Installing Rational Agent Controller

Rational Agent Controller (RAC) is a daemon process that provides the mechanism by which client applications either launch new host processes or attach to agents that coexist within existing host processes. WebSphere Message Broker uses RAC to provide debugging facilities for message flows deployed to a running broker.

Before you can use the flow debugger, you must install RAC on all systems where you run the brokers in which you want to debug message flows. Also, check that the RAC component installed on the broker has TCP/IP connectivity to the system on which the Message Brokers Toolkit is running, to enable it to communicate with the RAC client which is embedded in the Message Brokers Toolkit.

Rational Agent Controller Versions 6.0.1 and 5.0.2.1 are supported for use with WebSphere Message Broker Version 6.0.

The requirements for Version 5 brokers on each operating system are shown in the following table:
  Version 5 Fix Pack 3 Broker and beyond with RAC 5.0.2.1 Version 5 Fix Pack 2 Broker and below with RAC 5.0.2.1 Version 5 Fix Pack 2 Broker and below with RAC 5.0.1
Windows Yes Yes Yes
AIX Yes Yes Yes
Solaris Yes Yes No
HP-UX Yes No No
z/OS Yes No No
Linux Yes No No

To use RAC with WebSphere Message Broker brokers, complete the following steps:

  1. Install RAC from the supplemental CD or DVD supplied with WebSphere Message Broker using the full instructions provided in the file install.html located in the root directory of the RAC component on CD or DVD.

    For successful operation with the broker, you must disable the security option during installation. For more details, see the install.html file and the appropriate topic for your operating system:

    To control access within your domain, install RAC behind a firewall and stop the RAC service if you do not use the flow debugger. To configure RAC to be used with WebSphere Message Broker with a firewall, see Configuring RAC for use with a firewall.

  2. In the workbench, select the option in the Debug preference page that corresponds to your broker configuration, as documented in Setting flow debug preferences.
If you experience problems installing RAC on distributed platforms, you can rerun the installer with the following command line options to obtain a debug log from the installer:
Linux and UNIX systems
./setup.bin -is:log /tmp/rac.log -log !/tmp/rac_events.log @ALL

On some Linux and UNIX shells, you might have to escape the exclamation mark (!) with the backslash character (\). If you do not escape the exclamation mark when required, a message similar to the following error is displayed:

-bash: !/tmp/rac_events.log: event not found
Windows
setup.exe -is:log \tmp\rac.log -log !\tmp\rac_events.log @ALL
Related tasks
Installing complementary products
Configuring RAC for use with a firewall
Testing and debugging message flow applications
Related reference
Software requirements
Hardware requirements