Installing Liberty on distributed operating systems using the command line

You can install all WebSphere® Application Server Liberty offerings by using the Installation Manager command line.

1. Optional: If the repository requires a user name and password, create credential-storage and master-password files to access this repository.
   1. Optional: Create the main password file.

      The main password file is a text file that contains a passphrase such as This text is the main password. This file is used to secure your authentication credentials.

      If you create a main password file and use it when you create credentials, you must always specify the main password file.

      Tip: To secure this file, set permissions to restrict access to this file as appropriate for your operating system.
   2. Create a credential storage file by running the imutilsc saveCredential command.
      

      imutilsc.exe saveCredential 
        -secureStorageFile storage_file
        -userName user_ID -userPassword user_password
        -url repository_URL_or_path 

      

      ./imutilsc saveCredential 
        -secureStorageFile storage_file
        -userName user_ID -userPassword user_password
        -url repository_URL_or_path 

      Tip: If the imutilsc command is unable to find the URL that is specified when you create the credential storage file, append /repository.config at the end of the repository URL location.
2. Log on to your system.
3. Change to the eclipse/tools subdirectory in the directory where you installed Installation Manager.
4. Verify that the offering repository is available.
   

   imcl.exe listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_URL_or_path

   

   ./imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_URL_or_path

   You see one or more levels of the offering.
5. Use the imcl command to install the offering.
   

   imcl.exe install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND_offering_version,optional_feature_ID
     -repositories repository_URL_or_path 
     -installationDirectory installation_directory 
     -sharedResourcesDirectory shared_directory
     -preferences preference_key=value
     -properties property_key=value
     -secureStorageFile storage_file -masterPasswordFile master_password_file
     -acceptLicense
   

   

   ./imcl install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND_offering_version,optional_feature_ID
     -repositories repository_URL_or_path 
     -installationDirectory installation_directory 
     -sharedResourcesDirectory shared_directory
     -preferences preference_key=value
     -properties property_key=value
     -secureStorageFile storage_file -masterPasswordFile master_password_file
     -acceptLicense
   

   Tips:

   • When you install Liberty, by default all Liberty features that apply to your Liberty product edition are also installed.

     Rather than installing all features, you can install a custom set of Liberty addons and features by specifying them on the user.addon and user.feature properties, as shown in the following example. Note that the feature short names or symbolic names are separated by double commas:

     imcl.exe install com.ibm.websphere.liberty.ND,embeddablecontainer             
     -properties user.addon=extendedPackage-1.0,user.feature=portlet-2.0,,portletserving-2.0
     -installationDirectory "C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphere\Liberty" -acceptLicense
     -repositories D:\IBM\LibertyRepo,https://your_onprem_asset_repo_url,D:\IBM\LocalAssetRepo,D:\IBM\LocalAssetRepo2.zip
     -sharedResourcesDirectory D:\IBM\IMShared
     -showProgress

     You can install assets from instances of the Liberty Asset Repository Service or local directory-based repositories with or without internet access. Add the repository URL, directory path, or archive file path on the -repositories parameter. These repositories are accessed in the order that they are specified. For more information about these asset repositories, see Installing assets using Installation Manager. To install assets from the IBM® WebSphere Liberty Repository, you must have access to the internet. To enable access to the Liberty Repository, on the -properties parameter, set the user.useLibertyRepository option to true. The Liberty Repository is the last of the repositories that are accessed during installation.
     Important: If you do not want to install Liberty addons or features, specify the -properties user.addon="" user.feature="" parameter.
     For more information, see the following topics:

     • Installing Liberty Repository assets
     • Liberty features
     • Liberty Repository
   • The first time that you install a package by using the Installation Manager, you can specify the shared resources directory. The shared resources directory is where installation artifacts are located that can be used by one or more package groups. It is also used as a staging area for the product payload during installation operations. By default, this content is cached so that it can be used for rollback. Use your largest drive for this installation. You cannot change the directory location until after you uninstall all packages.
   • The offering_version, can be attached to the offering ID with an underscore, is a specific version of the offering to install (16.0.2.20160503_0200 for example).
     • If offering_version is not specified, the latest version of the offering and all interim fixes for that version are installed.
     • If offering_version is specified, the specified version of the offering and no interim fixes for that version are installed.
     The offering version can be found attached to the end of the offering ID with an underscore when you run the following command against the repository:

     imcl listAvailablePackages -repositories repository_URL_or_path

   • You can also specify none, recommended or all with the -installFixes argument to indicate which interim fixes you want installed with the offering.
     • If the offering version is not specified, the -installFixes option defaults to all.
     • If the offering version is specified, the -installFixes option defaults to none.
   • To install the embeddable EJB container and JPA client, specify the optional embeddablecontainer feature after the offering ID, separated by a comma.
     Note: A removal notice was issued for the embeddable EJB container and JPA client feature as of the 16.0.0.2 fix pack, so the feature is eligible for future removal. For more information, see Removal notices.

     The embeddable EJB container is a Java archive (JAR) file that you can use to run enterprise beans in a standalone Java Platform, Standard Edition (SE) environment. You can run enterprise beans by using this embeddable container outside the application server. The embeddable EJB container is a part of the EJB 3.1 specification and is primarily used for unit testing enterprise beans business logic.

     The JPA client can be used with the embeddable EJB container to provide Java Persistence API capability in a Java SE environment.

   • Installation Manager can save earlier versions of a package to roll back to if you experience issues later. When Installation Manager rolls back a package to a previous version, the current versions of the files are uninstalled and the earlier versions are reinstalled. If you choose not to save the files for rollback, you can prevent the files from being saved by using the following preference in your command specification:

     -preference com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts=False

     to this:
     Tip: Even if you choose not to preserve files locally for rollback, you can still roll back to any previously installed level by accessing the appropriate offering repository.
   • Installation Manager automatically chooses the architecture of the installation package based on your operating system architecture. On 64-bit systems, you can specify a 32-bit installation by setting the following preference to the 32-bit architecture value for your operating system:

     -properties cic.selector.arch=x86

     For a list of the architecture values for cic.selector.arch, see the Command-line arguments for the imcl command table in the Installation Manager product documentation.

   • The relevant terms and conditions, notices, and other information are provided in the license-agreement files in the lafiles or offering_name/lafiles subdirectory of the installation image or repository for this offering.
   • The program might write important post-installation instructions to standard output.

   For more information on using the imcl command to install the offering, see the IBM Installation Manager product documentation.