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Problem(Abstract) |
How to install, enable, disable, uninstall or troubleshoot
an IBM® Support Assistant product plug-in. |
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Cause |
As new plug-ins become available for IBM products, or as
you grow your IBM product set, you will want to add additional
customization to the IBM Support Assistant for those products. This
document shows you how to quickly add a new plug-in or configure the IBM
Support Assistant. |
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Resolving the
problem |
The IBM Support Assistant is based on the Eclipse
open-source project. The Eclipse framework is easy to extend by using XML
plug-ins. When a product plug-in is successfully installed, it is
automatically enabled after you restart IBM Support Assistant.
Prerequisites
This document assumes that you already have IBM Support Assistant V2.0
installed. If you do not have it installed, you should review the
information on the IBM
Support Assistant page first. You can then obtain the actual IBM
Support Assistant code from the download
page (free registration id required). Viewlets demonstrating how to
download and install the main IBM Support Assistant code as well as
product plug-ins can be found on the IBM
Education Assistant site.
Definitions
Install_root-- the directory where you installed IBM Support
Assistant V2.0. The default values for the install_root directory
are:
Windows®: C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support Assistant
UNIX™: /opt/IBM/IBMSupportAssistant
Main Contents
There are 4 main sections to this document.
Steps for installing an IBM Support
Assistant product plug-in
- Stop the IBM Support Assistant application.
Windows®: Use the File >
Exit menu from the IBM Support Assistant
UNIX™: Use the stopisa.sh shell script.
- Download an IBM Support Assistant product plug-in for each IBM
product in your configuration into the Support Assistant
install_root directory (ex. C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support
Assistant) .
- Open a command window and switch to the install_root directory.
- Unzip the product plug-in package which you just downloaded.
- The files contained in the archive should be extracted
into the install_root subdirectory.
- A new subdirectory under
install_root/plugins subdirectory will be created
for each product plug-in.
- Restart IBM Support Assistant to pick up the changes.
Windows: Use the IBM Support Assistant menu from the Windows
Start menu
UNIX: Use the startisa.sh shell script.
- When IBM Support Assistant is restarted, you should be able to verify
that the new product plug-in was installed by switching to the "Support
Links" tab in the user interface. There should be a new entry in the tree
for the product whose plug-in you just installed (you may have to expand
branches to see the new product). Some products also extend the "Search",
"Education", or "Service" parts of IBM Support Assistant. If you installed
a plug-in for one of those products, you will also see updated information
in those portions of the user interface. If you do not see the new product
anywhere in the user interface, check the "Troubleshooting" section at the
bottom of this document.
Enabling and Disabling a
Support Assistant product plug-in
You can save time by disabling a product plug-in when it is not needed
instead of uninstalling it. The following steps stop a product plug-in
from running and avoid accidentally removing the wrong plug-in.
Steps to enable or disable a Support Assistant product plug-in:
- Open a command window and switch to the
install_root/plugins directory (ex.
C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support Assistant\plugins ).
- Switch to the subdirectory you are disabling.
Subdirectory names are typically in the form of
com.ibm.esupport.client.zzzzz where
zzzzz will be a product code and possibly version
information.
If you have difficulty identifying the appropriate plug-in directory,
search the plugin.xml files:
Windows: findstr -s "product_name"
plugin.xml
UNIX: find . -name plugin.xml -exec grep
"product_name" {} \;
Example for WebSphere Application Server on Windows:
C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support Assistant\plugins>findstr -s
"WebSphere Application Server" plugin.xml
Example for WebSphere Application Server on UNIX:
# find . -name plugin.xml -exec grep
"WebSphere Application Server" {} \;
- Inside of the product specific plug-in directory, there will be a file
named "plugin.xml". This file contains the necessary information for the
plug-in to run and be integrated into the IBM Support Assistant screens.
In the plugin.xml file, there is a
<ProductDescriptor> tag with a productName
attribute. This productName attribute should identify the
appropriate IBM product plug-in with which you are working.
- Rename the plugin.xml configuration file to something other
than plugin.xml. We suggest renaming it with a ".off" extension
to allow for easy identification in case you wish to enable it at a later
point (for example: plugin.xml.off).
Windows: ren plugin.xml plugin.xml.off
UNIX: mv plugin.xml plugin.xml.off
- Restart Support Assistant to pick up the changes.
Windows: Use the IBM Support Assistant menu from the
Windows® Start menu
UNIX: Use the startisa.sh shell script.
- To enable a disabled plug-in, simply rename the file to its original
name. (Remove the ".off" extension if you used the suggestion in
step #4.)
Windows: ren plugin.xml.off plugin.xml
UNIX: mv plugin.xml.off plugin.xml
Uninstalling a Support Assistant
product plug-in
You should be careful when uninstalling a product plug-in to make sure
that you do not uninstall the wrong one and possibly damage your Support
Assistant installation. The following steps remove a Support Assistant
product plug-in.
Steps to uninstall a Support Assistant product plug-in:
- Navigate to the "plugins" directory below the Support
Assistant installation directory (ex. C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support
Assistant\plugins ).
- Locate the subdirectory for the plug-in that you wish to uninstall.
Subdirectory names are typically in the form of
com.ibm.esupport.client.zzzzz where
zzzzz will be a product code and possibly version
information.
If you have difficulty identifying the appropriate plug-in directory,
search the plugin.xml files:
Windows: findstr -s "product_name"
plugin.xml
UNIX: find . -name plugin.xml -exec grep
"product_name" {} \;
Example for WebSphere Application Server on Windows:
C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Support Assistant\plugins>findstr -s
"WebSphere Application Server" plugin.xml
Example for WebSphere Application Server on UNIX™:
# find . -name plugin.xml -exec grep "WebSphere Application Server"
{} \;
- Once the correct subdirectory is located, remove that directory.
Optionally, you may just move that directory other than the IBM Support
Assistant "plugins" directory.
Windows: If operating in a command window, you can use the following
command:
del /s "subdirectory_name"
If using Windows® Explorer, you may simply drag the subdirectory folder to
the Recycle Bin to delete it.
UNIX: rm -R "subdirectory_name"
- Restart IBM Support Assistant to pick up the changes.
Windows: Use the IBM Support Assistant menu from the Windows
Start menu
UNIX: Use the startisa.sh shell script.
Troubleshooting
Verifying that a plug-in is installed
If a plug-in is installed correctly, it
should at a minimum be adding product specific information to the "Support
Links" portion of the IBM Support Assistant user interface. Depending on
the plug-in's contents, it may also add information to the "Search",
"Education Links", and "Service" portions of the user interface. Most
download documents for the plug-ins will list which portions of IBM
Support Assistant that the plug-in is extending.
Troubleshooting plug-in installation
- Check to see if the product plug-in zip which you downloaded is
corrupt. You can use command line options on most decompression utilities
to check the integrity of the zip file.
Example: unzip -t product_plugin.zip
If the archive is corrupt then you need to obtain a new copy. If FTP was
used to transfer the archive to / from a machine, verify that binary mode
was used for the transfer instead of ASCII mode.
- If the archive is okay, check to see if the files were actually
extracted successfully. The new plug-in files should be located in a
separate directory below the IBM Support Assistant's plugins
subdirectory. If no files were extracted, check file permissions to see if
you can write to that directory. Also, check the available disk space to
verify that enough space is available..
- If everything appears to be in order, try restarting the IBM Support
Assistant with the "-clean" command line option. The
"-clean" option is used to reinitialize the IBM Support
Assistant's plug-in registry data.
- If you continue to have problems, check the main IBM Support Assistant
page for important updates or fixes for the tool.
Troubleshooting plug-in enablement / disablement / uninstallation
- If there is a problem restarting Support Assistant after enabling or
disabling a plug-in or uninstalling a plug-in, try restarting the IBM
Support Assistant with the "-clean" command line option. The
"-clean" option is used to reinitialize the IBM Support Assistant
plug-in registry data.
- If you continue to have problems, check the main IBM Support Assistant
page for important updates or fixes for the tool.
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