Preparing Linux systems for installation

Before you can install IBM® Business Monitor, you must prepare your Linux operating system.

Before you begin

If you plan to install interactively, ensure that you have a supported version of Mozilla Firefox installed.

About this task

Because certain steps are specific to a version of the operating system, all steps might not apply to your environment. If no qualifier is provided for a particular step, complete the step for all versions of the operating system.

Procedure

Complete the following steps on your Linux system before installing IBM Business Monitor:

  1. Because WebSphere® Application Server is a prerequisite of IBM Business Monitor, complete all the required preparation steps in the Preparing Linux systems for installation topic in the WebSphere Application Server information center.
  2. Increase the allowable stack size, number of open files, number of processes, and file size by adding the following lines to the end of the /etc/security/limits.conf file or changing the values if the lines already exist. In this example, user_name is the name of the user that runs WebSphere Application Server:
    # - stack - maximum stack size (KB)
    user_name soft stack 32768
    user_name hard stack 32768
    # - nofile - maximum number of open files
    user_name soft nofile 65536
    user_name hard nofile 65536
    # - nproc - maximum number of processes
    user_name soft nproc 16384
    user_name hard nproc 16384
    # - fsize - maximum file size
    user_name soft fsize 6291453
    user_name hard fsize 6291453
    Save and close the file, and log off and log in again. You can check the current maximum number of open files by using ulimit -n and the current maximum file size by using ulimit -f. The ulimit requirement is dynamically calculated at installation time and might need to be larger based on the options you select. For more information about this setting, run man limits.conf or see the topic Preparing Linux systems for installation in the WebSphere Application Server information center.
  3. Check for the existence of a file named /etc/security/limits.d/90-nproc.conf or /etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf, which overrides the nproc value set in the limits.conf file. If this file exists, edit it and set the same nproc values that you specified in limits.conf.
  4. Install the following packages for your operating system:
    Option Description
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
    • libXp-1.0.0-8
    • rpm-build-4.4.2-37.el5
    You can also install a later release of any of these packages if there are new packages as errata. If you have additional packages that are specific to your hardware, install them.
    The following command example shows how to use the default package manager on supported Linux distributions.
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5:
      yum install libXp rpm-build 
  5. On Linux for System z, if you plan to use the Installation Manager graphical interface to install IBM Business Monitor, install the libgtk-2_0-0-32bit and libgthread-2_0-0-32bit libraries. The following example shows how to install these using the zypper command:
    zypper install libgtk-2_0-0-32bit
    zypper install libgthread-2_0-0-32bit
    For additional information, see X libraries required by IBM Installation Manager on Linux for System z
  6. Set the umask value to 077 using the following command:
    • umask 077
    The value 077 is the most restrictive value that IBM Business Monitor will tolerate. You can optionally choose to set a less restrictive umask value for the following access levels:
    • 037 for read-only access for a group of human administrators and tools
    • 027 for read and write access for a group of human administrators and tools
    • 007 for read, write, and execute access for a group of human administrators and tools
  7. On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 systems, disable SELinux, or set it to a permissive mode.
  8. Restart the computer.
  9. Complete the steps in Tuning Linux systems.
  10. Ensure all servers involved are set to the same time. Use the same network time protocol for all servers on all cluster nodes, including application, support, and database clusters. A time mismatch will cause erratic behavior, including duplicate system tasks.
  11. If you are using DB2, make sure that all your DB2 parameters meet the DB2 naming rules.
  12. Run the following command in your Linux environment:
    yum list libXtst gtk2 compat-libstdc++ nspr nss glibc libstdc++ openmotif
    Make sure that both the 32-bit and the 64-bit libraries for the packages listed in that yum command are present, except for Motif, which requires only 64-bit libraries. The 32-bit libraries have a .i686 file extension and the 64-bit libraries have a .x86_64 file extension.