Server, see the topic
Tuning Solaris systems.
You can change kernel values by editing the
/etc/project file in Solaris 11 then rebooting the operating system. For more
information about setting up the Solaris system, see the Sun Microsystems documentation. For
example, the Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual.
- Verify that prerequisites and corequisites are at the required release levels.
Although Installation Manager checks for prerequisite operating system patches, review the
prerequisites on the Supported hardware and software website if you have not done
so already. Refer to the documentation for non-IBM prerequisite and corequisite products to learn
how to migrate to their supported versions.
Note: If your Solaris system does not have sufficient available memory as specified on the supported
hardware and software website, you might encounter the following prerequisite error message during
installation:
A supported operating system architecture was not detected. If you
proceed to the end of the installation, you might also see the following insufficient disk space
error:
java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "sh": error=12, Not enough space
at java.lang.ProcessBuilder.start(ProcessBuilder.java:459)
at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Runtime.java:593)
at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Runtime.java:466)
Free up additional memory on the
machine and retry the installation.
-
Verify the system cp command when using emacs or other freeware.
If you have emacs or other freeware installed on your operating system, verify that the system
cp command is used.
- Type the following command prompt before running the installation program for the WebSphere Application Server
product.
which cp
- Remove the freeware directory from your PATH if the resulting directory
output includes freeware. For example, assume that the output is similar to the
following message: .../freeware/bin/cp. If so, remove the directory from the
PATH.
- Install the WebSphere Application Server
product.
- Add the freeware directory back to the PATH.
If you install with a cp command that is part of a freeware package, the
installation might appear to complete successfully, but the Java 2 SDK that the product installs might have missing files in the
app_server_root/java directory.
Missing files can destroy required symbolic links. If you remove the freeware
cp command from the PATH, you can install the application server product
successfully.
-
Verify that the Java SDK on the installation image disk
is functioning correctly if you created your own disk.
For example, you might have downloaded an installation image from Passport Advantage®, or you might have copied an installation
image onto a backup disk. In either case, perform the following steps to verify that the disk
contains a valid Java software development kit (SDK).
-
Change directories to the
/JDK/jre.pak/repository/package.java.jre/java/jre/bin directory on the product
disk.
For
example:
cd /JDK/jre.pak/repository/package.java.jre/java/jre/bin
-
Verify the Java version.
Type the following command:
./java -version
The
command completes successfully with no errors when the SDK is intact.
Results
This procedure results in preparing the operating system for installing the
product.
What to do next
After verifying prerequisites, verifying the product disk, and setting your installation goals,
you can start installing. Use one of the following links to open the installation procedure that you
require.
After the installation, you can examine the following setup script for information concerning
initial settings for Solaris 11.
echo "V2014-06-20"
echo "master version -> https://rtpmsa.raleigh.ibm.com/msa/projects/t/testappbinaries/OS/ossetup.zip"
echo ""
#
#
### check if the .txt file exists
if [ ! -f "hostlist.txt" ]; then
echo "-- hostlist.txt file does not exist. cp hostlist.txt.TEMPLATE hostlist.txt and add your hosts"
echo "-- Processing halted"
exit 1
fi
for hostName in `cat hostlist.txt`
do
echo "checking: $hostName"
ssh $hostName 'grep "ulimit -n 20000" /etc/profile'
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
ssh $hostName 'echo "ulimit -n 20000" >> /etc/profile'
echo "set the ulimit on $hostName"
fi
ssh $hostName 'grep "semsys:seminfo_semopm = 200" /etc/system'
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
ssh $hostName 'echo "semsys:seminfo_semopm = 200" >> /etc/system'
echo "set the seminfo_semopm on $hostName"
fi
ssh $hostName 'ipadm set-prop -p _conn_req_max_q=8000 tcp'
ssh $hostName 'ipadm set-prop -p _time_wait_interval=30000 tcp'
ssh $hostName 'ipadm set-prop -p _fin_wait_2_flush_interval=67500 tcp'
ssh $hostName 'ipadm set-prop -p _keepalive_interval=300000 tcp'
done
![[Solaris]](../images/ngsolaris.svg)