Installation

From ControlTier

This document describes how to install ControlTier server and client using either the ZIP installer script, or RPM installers.

All installation house and lot for sale in cavite methods will setup both the server and the client components on the local machine. An optional client-only invocation of the install script can be used in distributed environments.

Getting ControlTier

The latest release is: 3.6.1

all files

ZIP installer

• ControlTier-3.6.1.zip md5 (size: 217433154)

RPM packages

• ctier-client-3.6.1-1.noarch.rpm md5 (size: 44496858)

• ctier-server-3.6.1-1.noarch.rpm md5 (size: 206603428)

CTL standalone packages:

• ctl-dispatch-3.6.1.zip md5 (size: 43063819)

• commander-extension-3.6.1.jar md5 (size: 5879029)

Alternatively, you may install by following the instructions at the ControlTier yum repository.

See the Release Notes

All ControlTier software releases are available at Sourceforge in the ControlTier project here

Upgrading existing installations

Types of installation

There are two kinds of ControlTier installation:

• Server: The server install includes the full stack of ControlTier software: server tools (web apps such as Jobcenter) and the ControlTier client. The role of the server is to act as a central administrative point and provide a repository of data and release artifacts. A machine that has the ControlTier Server software installed is typically the designated "admin host" that has network access to all the machines where the ControlTier client is also installed.

• Client: The ControlTier Client includes the CTL command dispatching tool and framework used for managing the application service(s) or automated process. Pre-installed as a library are a set of standard modules. A machine that has the ControlTier Client software installed include: web servers, application server, database, mail, portal, custom/proprietary apps, cluster components, etc.

Note

The Server installation package also contains a full installation of the Client package. For a single-Node setup, you only need to install the Server.

System requirements

ControlTier runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris, and Mac OS X. Java 5 or 6 is required. Any recent system should work; however, please review the detailed system requirements before proceeding.

SSH configuration

ControlTier uses SSH for remote execution. You do not need to have root account access. The SSH configuration must allow the ControlTier server machine to dispatch commands to client machines. Therefore, SSH is assumed to be installed and configured appropriately to allow this access. Also, SSH should not prompt for a password. There are many resources available on how to configure ssh to use public key authentication instead of passwords such as here or here.

By default, the ControlTier framework is configured to use DSA not RSA type keys (however, it can be configured to use RSA, if required).

Here's an example of SSH DSA key generation on a Linux system:

[demo@centos52 ~]$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/demo/.ssh/id_dsa): 
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /home/demo/.ssh/id_dsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/demo/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
37:d6:3a:b6:17:db:e2:2f:84:ca:b2:ed:7a:43:0d:26 demo@centos52

Configuring remote machine for SSH

• To be able to directly ssh to remote machines, the SSH public key of the client should be shared to the remote machine.
• Follow the steps given below to enable ssh to remote machines.

• The ssh public key should be copied to the authorized_keys file of the remote machine. The public key will be available in ~/etc/id_dsa.pub file.
• The authorized_keys file should be created in the .ssh directory of the remote machine.
• The file permission of the authorized key should be read/write for the user and nothing for group and others. To do this check the permission and change it as shown below.

  MacBook-Pro-15:.sshraj$ ls -la
  -rw-r--r--   1 raj  staff     0 Nov 22 18:14 authorized_keys
 MacBook-Pro-15:newnew raj$ chmod 600 authorized_keys 
 MacBook-Pro-15:newnew raj$ ls -la
  -rw-------   1 raj  staff     0 Nov 22 18:14 authorized_keys

• The permission for the .ssh directory of the remote machine should be read/write/execute for the user and nothing for the group and others. To do this, check the permission and change it as shown below.

   MacBook-Pro-15:raj$ ls -la
    drwxr-xr-x   2 raj  staff    68 Nov 22 18:19 .ssh
   MacBook-Pro-15:raj$ chmod 700 .ssh
   MacBook-Pro-15:raj$ ls -la
    drwx------   2 raj  staff    68 Nov 22 18:19 .ssh

If you are running ControlTier on Windows, we heartily recommend using Cygwin installation on Windows as it includes SSH and a number of Unix-like tools that are useful when you work in a command line environment.

Running the installer

Both the graphical and command line installers will install and configure the ControlTier Server. The command line installer provides an option to install just the client. It is also useful for automated installs.

Prior to running the installer:

• Ensure the Third party dependencies (e.g., Java and Graphviz) are available
• Review the Self-contained Directory Convention

Then run the preferred installer:

• Command line: Instructions for using the command line installer (Zip)
• Redhat Package Manager: Instructions for using the RPM installers

Supported Browsers

Currently, these are the supported browsers for the web applications:

• Firefox 2.0 or higher
• Safari 3 or higher
• Internet Explorer 7 or 8

Note: Internet Explorer 6 is not supported and is known to cause a number of visible problems.

After installation

If you are a new user, see Getting Started.