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 Network Deployment product requires the following disk space:
The installation root directory includes the core product files. This size does not include space for profiles or applications. Profiles require 40 MB of temp space in addition to the sizes shown. Profiles have the following space requirements:
This size does not include space for Sample applications that you might install. The size also does not include space for applications that you might deploy.
This size does not include space for applications that you might develop and install.
This size does not include space for applications that you might develop and install. The requirement does include space for the node agent. However, you must federate a custom profile to create an operational managed node.
After federating a custom profile, the resulting managed node contains a functional node agent only. Use the deployment manager to create server processes on the managed node.
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 and when not installing service. Installing profiles requires more space.
The following space is the maximum amount that is required for the Web server plug-ins for WebSphere Application Server:
The run-time module is gskkm.rte.
The following space is required for the IBM HTTP Server product:
The following space is required for the Application Server Toolkit:
The Application Server Toolkit does not include an integrated test environment.
Install the WebSphere Application Server product to create a test environment.
Install the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment product and configure an application server to create a test environment.
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 following package is required for Red Hat Enterprise Linux V3.0 for pSeries platforms: rpm-build-4.2.1-4.2.
You can install a later release of any of these packages.
Upgrade the RHEL 3.0 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.
Do not install, log off, and log back on when you are installing from the operator console attached to the machine. This can produce segmentation faults that cause the installation to fail, as described in Troubleshooting the installation.
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.
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.
What to do next
After preparing the operating system for installation, you can install the WebSphere Application Server product.
See Preparing to install Network Deployment on a Linux system for the next step in the overall procedure, which is selecting the type of installation to perform.