Installation Requirements and Summary - Windows

Objective

This page provides installation requirements and summary for Universal Agent 7.2.x on a Windows operating system.

Universal Agent for Windows is comprised of one required package - Universal Agent - and three optional packages: Universal Enterprise Controller, Universal Enterprise Controller Client Applications, and Universal Agent for SOA.

Universal Agent - System Installation

Windows Versions

To install Universal Agent for Windows, you must have one of the following versions of Windows:

  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2019

Additional Requirements

  • An account with administrative privileges.
  • Possible reboot: a reboot is required if the Windows Installer service is not installed, a version of the Windows Installer prior to 3.1.4000.1823 is installed, or if required files are in use at the time of the installation.
  • TCP/IP.
  • About 325 megabytes of disk space.

Platform Requirements

Since platform requirements may change with new releases of a product, please consult the Platform Support for Universal Controller 7.2.x and Universal Agent 7.2.x page to make sure that your platform is supported before performing an installation.

Installation Account

The account used to install the package must have administrative privileges.

Universal Broker Service

The Universal Broker service runs either with an Administrative account or with the Local System account.

If you are using an Administrative account, the account must have the following privileges:

  • Act as part of the operating system
  • Adjust memory quotas for a process
  • Bypass traverse checking
  • Debug programs
  • Deny log on as batch job
  • Deny log on locally
  • Deny log on through Terminal Services
  • Log on as a service
  • Impersonate a client after authentication
  • Increase scheduling priority
  • Replace a process level token
  • Take ownership of files and other objects

UBrokerService: The Default Universal Broker Service Account

The Universal Agent for Windows installation will create an account with the privileges listed above, if the account does not already exist. The name of this account is UBrokerService. A default password provided for the account can be obtained by contacting Stonebranch support. We strongly suggest that you set this password at install time via the installation dialogs or via the BROKERPWD command line option.
 

Note

If the UBrokerService account already exists, its password cannot be changed from the install.


See Installing a Universal Agent System Install via the Graphical Interface for detailed information about setting up the Universal Broker service account at install time.

Using a Windows Domain Account to Execute Universal Broker

The Universal Broker Service may be configured to execute with an existing Windows domain account, provided that account has been granted the privileges listed in this section, above, on the local system and the account has the file system permissions described in Service Security.
 

Note

Depending on your environment, it may be necessary to add this account to the Domain Admins group. This will ensure the account has sufficient access to domain resources and is recognized as a true administrative account on all domain member systems that run the Universal Broker service as that account.

Spool Directory

The spool directory is used to store the following types of information:

  • Execution information for Universal Agent components started by Universal Broker.
  • Event definitions and event handlers managed by Universal Broker and used by Universal Event Monitor.
  • Results of events tracked by Universal Event Monitor.
  • Redirected standard I/O files (stdin, stdout, and stderr) captured by Universal Command when run with Manager Fault Tolerance enabled.
  • Configuration information for Universal Agent components, when a local Universal Broker is operating in managed mode.

The default location for the spooled standard I/O files is .\Universal\spool\ucmdsrv.

The default location for the other database files is .\Universal\spool\ubroker.

Universal Command Server

Location

The spool directory must reside on a local device. It cannot reside on any network device, including network drives that may be mapped to a local drive. By default, the spool files are located in directory .\Universal\spool\ucmdsrv.

Space

You must have approximately 50 megabytes of disk space for the installation.

The amount of disk space required for the spool directory depend on the following factors:

  • Number of spooling user processes that will be executing simultaneously. A user process is created for each command requested by a Universal Command Manager. The default maximum number is 50.
  • When a user process ends and a Manager has received all the spool files, the spool files themselves are deleted.
  • Average size of the user processes standard input, output, and error files. Keep in mind that spooling is not a feature for file transfer purposes. File transfer-related processes should execute without spooling enabled.

When these numbers have been determined, the average amount of disk space is calculated with the following formula:

MAX-PROCESSES x AVERAGE-STDIO-SIZE x 2 = required disk space.

For example, if the maximum number of simultaneous user processes is estimated at 20 and the average size of processes standard I/O files is 100,000 bytes, the average amount of required disk space is 4MB (20 x 100000 x 2).

The Universal Command Server is configured with spooling disabled to prevent unintentional disk utilization. This feature can be enabled through the Universal Configuration Manager.

For more information on the Manager Fault Tolerant feature, spooling of redirected standard I/O files, and Universal Configuration Manager, see the Universal Agent 7.2.x User Guide.

Security

Universal Broker and Universal Command Server require read/write access to the spool directory. No other Universal Agent components access the spool directory directly.

UAG Cache

UAG cache is used by Universal Automation Center Agent (UAG) for storing standard I/O files.

Space

Cache files are located, by default, in directory .\Universal\UagSrv\cache.

Cache files are created for each job that is run by Universal Agent. They remain in the cache until they are purged by an automated purge process scheduled nightly by Universal Controller. You can configure the number of days that files remain in the cache using the Agent Cache Retention Period in Days Universal Controller system property.

The amount of disk space required for the cache directory depends on:

  • Number of jobs you estimate will run during the cache retention period you specified.
  • These files remain until they are purged by the automated cache purge process scheduled by Universal Controller daily at midnight.
  • Average size of the user processes standard output and error files.

When these numbers have been determined, the average amount of disk space is calculated with the following formula:

(RETENTION PERIOD x MAX-JOBS) x (AVERAGE-STDOUT-SIZE + AVERAGE-STDERR-SIZE) = required disk space.

For example:

If the files are purged every 7 days, and you run 1200 jobs on that agent server daily, and the average size of the STDOUT + STDERR files is 3,000 bytes, the average amount of required disk space is 25MB (7 x 1,200 x 3000).

UAG automatically redirects the standard output and standard error files to the cache directory with no required user input.

Security

Universal Automation Center Agent (UAG) requires read/write access to the UAG cache directory. No other Universal Agent components access the cache directory. No general user access is required.

Universal Agent - User Mode Installation

Windows Versions

To install Universal Agent for Windows, you must have one of the following versions of Windows:

  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2012 R2
  • Windows Server 2016
  • Windows Server 2019


Note

The Universal Agent for Windows User Mode installation package will execute only on a 64-bit version of Windows.  


Additional Requirements

  • Administrative authority to execute the installation.
  • Network connectivity via TCP/IP.
  • About 120 MB available disk space.
  • Interactive access to the Windows system (command line support will be provided in an upcoming release).
  • Microsoft Visual C++ 14 Runtime
  • Microsoft Universal C Runtime

Note

The Universal Agent User Mode install does not provide the required Microsoft runtimes. If either of these do not exist, the install will issue an error and stop without installing any files. Both runtimes are available as redistributable packages from Microsoft. The Universal C Runtime is built into Windows 10, Server 2016, and Server 2019. It is available via a Microsoft update for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 20102 R2.

Platform Requirements

Since platform requirements may change with new releases of a product, please consult the Platform Support for Universal Controller 7.2.x and Universal Agent 7.2.x page to make sure that your platform is supported before performing an installation.

Installation Account

The account used to execute a Universal Agent for Windows user mode installation must have administrative privileges.

Universal Broker Service

The Universal Broker service runs either with an Administrative account or with the Local System account.

If you are using an Administrative account, the account must have the following privileges on the system upon which the Universal Agent resides (optional, but recommended privileges are noted):

  • Act as part of the operating system
  • Adjust memory quotas for a process
  • Bypass traverse checking
  • Debug programs
  • Deny log on as batch job (optional, recommended)
  • Deny log on locally (optional, recommended)
  • Deny log on through Terminal Services (optional, recommended)
  • Log on as a service
  • Impersonate a client after authentication
  • Increase scheduling priority
  • Replace a process level token
  • Take ownership of files and other objects

Selecting a Universal Broker Service Account

The Universal Agent for Windows user mode install will supply default credentials for an account named UBrokerService. This is the same default account that the Universal Agent for Windows system installation creates (if it does not already exist).

If the Universal Broker service will execute with a different account, you can provide that account's user ID and password during the install or specify them post-install in the Universal Broker service's configured settings within the Windows Services application.

If the Universal Broker service will execute with a domain account, that account must have the privileges listed above on the local Universal Agent system. The privileges can be granted locally or inherited via Active Directory policy, but they must be granted on the local system.

In all cases, the account chosen to run the Universal Broker service must be an existing Administrative account. The Universal Agent for Windows user mode install will not create it.

Spool Directory

The spool directory is used to store the following types of information:

  • Execution information for Universal Agent components started by Universal Broker.
  • Event definitions and event handlers managed by Universal Broker and used by Universal Event Monitor.
  • Results of events tracked by Universal Event Monitor.
  • Redirected standard I/O files (stdin, stdout, and stderr) captured by Universal Command when run with Manager Fault Tolerance enabled.
  • Configuration information for Universal Agent components, when a local Universal Broker is operating in managed mode.

For user mode installations, the spool directory resides just under the main install directory.

  • Most database files reside in .\spool\ubroker.
  • Spooled standard I/O files reside in .\spool\ucmdsrv.

Universal Command Server

Location

The spool directory must reside on a local device. It cannot reside on any network device, including network drives that may be mapped to a local drive. By default, the spool files are located in directory .\spool\ucmdsrv (relative to the main installation directory).

Space

You must have approximately 125 MB available disk space for each instance of a Universal Agent for Windows user mode installation.

The amount of disk space required for the spool directory depend on the following factors:

  • Number of spooling user processes that will be executing simultaneously. A user process is created for each command requested by a Universal Command Manager. The default maximum number is 50.
  • When a user process ends and a Manager has received all the spool files, the spool files themselves are deleted.
  • Average size of the user processes standard input, output, and error files. Keep in mind that spooling is not a feature for file transfer purposes. File transfer-related processes should execute without spooling enabled.

When these numbers have been determined, the average amount of disk space is calculated with the following formula:

MAX-PROCESSES x AVERAGE-STDIO-SIZE x 2 = required disk space.

For example, if the maximum number of simultaneous user processes is estimated at 20 and the average size of processes standard I/O files is 100,000 bytes, the average amount of required disk space is 4MB (20 x 100000 x 2).

The Universal Command Server is configured with spooling disabled to prevent unintentional disk utilization. This feature can be enabled by updating the Universal Command Server configuration file, .\conf\ucmds.conf.

For more information on the Manager Fault Tolerant feature and spooling of redirected standard I/O files, see the Universal Agent 7.2.x User Guide.

Security

Universal Broker and Universal Command Server require read/write access to the spool directory. No other Universal Agent components access the spool directory directly.

UAG Cache

The Universal Automation Center Agent (UAGSRV) stores standard I/O redirected from processes it executes to files in the UAG cache locations below.

Space

Cache files are located, by default, in directory .\UagSrv\cache, relative to the main Universal Agent for Windows user mode installation directory.

Cache files are created for each job that is run by Universal Agent. They remain in the cache until they are purged by an automated purge process scheduled nightly by Universal Controller. You can configure the number of days that files remain in the cache using the Agent Cache Retention Period in Days Universal Controller system property.

For each instance of a Universal Agent user mode installation, the amount of disk space required for the cache directory depends on:

  1. Number of jobs you estimate will run during the cache retention period you specified.
  2. These files remain until they are purged by the automated cache purge process scheduled by the Controller daily at midnight.
  3. Average size of the user processes standard output and error files.

When these numbers have been determined, the average amount of disk space is calculated with the following formula:

(RETENTION PERIOD x MAX-JOBS) x (AVERAGE-STDOUT-SIZE + AVERAGE-STDERR-SIZE) = required disk space.

For example:

If the files are purged every 7 days, and you run 1200 jobs daily on a particular user mode Universal Agent and the average size of the STDOUT + STDERR files is 3,000 bytes, the average amount of required disk space is 25MB (7 x 1,200 x 3000).

UAG automatically redirects the standard output and standard error files to the cache directory with no required user input.

Security

Universal Automation Center Agent (UAG) requires read/write access to the UAG cache directory. No other Universal Agent components access the cache directory. No general user access is required.

Universal Enterprise Controller (UEC)

Windows Versions

  • Windows XP SP3
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1 and higher
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2012

Additional Requirements

  • An account with administrative privileges.
  • Possible reboot: a reboot is required if the Windows Installer service is not installed, a version of the Windows Installer prior to 3.1.4000.1823 is installed, or if required files are in use at the time of the installation.
  • TCP/IP.
  • About 35 megabytes of disk space.

Universal Enterprise Controller Client Applications

Windows Versions

  • Windows XP SP3
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1 and higher
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2012

Note

Itanium not supported for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Additional Requirements

  • For a per-machine install, Administrator access is required. For a per-user install, any account with the authority to install software can be used.
  • The following conditions must be met before the UEC Client Applications can be successfully installed:
    • Account used for the installation must have write access to the desired destination folder.
    • No system policies (defined in Windows by your system administrator) may be in place that prohibit non-Administrative accounts from installing software.
  • Possible reboot: a reboot is required if the Windows Installer service is not installed, a version of the Windows Installer prior to 3.1.4000.1823 is installed, or if required files are in use at the time of the installation.
  • TCP/IP.
  • About 5 megabytes of disk space. This value does not include space required for the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). See the JRE installation requirements, available from Sun, for more information.
  • Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE 1.5 or above).

Java Runtime Environment

To run the UEC Client Applications, you also must have the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.5 or above. You can download the latest JRE installation package directly from Sun's website, www.java.com.

A Stonebranch Tip

Changes in Sun's versioning scheme for Java has created some confusion.

With version 1.2 of the Java environment, Sun began referring to Java as Java 2. The formal name was actually Java 2 with SDK 1.2.

As of January 2008, version 1.6 is latest version of the Java environment - a newer version than the original Java 2.

Universal Agent for SOA

Universal Agent for SOA on Windows is now available as 6.7.0.0. It is a 64-bit package, supported on the same Windows versions as the Agent: Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012, Server 2012 R2, Server 2016, and Server 2019.

Note

Starting with the 6.7.0.0 release, the Universal Agent for SOA on Windows is a 64-bit application that replaces all previous versions. There is no upgrade path from the older 32-bit version to the 64-bit implementation. If the install detects an existing 32-bit version, it will prompt you to remove that version before proceeding.

You are responsible for preserving your existing configuration in this scenario. PLEASE remember to collect the license information stored in the uacs.conf file so that you can re-apply it following the 64-bit install. If you lose your license information, you will need to contact Stonebranch customer support to retrieve that information.

Additional Requirements

  • An account with administrative privileges.
  • Possible reboot. A reboot is required if the Windows Installer service is not installed, a version of the Windows Installer prior to 3.1.4000.1283 is installed, or required files are in use at the time of the installation.
  • TCP/IP.
  • About 110 megabytes of disk space.
  • A supported 64-bit Universal Agent.

Installation Summary

Step 1

Download the distribution file from the Stonebranch Customer Portal.

Step 2

Log on to Windows using an account with the privileges noted above.

Step 3

Exit all running programs to reduce the likelihood of a reboot.

Step 4

Execute the installation file.

Step 5

Follow installation instructions presented by the graphical installation program.

Customization

Customization consists of starting the Universal Configuration Manager control panel applet and modifying the configuration options as required by the local environment.