This topic describes how to prepare a Linux system for installing IBM WebSphere Application Server, Version 6 products.
Before you begin
The installation uses a InstallShield for Multiplatforms (ISMP) wizard. You can use the graphical interface of the wizard. You can also use the wizard in silent mode.
Silent mode is a command line invocation with a parameter that identifies an options response file. Edit the options response file before installing.
If you encounter a problem such as needing more temporary space or missing prerequisite packages on your operating system, cancel the installation, make the required changes, and restart the installation.
Why and when to perform this task
Use the following procedure to prepare the operating system for the installation of WebSphere Application Server products.
Steps for this task
You cannot install the product correctly as a non-root user.
If you create a copy of the product CD-ROM, do so as root. Copies made from non-root users do not preserve the correct file attributes and do not work.
umask
umask 022
Export the location of the supported browser using a command that identifies the actual location of the browser.
export BROWSER=/opt/bin/mozilla
The installation root directory includes the core product files. This size includes the Sample applications. This size includes space for the default Application Server profile for the server1 process. The requirement does not include space for applications that you might install.
Each Application Server profile requires approximately 200 MB plus 40 MB of temp space, and space for any applications that you develop and deploy.
The temporary directory is the working directory for the installation program.
This amount is the total space requirement when installing the product from the CD.
The following space is the maximum amount that is required for the Web server plug-ins for WebSphere Application Server:
The following space is required for the IBM HTTP Server product:
The following space is required for the Rational Web Developer:
The amount of space that is required to install the Rational Web Developer is actually less than 2.5 GB, depending on the optional features you select during installation.
The amount of space that is required depends on the features that you install. For example, without the language pack feature for support of national languages, the space required is approximately 1.7 GB. Included in the 1.7 GB is approximately 550 MB of disk space for the integrated test environment for Version 6. An integrated test environment for Version 5 is on disc 4.
The integrated test environment lets you install Rational Web Developer without installing the Express product on your development machine. The test environment is an exact replica of the product code that is sufficient for developing and testing applications.
After installation, additional disk space is required for developer work space. The size required by the work space depends on the size of the applications under development.
The Installation wizard for each component displays required space on the confirmation panel before you install the product files and selected features. The Installation wizard also warns you if you do not have enough space to install the product.
Although the Installation wizard checks for prerequisite operating system patches with the prereqChecker application, review the prerequisites on the IBM WebSphere Application Server supported hardware, software, and APIs Web site if you have not already done so.
Refer to the documentation for non-IBM prerequisite and corequisite products to learn how to migrate to their supported versions.
The prereqChecker program in the Installation wizard uses the file to verify the version of the operating system. If you cannot restore the original version, ignore the Operating System Level Check message about the operating system being unsupported. The installation can continue successfully despite the warning.
A known limitation exists in the prerequisites checker program when examining prerequisite packages on Linux systems. Verify that the following prerequisite packages are installed. See Installing and verifying Linux packages for more information.
Installing packages for all hardware platforms
Install the following packages on any hardware platform:
These packages are part of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 operating system, but are not installed by default. You can also install a later release of any of these packages if Red Hat provides new packages as errata.
Selecting packages for hardware platforms that are capable of running both 32-bit and 64-bit applications
Hardware platforms capable of running both 32-bit and 64-bit applications include Opteron, EM64T, iSeries, pSeries (PowerPC), and zSeries (S/390 64-bit) machines.
By default, RHEL 4 only installs 64-bit run-time support on these platforms. However, various applications included with WebSphere Application Server V6 products and packages also require the 32-bit run-time support. Therefore, you must also install the 32-bit run-time support.
Install the following required 32-bit packages by selecting to customize the packages during the RHEL 4 installation. Or, customize packages on an existing RHEL 4 system by issuing the system-config-packages command from a graphical terminal.
Install the Compatibility Architecture Support under the System category. Optionally install the Compatibility Architecture Development Support under the Development category if you intend to build C or C++ libraries for use with both 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
Run the rpm -qa | grep package_name command to verify that you have both versions of each package. Substitute the name of each package for the package_name variable.
Installed packages are displayed in the reply to the command. If you do not get two replies for each package, you have only one version of the package installed. You must then install the missing package.
Installing additional packages for specific platforms
In addition to the packages common to all platforms, install the following packages on hardware platforms capable of running both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, before installing WebSphere Application Server V6.0.1 products and packages.
Install both the 32-bit version and the 64-bit version of the package on 64-bit z/Series hardware platforms.
Problems encountered when you do not install required packages
If you do not install all of the required packages, the Installation wizard cannot start. Error messages indicate missing libraries, the inability to load graphical interfaces, or other errors that occur during the installation.
After installing the V6.0 WebSphere Application Server product or package, install Refresh Pack 1 (V6.0.1) for the product. The RHEL 4 operating system is only supported for V6.0.1 and later.
See Preparing RHEL 4 for the installation of WebSphere Application Server Version 6.0.1 products for more information.
A known limitation exists in the prerequisites checker program when examining prerequisite packages on Linux systems.
Required for C++ run-time compatibility. Used by such components as GSKit, the Java 2 Software Development Kit (SDK), and Web server plug-ins for WebSphere Application Server.
Required by some IBM HTTP Server modules. The modules use the libraries contained within this RPM package.
InstallShield for Multiplatforms (ISMP) requires the package to properly register products with the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) database.
The following additional RPM packages are recommended for developing and building Java Native Interface (JNI) libraries for use by your Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE™) applications. If you do not intend to compile JNI libraries on the system, you do not have to install the following packages:
iSeries platforms and pSeries platforms: Install the rpm-build-4.2.1-4.2 package. InstallShield for Multiplatforms (ISMP) requires the package to properly register products with the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) database.
Required by some IBM HTTP Server modules. The modules use the libraries contained within this RPM package.
Required for C++ run-time compatibility. Used by such components as GSKit, the Java 2 Software Development Kit (SDK), and Web server plug-ins for WebSphere Application Server.
Required by InstallShield for Multiplatforms (ISMP) to properly register products with the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) database.
You can install a later release of any of these packages.
See Preparing RHEL 4 for the installation of WebSphere Application Server Version 6.0.1 products for more information.
Upgrade the RHEL 3 service level by downloading and installing the service updates from Red Hat.
If you do not upgrade the service level, certain national language issues in the released version of GLIBC included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux V3 might cause Java Virtual Machine (JVM) failures due to segmentation faults. These failures can occur during installation when the locale is set to anything other than an English locale.
It is your responsibility to install this service pack. The prereqChecker function of the installer cannot detect service pack versions definitively on United Linux. Kernel unames and versions between 8.0 and 8.0.3 are identical. No signature RPM denotes a service pack install.
SLES 9 does not require an additional service pack.
On the Linux for Power platform that SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.0 provides, a missing package causes a font problem. The ttf-hanyi package is not installed during the normal product installation of the SuSE 8.0 operating system. The missing package causes the Installation wizard for WebSphere Application Server products to display garbled characters in the Simplified Chinese locale and in the Traditional Chinese locale.
Copy the ttf-hanyi-2021016-0.noarch.rpm package on the SuSE 8.0 for i386 CD to the Power PC system. Install the package on the Power PC machine and reboot the machine to solve the problem.
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 install_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.
Perform the following step to verify that the Java 2 SDK is working correctly.
If you created your own product CD from an ISO image or by copying the actual CD, perform the following steps to verify that the Java 2 SDK on the product CD-ROM is working correctly.
cd /mnt/JDK/repository/prereq.jdk/java/bin
./java -version
The command completes successfully with no errors when the Java 2 SDK is intact.
Result
This procedure results in preparing the operating system for installing the product.
What to do next
After preparing the operating system for installation, you can install the WebSphere Application Server product.
See Preparing to install the Express product on a Linux system for the next step in the overall procedure, which is selecting the type of installation to perform.
Related tasks
Preparing to install the Express product on a Linux system
Preparing the operating system for product installation