Installation Requirements and Summary - UNIX

Objective

This page provides installation requirements and summary for Universal Agent 7.4.x on a UNIX system.

Universal Agent for UNIX is comprised of one required package - Universal Agent (the Agent) - and one optional package: Universal Agent for SOA.

Universal Agent for UNIX

UNIX Versions

One of the following UNIX operating systems that are supported by Universal Agent 7.4.x:

  • AIX 7.1 TL5 / AIX 7.2 TL2 and above
  • HP-UX 11.23 and above (HP-UX IA64 package)
  • Solaris 10 and above (SPARC-based)

Note

Universal Agent for Solaris 10 systems require libxnet.so version SUNW_1.3.1 or higher.

Note

The Python 3.7 Distribution for Universal Agent requires libintl.so version 0.18.1.1, REV=2011.03.15 or higher. The install will proceed if the required dependency does not exist, but the UA-specific python instance will not run until libintl is available.

  • Solaris 10 and above (Intel-based)

Note

The Python 3.7 Distribution for Universal Agent requires libintl.so version 0.18.1.1, REV=2011.03.15 or higher. The install will proceed if the required dependency does not exist, but the UA-specific python instance will not run until libintl is available.

  • Linux Environments with the following qualifications:
    • Intel x86_64-based system
      • Linux Kernel 3.10 or greater
      • glibc 2.17-78 or higher
    • IBM PowerPC-based system
      • Linux Kernel 3.10 or greater
      • glibc 2.17-157 or higher
      • Configured for little endian (LE)
    • zSeries 64-bit (S/390) system
      • Linux Kernel 2.6 or greater
      • glibc 2.4-31 or greater
    • RedHat Package Manager (RPM) distributions
    • Debian distributions
      • Linux Kernel 3.0 or greater
      • glibc 2.15 or higher

The list of supported systems grows rapidly. Contact Stonebranch, Inc. for a current list of supported UNIX operating systems if you require support for a system that is not listed.

Additional Requirements

  • Superuser (root) access.
  • TCP/IP Socket implementation.
  • Approximately 400 megabytes of disk space for the installation. More disk space is required for variable files, such as log files, spool files, and trace files.
  • Bourne shell or compatible.

Platform Requirements

Since platform requirements may change with new releases of a product, see Platform Support for Universal Controller 7.4.x and Universal Agent 7.4.x to make sure that your platform is supported before performing an installation.

Directories and Files

All product files that are written to during product execution are stored in the /var/opt/universal directory by default. This section documents the estimated amount of space required on the file system for all directories (and their sub-directories), required security access, and mount requirements.

Command Reference Directory

Universal Command Server can execute commands of type cmdref. A command reference is a predefined command or script to which the Universal Command Manager refers by its file name.

The command reference directory is /var/opt/universal/cmdref.

Space

The amount of space required is solely dependent on the number of command reference files you define. No command reference files are included in the installation.

Security

Universal Command Server requires read access to the cmdref directory. The product administrator requires read/write access in order to maintain the command reference files. No general user access is required.

Log Directory

Universal Broker can be configured to write its messages to a log file.

The current log file and previous log file generations are stored in the /var/opt/universal/log directory.

Space

A log file size grows to about 150,000 bytes and is then rolled over to a generation file. Five generations of log files are saved. The oldest generation log file is deleted. The amount of space required for the five generations and the current log file is about 900,000 bytes.

Security

Universal Broker requires read/write access to the log directory and read/write access to all files in the log directory. No other Universal Agent components use the log directory at this time. No general user access is required.

Trace Directory

Universal Broker and its server components (for example, Universal Command Server) create product trace files when configured to do so. A trace file is used by Stonebranch, Inc. Customer Support to resolve product problems.

Space

Trace files can grow to significant size depending on how long the trace is active and how much work the program is doing during the tracing period. A trace file size of about 10MB is not unusual.

Trace file sizes can be limited by setting the maximum number of lines to write to a file with the MAX_TRACE_LINES configuration option. Once the maximum is reached, the trace file will wrap to the beginning.

Under normal operation, no space is required for trace files. Trace files are requested by Stonebranch, Inc. Customer Support only for problem resolution. When trace files are required, at least 20MB of disk space should be available.

Security

Universal Broker and the Broker components (Universal Command Server and Universal Control Server) require read/write access to the trace directory. No other Universal Agent components access the trace directory. No general user access is required.

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.

The default location for the spooled standard I/O files and other database files is the /var/opt/universal/spool directory.

Universal Command Server

Space

Spool files are located, by default, in directory /var/opt/universal/spool. The location of various product files can be can be configured via the product configuration files.

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

  1. 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.
  2. Average size of the user processes standard input, output, and error files.


A Stonebranch Tip

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. The feature must be turned on through the ALLOW_SPOOLING configuration settings.

For more information on the Manager Fault Tolerant feature and the spooling of redirected standard I/O files, see the Universal Agent 7.4.x User Guide.

Security

Universal Broker, Universal Command Server, and Universal Event Monitor require read/write access to the spool directory. No other Universal Agent components access the spool directory. No general user access is required.

Mount

The spool directory must be mounted on a local device. It cannot be mounted on a network device, such as an NFS or SAMBA mount.

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 /var/opt/universal/uag/cache.

Cache files are created for each job that is run by the 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 via the Universal Controller user interface (see the Agent Cache Retention Period in Days Universal Controller system property).

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 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).

The Universal Automation Center Agent Server automatically redirects the standard output and standard error files to the cache directory with no required user input.

Security

Universal Automation Center Agent require 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 for SOA

UNIX Versions

To install Universal Agent for SOA for UNIX, you must have a Linux environment that satisfies the following requirements:

  • RedHat Package Manager (RPM) distributions
    • Intel x86_64-based system
    • Linux Kernel 3.10 or greater
    • gllibc 2.17-78 or higher
  • Debian distributions
    • Linux Kernel 3.0 or greater
    • glibc 2.15 or higher

Platform Requirements

Since platform requirements may change with new releases of a product, see Platform Support for Universal Controller 7.4.x and Universal Agent 7.4.x to make sure that your platform is supported before performing an installation.

Additional Requirements

  • 512MB RAM minimum, 1 GB or more preferred.
  • 150 MB free disk space.
  • TCP/IP socket implementation.
  • Superuser (root) access.
  • Universal Agent 6.3.0.1 or later.

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.-supplied script.

Customization

Customization consists of editing one or more of the product configuration files.