UNIX Installation

Introduction

These pages provide information on the installation of Stonebranch, Inc.'s Universal Agent on UNIX operating systems. Unless otherwise specified, all references to Universal Agent for UNIX refer to version 7.0.x.

Note

This information does not include installation on z/OS UNIX System Services (USS). See z/OS USS Installation for z/OS USS installation instructions.

Installation Packages

Universal Agent is installed with one required installation package and one optional installation package:
 

Note

Starting with the 3.2.0 release of Universal Products, a Universal Broker must run on all systems on which a Universal Agent component is running, including manager components. The Broker maintains product configuration data for all components that have a configuration file.

Universal Agent Installation Methods

There are two installation methods supported on UNIX platforms for installing the Universal Agent package: system installation and user mode installation.

For detailed information on each method, see the platform-specific installation instructions:

System Installation

The system installation method uses UNIX operating system vendor installation tools to install Universal Agent in the vendor-recommended installation directories.

This is the Stonebranch legacy method for installing UNIX Agents.

User Mode Installation

The Stonebranch install script, unvinst, offers a -usermode_install parameter that permits multiple Universal Agent installs on a single system. Additionally, a user mode install can create an environment in which an Agent executes as an unprivileged user (with significantly reduced functionality).

The user executing the install determines the environment in which the Agent executes. The root account may create the following environments:

  • A fully-privileged system install to default locations.
  • An "elevated" user mode install to custom locations. This is an install executed with the -usermode_install parameter, and permits user-specified install directories with some program execution under root authority.

When a non-root user executes the install script, the -usermode_install parameter is required. The result of an unprivileged install is one in which all application files are owned and execute as the (unprivileged) Broker user.

An unprivileged user mode environment will impose significant restrictions on Agent functionality, but may be desirable in test situations or for executing light workload.

The following requirements must be met in order to install and execute an Agent in an unprivileged user mode environment:

  1. The Broker user must exist prior to the install. The account must have an existing home directory.
  2. The account performing the install does not need to be root or the Broker user, but it must have authority to write to the Broker user's home directory.
  3. A user mode install must be done by passing the -usermode_install parameter to unvinst.
  4. The "security" configuration option must be set to "inherit" in uags.conf, ucmds.conf, uctls.conf, udms.conf, and uems.conf. This means that no user context switching is supported in an unprivileged user mode environment. All tasks execute as the Broker user.
  5. Any task submitted via the Controller to execute on the Agent must not have credentials specified. This is necessary to ensure the process is spawned without requiring any kind of root privileges. One exception to this condition applies to any task that supports the "Run as sudo" option. In that case, credentials may be supplied, but must match an existing sudoers entry.
  6. Any user that wants to execute Agent Managers (for example, ucmd, udm, or uem) or Utilities (for example, uctl or uquery) must source the SB_ConfigSetup.env file within their user profile. This file is installed in the ./etc directory located under the install directory, and sets environment variables that point to configuration files and to the Broker's .bif and .plf files.

Universal Agent Installation Summary

Step 1

Download the distribution file from the Stonebranch Customer Portal.

Step 2

Copy the distribution file to the UNIX system.

Step 3

Logon to the UNIX system as root or execute su (substitute user) command to root.

Step 4

Uncompress the distribution file.

Step 5

Extract the files from the uncompressed tar file.

Step 6

Run the Stonebranch, Inc. installation script, unvinst.

Step 7

Run the Universal Broker daemon start-up script (located in ./universal/ubroker) to start the Universal Broker: ubrokerd start.

Detailed Information

The following pages provide detailed information for UNIX Installation: