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Rational Method Composer Fix Pack 1 (7.5.2.1) for 7.5.2

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Abstract

IBM Rational Method Composer 7.5.2.1 has been made generally available and contains fixes to version 7.5.2 including all predecessor fix packs.

Download Description

Table of Contents
Sections Description

The Change history section provides an overview on what is new in this release with a description of any new functions or enhancements when applicable.

The How critical is this fix section provides information related to the impact of this release to allow you to assess how your environment may be affected.

The Prerequisites section provides important information to review prior to the installation of this release.

The Download package section provides the direct link to obtain the download package for installation in your environment.

The Installation instructions section provides the installation instructions necessary to apply this release into your environment.

The Known side effects section contains a link to the known problems (open defects) identified at the time of this release.

Supporting Documentation
Document Description

Click to review the detailed system requirements information for a complete list of hardware requirements, supported operating systems, prerequisites and optional supported software, with component-level details and operating system restrictions.

The information center provides you with user assistance for the product. You can view, browse, and search online information related to the product. You can also visit the IBM Product information page to browse for additional information centers.

Click to review a complete list of the defects (APARs) resolved in this release including a list of resolved defects for the entire version family.

Find technical developer content and resources.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites include:

Version of IBM Installation Manager required: IBM Installation Manager 1.6.3.1 or later.

Floating/Token licensing

Rational Method Composer ships with a trial license key that enables you to try the product for a period of 30 or 60 days. During the trial period, the product is fully functional. You will get a warning message when the trial period is about to expire. After the expiration date, the product will not function.

Setting up the license server

You must have administrative privileges on the machine that you want to import license key information in Rational License Key Administrator.

  1. Install Rational Common License 8.1.0
  2. Go to Start > IBM Rational > License Key Administrator and the 8.1.0. License Key Administrator wizard opens.
  3. Select Import a Rational License File, click Next.
  4. Browse and select a valid license file to import, click Import.
  5. In the Confirm Import window click Import.
  6. In the File imported successfully window, click OK.
  7. In the Restart License Server window, click Yes.


Enabling floating licenses

Rational Method Composer supports Floating/Token licenses. You can configure a connection to one or more license servers to obtain access to floating/token license keys installed on a license server.

Before enabling floating license, you must obtain the license server connection information from your administrator.

  1. In the IBM Installation Manager, click Manage Licenses.
  2. Select a version of a package and then select Configure Floating license support. Click Next.
  3. Read and accept the license agreement and click Next.
  4. Select Enable floating license enforcement and click the + icon to add a the license server information.
  5. Select the Single Server option.
  6. In the Name field, enter the host name of the license server.
  7. In the Port field, enter the port number of the server.
  8. Click Test Connection to verify that you can successfully connect to the server.
  9. Click OK, then click Next.
  10. In the license usage summary page, verify the product and version, click Finish.

Installation Instructions

Note:You do not need to download the compressed files that contain the update; IBM Installation Manager downloads and installs the update directly from the IBM update repository.

To update Rational Method Composer using IBM Installation Manager (On-line update):

  1. Close Rational Method Composer.
  2. Start the IBM Installation Manager by selecting Start > All Programs > IBM Installation Manager > IBM Installation Manager.
  3. Click Update. The Installation Manager checks for updates. If a new version of Installation Manager is available, you must install it before you can continue the Rational Method Composer installation. Click Yes at prompt to update Installation Manager. If your Installation Manager is current, go to step 5.
  4. Click OK at the prompt to restart Installation Manager. Click Update.
  5. On the Update Packages page, select IBM Rational Method Composer 7.5. Click Next.
  6. On the Select the updates for fixes to install page, verify the Version #### check box is selected. Click Next.
  7. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  8. On the Select features you want to install page, click Next.
  9. On the Review summary information page, click Update.
  10. When the update is completed and you are informed that packages were installed successfully, click Finish to close the Update Packages windows.
  11. Exit the IBM Installation Manager.
  12. Confirm the update was successful by using the Help menu in Rational Method Composer and selecting About IBM Rational Method Composer. You should see the version number of the release to which you just upgraded.


If you download and install this fix pack locally, follow these steps:

  1. From the Download package section below, download the zip file.
  2. Extract the zip file to a folder, .
  3. Launch IBM Installation Manager.
  4. Select File > Preferences and click Add Repository.
  5. Enter the location
    TARGET_DIR\disk1
    and select diskTag.inf in the Add Repository window and click OK.
  6. Click OK to close the Preferences window.
  7. Click Update on the main Installation Manager screen and update Rational Method Composer by following step 5 of the on-line update procedure.


Removing the fix pack

If you updated a previously installed version to version 7.5.x, you can revert to the previous version by using the roll back feature of Installation Manager.

The rollback feature uninstalls the updated resources and reinstalls the resources from the previous version. You can only roll back one version level at a time.

To remove the update:

  1. Close Rational Method Composer.
  2. Start the IBM Installation Manager by selecting Start > All Programs > IBM Installation Manager.
  3. Click Roll Back to display the Roll Back Packages window.
  4. On the Select the packages you want to roll back to page, select a version that has been installed on your machine to roll back, and then click Next.
  5. On the Review rollback information page, click Roll Back. A progress bar is displayed.
  6. When the update completes and you are informed that packages were rolled back successfully, click Finish to close the Update Packages windows.
  7. Exit IBM Installation Manager.

Download Package

The following sections provide detailed information related to this release.

How critical is this fix?

Impact Assessment
Impact Description

This is a maintenance release. It contains fixes for client-reported and internally found defects.

Test Results

Definitions

Regression: An error in the Maintenance Delivery Vehicle (MDV) that produces incorrect or unexpected behavior causing a supported feature to stop functioning as designed.
This includes:

  • Coding errors that cause a regression
  • Documentation or packaging problems that cause a regression
  • Errors reported in a new function delivered in a MDV that cause a regression

Incomplete: An error in the MDV has not regressed, but does not work as designed.
This includes:

  • Fixed APARs which did not solve the original problem but did not break anything new
  • APARs reporting documentation errors, such as readme errors, that cause problems applying an MDV but do not lead to a regression


Notes:
  • Regression and incomplete APARs are considered fix-in-error or MDV-in-error
  • Definitions above apply only to valid APARs that result in product fixes (APARs returned as working-as-designed are not assessed for being fix-in-error)
  • Issues in major releases due to new functionality do not apply in this definition

There are no known regressions to report.

Problems Solved

Defects resolved

Click the Fix List link in the table of contents above to review a list of the problems solved in this release.

Known Side Effects

The following defects were not resolved in this release:

There are no known defects to report.

Problems with installed 3rd party plug-ins

When installing 3rd party plug-ins like CCRC or SVN through the classic update manage (Help > Install Software) or 3rd party plug-ins like CCSCM through new extension location (Help > Manage Software Configuration), all the existing Rational Method Composer 7.5.1 feature patches can't be loaded and cause BIRT publishing and Diagram crook line issues.

To solve the problem:

  1. Shutdown Rational Method Composer.
  2. Find and open the platform.xml file for editing In the Rational Method Composer installation directory
    For example:
    C:\Program Files\IBM\RMC75\rmc\configuration\org.eclipse.update\platform.xml
  3. Search for org.eclipse.birt.report.engine_2.5.2.v20100805.jar. You will find a site element that contains org.eclipse.birt.report.engine_2.5.2.v20100805.jar in its list attribute.
  4. Replace the entire site with the following content:
  5. Open a command prompt and change to the Rational Method Composer installation directory.
  6. Run the following command to start the application: rmc.exe -clean

To verify that the feature patches are loaded correctly, click Help > About IBM Installation Manager > Installation Details > Plug-ins. Check the version of org.eclipse.birt.report.engine, it must be 2.5.2.v20100805.

Rational Method Composer floating and token licenses

IBM Installation Manager does not handle rollbacks with floating license using Rational Common Licensing 8.1.1 to a previous version that does not have the floating license capability. If you need to rollback to a previous release, you must disable your floating license before attempting to rollback.


The Rational Method Composer integration with Rational Synergy

During the installation of Synergy plugin using Help > Install Software, a duplicate conflict message is displayed. In addition, when upgrading a Rational Method Composer that includes the Rational Synergy integration, package update warnings are displayed. These warnings are harmless and can be ignored.


The Rational Method Composer integration with Jazz source control

In some instances, there might be extra lock being acquired for files that do not need to be changed. One example is that when a content package is added to a method plug-in, some of the configuration files will be locked, too. This is harmless and users should just release all the locked files when deliver the changes in a change set.


User-defined types, custom relationships, and custom attributes

Support for user-defined types, for custom relationships is currently implemented for the authoring perspective and for publishing. The following areas are not currently supported for user-defined types, custom relationships, and custom attributes:

  • CSV file report
  • Package copy across plug-in
  • Using the plug-in creation wizard tp copy a plug-in
  • The Tailoring perspective and other areas such as BIRT-based reporting


Special character in tag file names

Tag file names include "[" character which is a restricted character in file names for Informix that is used by Rational Synergy. As a result, these tag files cannot be placed under Rational Synergy source control. Review technote 1326060: Restricted characters within IBM Rational Synergy filenames for more information.
To add the .tag files under Rational Synergy source control, compress the initial .tag project and add it to Synergy.
To modify the tags, reserve check out the zip file to ensure other resources are not working on the same file, extract and make the changes, re-compress and check back in to the source control.


Exporting practices to Jazz Team Server

There is a Export feature available in Rational Method Composer that provides the ability to export a selection of practices to an XML file that can subsequently be imported to Jazz Team Server. If you want to try the import on the Jazz side and experiment with some early capabilities within the Jazz Team Server, you can do so by downloading and installing the following items from Jazz.net:

  • RQM Workbench for CLM 3.0 M11 build (includes JTS, RTC, RRC capabilities)
  • Jazz Process Authoring Application( in jazz foundation milestone 3.0RC3


Publishing configuration error

Publishing configuration of the RUP for small projects to Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word in ib.75.rup with configuration.rptlibrary generates an error message in the log file.
This is a known BIRT issue (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=324612).
Try to avoid using HTML comments in HTML table definition in your Rational Method Composer contents, as this generates errors in the log files when publishing to Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF.


Sharing a project in Rational ClearCase

After sharing a project in Rational ClearCase, you might get error messages when trying to edit Rational Method Composer contents. This is because the project is moved from Rational Method Composer workspace to Rational ClearCase space after sharing.
The workaround for this issue is to reload the workspace library after sharing.


Installation Manager limitation for updating RUP and Practice libraries

When starting Rational Method Composer for the first time, the default RUP library and the Practice library are loaded. This might cause Installation Manager not to be able to update these libraries in the future because of the time flag changes in some library files. It is recommended to make a backup of your RUP and Practice libraries and load them when launching Rational Method Composer.


IBM Rational Method Composer Security Vulnerability

Rational Method Composer is shipped with an IBM Java that is based on Oracle Java. Oracle has released a June 2012 critical patch update (CPU) that contains security vulnerability fixes and IBM Java is affected. Review Security Bulletin 1620862: Rational Method Composer Security Vulnerability: Multiple security vulnerabilities in IBM JRE 6 (CVE-2012-1713, CVE-2012-1716, CVE-2012-1717, CVE-2012-1718, CVE-2012-1719, CVE-2012-1720, CVE-2012-1721, CVE-2012-1722, CVE-2012-1725 CVE-2012-0551) for more information.


Uninstalling Rational Method Composer

There is a menu option under Help > Manage Licenses > Uninstall that does not uninstall the product and must be ignored. To uninstall Rational Method Composer, Use the Uninstall feature of IBM Installation Manager.


Search function of the published HTML sites on Firefox

Rational Method Composer uses Java applet for the search function on the published sites. On Linux, sometimes the Java applet is not enabled on Firefox and must manually be enabled.


For Firefox 1.5 to 3.5 on RHEL5 or SUSE10:

  1. Install JRE 5.0 or above. Assume that the JRE is installed at /opt/JRE.
  2. Go to the browser plugin folder.
    1. On RHEL5u3, the plugin folder is /usr/lib/mozilla/plugin-wrapped.
    2. On SUSE10, the plugin folder is /usr/lib/browser-plug-ins.
  3. Create a symbolic link to the java plugin at the browser's plugin folder:
    ln -vs $(find /opt/JRE/ -name libjavaplugin_oji.so)
  4. To enable Java, start Firefox and type about:plugins to ensure the java plugin is installed. Then go to Edit > Preferences > Content tab and check Enable java.


For Firefox 3.6 and later:

  1. Upgrade the JRE to 6.0_10 or later.
  2. Use the following command to install the Java plugin:
    ln -vs $(find /opt/JRE/ -name libnpjp2.so)

Change History

What's new

Rational Method Composer 7.5.2.1 has been enhanced with the following new features:

  • A new integration with Jazz source control. The Jazz source control integration simplifies the task of managing a method library under version control. The integration uses automatic pessimistic file-locking to enable you to perform such operations as:
    • Checking in, delivering, and sharing new method plug-ins with other users in Jazz source control
    • Encapsulating changes you make to source content as outgoing change sets that others users of the integration must accept before being able to edit these resources
    • Identifying and accepting incoming changes that have been made to source content by other users. changes
    • Renaming and deleting method plug-ins
    • Locking all elements in a method plug-in, finding locked files, and releasing all locked files that have not been changed
  • Jazz Work Item Types generated in Rational Method Composer now provides a custom guidance field so process guidance links can be added
  • Provisions to model Jazz work item types and to automatically associate the correct Jazz work item types to Jazz work items that have been generated in Rational Method Composer
  • All work item creation and work item template generation follow the modeling choices authors have used to automatically associate the right Jazz work item types to generated work items
  • In addition to the choices of selecting the initial iterations for a Jazz process template generated in Rational Method Composer, users can now choose a new Capability Pattern or Delivery Process that will be mapped to a complete project timeline
  • Provides the capability for method authors to control the ordering of process contribution
  • Three new custom attributes have been added: text, choices, and attachments

The IBM Practices Library 7.5.2.1 has been enhanced with the following features:

  • The IBM Rational Solution for CLM has been updated for the CLM 4.0.1 release which includes user-defined types for mapping process elements to specific Rational Team Concert work item types.
    • New solution configurations have been included for:
    • Aerospace DO-178B Automotive ISO-26262 Medical Devices Aerospace and Defense - DoDAF

For Automotive (ISO 26262) and Aerospace/Defence (DO178B) solutions, the process template included is for Rational Team Concert 3.0. Newer versions (English only) that support Rational Team Concert 4.0 have been posted on the Rational Solution Process Assets page.

Click the link in the Download Options column:

On
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Product Synonym

Rational Method Composer

Problems (APARS) fixed
PM72405;PM67596;PM67365;PM64251​;PM60605;PM59091;PM59073​;PM57489​;PM61700 ;PM64479;PM63951;PM61772;PM60605;PM57992;PM57489;PM57426;PM56090

Document Information

Modified date:
20 July 2018

UID

swg24034139