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Creating custom installation repositories with IBM Packaging Utility

IBM WebSphere Application Server uses IBM Installation Manager for product installation and lifecycle management. Installation Manager accesses source repositories that contain the content for a software product installation. Repositories are available on product media, in IBM-hosted web-based repositories, and from Passport Advantage. IBM Packaging Utility can help you create and customize enterprise repositories that contain the correct combination of products and maintenance levels needed for all aspects of your business.

About this task

You use Installation Manager to connect to an Installation Manager repository (or set of repositories) to find products and service updates that are available to you for installation. An Installation Manager repository is simply a tree-structured file folder that includes product payload and metadata. You can install the software products that you need directly from an IBM web-based service repository or download and unpack compressed files from Passport Advantage and install the products from the resulting unpacked file folders. The result of unpacking the files is also considered to be an Installation Manager repository. Like any Installation Manager repository, these unpacked files can be hosted on an internal HTTP server, FTP server, or network mount in order to make them available to the organization.

Packaging Utility is a companion tool for Installation Manager with which you can create and manage custom Installation Manager repositories for your organization. You can copy multiple packages, maintenance levels, and fixes into a single repository. Packaging Utility copies from source repositories to your target custom repositories. Source repositories can include any accessible Installation Manager repository, including IBM web-hosted product repositories and unzipped Passport Advantage downloads.

For more information on Packaging Utility, go to the IBM Packaging Utility documentation.

Procedure

  • Use Packaging Utility to create custom or enterprise Installation Manager repositories that contain specific products and maintenance levels that fit the needs of your business.

    As an administrator, you can control the content of your enterprise repository, which then can serve as the central repository to which your organization connects in order to perform product installations and updates.

    Packaging Utility essentially copies from a set of source Installation Manager repositories to a target repository and eliminates duplicate artifacts, helping to keep the repository size as small as possible. You can also delete (or prune) a repository, removing maintenance levels or products that are not needed.

    You can download the latest version of Packaging Utility from the IBM Support Portal.

    Like Installation Manager, Packaging Utility has GUI and command-line interfaces. You must specify repository URLs for Installation Manager repositories that contain the offerings that you wish to copy.

    Installation Manager repository URLs follow this pattern:
    https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/offering_name
    Note: This location does not contain a web page that you can access using a web browser.
    For example, WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5 product repositories are located at the following URLs:
    • WebSphere Application Server Base Version 8.5
      https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85
    • WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Version 8.5
      https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.ND.v85
    • WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Trial Version 8.5
      https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.NDTRIAL.v85
    See Online product repositories for WebSphere Application Server offerings for additional product repositories.

    The target repository that you create with Packaging Utility will always support a full installation; therefore, you cannot use Packaging Utility to create a repository that is only a copy of a fix pack. You can, however, create a repository that contains the minimum content to support direct installation to a fix-pack level. Consider the following two examples that use the Packaging Utility command-line interface (PUCL.exe) that is available in the Packaging Utility installation folder.

    • Example 1
      Note: Note that you must read the license agreement that you can find with the product files and then signify your acceptance of the license agreement by specifying -acceptLicense in the following command.
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBase_version
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense

      Since no version number is specified with the offering name, this command will create a new repository that supports direct installation to the latest fix-pack level for WebSphere Application Server Base Version 8.5. This new repository does not support the installation of Version 8.5.0.0, but it does support the update from an existing Version 8.5.0.0 installation to the latest version.

    • Example 2
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.0.20110503_0200 
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBase 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.1.20110829_1838 
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBase 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense

      The first command creates a target repository with WebSphere Application Server Base Version 8.5.0.0. The second command adds the Version 8.5.0.1 fix pack to the same repository. You can now use this resulting repository to install Version 8.5.0.0, install Version 8.5.0.1, or update from Version 8.5.0.0 to Version 8.5.0.1.

  • Use IBM Packaging Utility Version 1.5.2 or later with the –platform option (sometimes called "platform slicing") to create a repository that is scoped to the platforms and architectures that are used by your organization.
    Note: Your repository can be scoped for platforms other than the one on which it is created or stored. For example, you can run Packaging Utility on a Windows system to create a repository with the content needed to install on a Linux® system. During installation on Linux, you point Installation Manager to your custom repository.
    This feature is available in command-line mode by specifying the –platform option with the os and arch arguments as shown in the following example:
    • Example 3
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.0.20110503_0200 
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBase_Linux 
      -platform os=linux,arch=ppc 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      This command will create a new repository for installation to WebSphere Application Server Version 8.5.0.0 on Linux PPC. You can then add the Version 8.5.0.1 fix pack for Linux to the same repository:
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85_8.5.1.20110829_1838 
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBase_Linux 
      -platform os=linux,arch=ppc 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      You can also create a repository for direct installation to any fix-pack level for a particular platform.
    After creating a repository for a particular platform, you can add content for additional platforms. In the following example, the first command creates a Linux repository for direct installation to the latest fix pack for WebSphere Application Server. The second command adds the content for AIX. The delta for adding the additional platform content should be relatively small because much of the installation content is common across platforms.
    • Example 4
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBaseV8
      -platform os=linux,arch=ppc 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85
      -repositories 
        https://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v85 
      -target D:\WASBaseV8
      -platform os=aix 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      Notice that you do not need to specify both the os and arch options to the –platform argument. In the last command, only os=aix is specified.
    You should be aware of these known issues if you decide to use this function:
    • If you specify unsupported operating-system and architecture combinations for WebSphere Application Server offerings when you use the -platform option of the Packaging Utility copy command, unusable local repositories might be created. The following table lists valid combinations for creating a local WebSphere Application Server offering repository that is sliced by operating system and architecture.
      Table 1. Valid combinations for creating a local WebSphere Application Server offering repository using the Packaging Utility copy command
      Platform Options Resulting Repository
      Windows os=win32,arch=x86

      os=win32

      Windows 32 bit and 64 bit
      Linux Intel os=linux,arch=x86 Linux Intel 32 bit and 64 bit
      Linux Power® os=linux,arch=ppc Linux Power 32 bit and 64 bit
      zLinux os=linux,arch=s390 zLinux 32 bit and 64 bit
      AIX® os=aix AIX 32 bit and 64 bit
      Solaris Sparc os=solaris,arch=sparc Solaris Sparc 32 bit and 64 bit
      Solaris Intel os=solaris,arch=x86 Solaris Intel 64 bit
      HP-UX Itanium os=hpux HP-UX Itanium 64 bit
      IBM i os=os400 IBM i
      z/OS® os=zos z/OS
      Restriction: When using the Packaging Utility command-line interface (PUCL.exe) that is available in the Packaging Utility installation folder, you can only specify the -platform parameter once.
    • If you create a platform-specific repository from Passport Advantage and Fix Central fix-pack ZIP files that are first downloaded and unpacked, you must then reference both repositories when copying platform-specific maintenance into your target repository. If you unpack the Passport Advantage ZIP files for WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Version 8.5.0.0 into Windows folder C:\WASND8500 and then you unpack the Version 8.5.0.1 ZIP files to C:\WASND8501, for example, you would next create a Windows repository for Version 8.5.0.0 with the following command:
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.ND.v85_8.5.0.20110503_0200 
      -repositories C:\WASND8500 
      -target C:\WASND_Windows 
      -platform os=win32,arch=x86 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense
      and then add the fix pack, specifying both source repositories:
      PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.ND.v85_8.5.1.20110829_1838 
      -repositories C:\WASND8500,C:\WASND8501 
      -target C:\WASND_Windows 
      -platform os=win32,arch=x86 
      -prompt 
      -showProgress
      -acceptLicense