Verifying RHEL 5.0 System Resources

Before you install Sun xVM Ops Center on a RHEL 5.0 system, verify that the system conforms to the recommendations described below.

Sun Support Services might have tools available that automate verifying many of the system requirements and resources listed here. Check with Sun Support Services for the following items:

• Pre-installation checklist
• Pre-installation check script
• Patches to apply to the Sun xVM Ops Center software

You must install any Sun xVM Ops Center patches after you install the Sun xVM Ops Center software.

Verifying RHEL 5.0 system resources requires the following tasks:

• Checking the Operating System Release
• Checking the Available Disk Space
• Verifying the Amount of System Memory and Swap Space
• Verifying the SELinux Setting
• Verifying the umask Value
• Sun xVM Ops Center Users and Groups
• Verifying That Required Packages Are Installed
• Verifying Correct IP Address Resolution
• Verifying the Locations of ssh Binaries
• Verifying That /usr/local Is Writeable
• Verifying the Date and Time
• Verifying Network Access to Required Web Sites
• Verifying Network Port Access

Before You Begin

The currently recommended method to assure that a RHEL 5.0 system is ready to accept a Sun xVM Ops Center Enterprise Controller or Proxy Controller installation is to perform a complete RHEL 5.0 installation. RHEL 5.0 Installation for Sun xVM Ops Center describes the required installation procedure. This RHEL 5.0 installation procedure requires that you install all optional software packages from the installation media that the RHEL 5.0 installer can install, and one package that the RHEL 5.0 installer does not install.

On a system that has a complete installation of RHEL 5.0, use the following procedures to verify that its resources meet the requirements for Sun xVM Ops Center installation.

These procedures assume that you are logged in as the root user on the system on which you intend to install Sun xVM Ops Center Enterprise Controller or Proxy Controller software. You can check these system resources in any order.

To Check the Operating System Release

Verify that RHEL 5.0 is installed on the system. The /etc/redhat-release file lists the OS release installed on your system. For example:

# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5 (Tikanga)
# 

To Check the Available Disk Space

Use the df -h command to list the space utilization on the Enterprise Controller, and verify that you have at least 72 GBytes available. For example:

# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                      131G  5.7G  119G   5% /
/dev/sda1              99M   12M   83M  12% /boot
tmpfs                 2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm
#

High availability (HA) configurations for Sun xVM Ops Center use transferable storage to hold the /var/opt/sun/xvm directory structure within a separate file system. Refer to About High Availability in Sun xVM Ops Center and Configuring Storage for High Availability for more information about HA configurations.

To Verify the Amount of System Memory and Swap Space

Use the free -m command to display the amount of installed memory and swap space on your system. For example:

# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3931       1389       2542          0        220       1053
-/+ buffers/cache:        115       3816
Swap:         4096          0       4096
#

You can also use the dmesg command to display the amount of memory installed. For example:

# dmesg | grep Memory
Memory: 4022900k/4063168k available (2043k kernel code, 39036k reserved, 846k data, 232k init, 3145664k highmem)
#

To Verify the SELinux Setting

Sun xVM Ops center installation requires SELinux to be disabled. To check the state of SELinux, either run the sestatus command, or display the content of the /etc/selinux/config file, and verify that the SELINUX variable is set to disabled. For example:

# sestatus
SELinux status:                 disabled
#
# cat /etc/selinux/config
# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#       enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#       permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#       disabled - SELinux is fully disabled.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= type of policy in use. Possible values are:
#       targeted - Only targeted network daemons are protected.
#       strict - Full SELinux protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted
#

To Verify the umask Value

Verify that the umask in use for the root user or equivalent role is set to 022. Different shells report this value differently. The following examples list output from the umask command for the Bourne shell, the Korn shell, and the C Shell, and bash, in descending order. In all three examples, the umask value is correct.

# sh
# umask
0022
# ksh
# umask
0022
# csh
# umask
22
# bash
# umask
0022

Check the umask value set in /etc/bashrc. The umask value must be set to 022 even for non-root users. For example:

# grep umask /etc/bashrc
	umask 002
	umask 022
#

Sun xVM Ops Center Users and Groups

Sun xVM Ops Center installation creates a number of users and groups on the Enterprise Controller and Proxy Controllers. Review the list of users and groups, and verify that they do not conflict with existing policies. If required by account management policies, add these users and groups before you install the Sun xVM Ops Center software.

Sun xVM Ops Center creates these users and groups with the following UID and GID values:

# cat /etc/group
(output omitted)
uce-sds::98194050:
scndb::98194051:
jet::98194052:
# 
# cat /etc/passwd
(output omitted)
svctag:x:95:12:Service Tag UID:/:
scn:x:231796:3::/:/bin/sh
xvm:x:60:60::/:/bin/sh
scncon:x:231798:1::/:/bin/true
uce-sds:x:231799:98194050:UCE Engine:/opt/SUNWuce/server:/bin/sh
scndb:x:231800:98194051:SCS PostgreSQL User:/opt/SUNWscs:/bin/sh
allstart:x:231801:1:AllStart User:/var/opt/sun/xvm/osp/data:/bin/sh
#

scncon.password=2EzafaJE

To Verify That Required Packages Are Installed

Sun xVM Ops Center requires a number of specific packages for successful installation on RHEL 5.0 systems. Currently, the list of required packages includes the following:

# rpm -q ncompress-4.2.4-47
ncompress-4.2.4-47
#

To Verify Correct IP Address Resolution

Verify that the configured naming services resolve the correct IP address for the host name that is assigned to your system. For example:

# host x4200-brm-13 
x4200-brm-13.Central.Sun.COM has address 172.20.25.169
#

To Verify the Locations of ssh Binaries

The binary files for ssh operations must be stored in their standard locations, even if OpenSSH is used. Verify that the following files are stored using the listed path names:

• /usr/bin/scp
• /usr/bin/ssh
• /usr/bin/ssh-keygen
• /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan

For example:

# ls /usr/bin/scp /usr/bin/ssh /usr/bin/ssh-keygen /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan
/usr/bin/scp          /usr/bin/ssh          /usr/bin/ssh-keygen   /usr/bin/ssh-keyscan
#

To Verify That /usr/local Is Writeable

Some software components of Sun xVM Ops Center are installed in the /usr/local directory. Verify that the /usr/local directory is writeable, and is not a remotely mounted, read-only directory. For example:

# df -h /usr/local
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                      131G  5.7G  119G   5% /
# ls -ld /usr/local
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Nov 30  2005 /usr/local
#

To Verify the Date and Time

Verify that the correct date and time are set on your system. For example:

# date
Thu Mar 11 13:28:59 MST 2010
#

To Verify Network Access to Required Web Sites

Use a web browser to verify that your system can access the following URLs:

https://getupdates1.sun.com
https://inv-cs.sun.com
https://inventory.sun.com
https://a248.e.akamai.net 
https://identity.sun.com
ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com 

For access to Red Hat Linux updates, verify that your system can access the following URLs:

https://www.redhat.com
http://rhn.redhat.com
https://rhn.redhat.com 
https://download.rhn.redhat.com 

For access to SUSE Linux updates, verify that your system can access the following URLs:

http://www.novell.com
https://www.novell.com
http://download.novell.com 
https://you.novell.com 

Use the wget command to verify that you can access the getupdates1.sun.com web site and download a sample file.

1. If you are using a proxy to access the Internet, set the https_proxy environment variable to point to the proxy server. For example:

   # export https_proxy="http://myproxy.company.com:8080" 
   

   Enter the fully qualified domain name of your proxy server instead of myproxy.company.com.
   

2. Use the wget command to download the sample file named channels.xml and save it locally as /tmp/channels.xml.
   The wget command uses these relevant options:
   • -O – Specifies the name of the file to create on the local system
   • --http-user – Specifies the SOA to use for authentication to getupdates1.sun.com
   • --http-password – Specifies the password for SOA that you provide for the --http-user option
   • --proxy-user – (Optional) Specifies the user name used for authentication with an HTTPS proxy
   • --proxy-password – (Optional) Specifies the password for the user name that you provide for the --proxy-user option
     The wget command is stored by default in /usr/bin on RHEL 5.0 systems. For example:

     # /usr/bin/wget https://getupdates1.sun.com/channels3/channels.xml -O /tmp/channels.xml --http-user="account@sun.com" --http-password="password"
     --12:07:40--  https://getupdates1.sun.com/channels3/channels.xml
     Resolving getupdates1.sun.com... 198.232.168.136
     Connecting to getupdates1.sun.com|198.232.168.136|:443... connected.
     HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Moved Temporarily
     Location: https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/21808/15m/sun.download.akamai.com/21808/sc/channels3/channels.xml?AuthParam=1236020624_01b507faf428706c2c0b14a7462004e4&TUrl=L0QdUQV8Z4i0fdED3QTP3SJDWA8FMyaJsHfIWf4X29kTWQpKEzIbwqFuyRPZ&TicketId=3qfzk1SANhtW&GroupName=SWUP&BHost=sdlc3h.sun.com&FilePath=/sc/channels3/channels.xml&File=channels.xml [following]
     --12:07:41--  https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/21808/15m/sun.download.akamai.com/21808/sc/channels3/channels.xml?AuthParam=1236020624_01b507faf428706c2c0b14a7462004e4&TUrl=L0QdUQV8Z4i0fdED3QTP3SJDWA8FMyaJsHfIWf4X29kTWQpKEzIbwqFuyRPZ&TicketId=3qfzk1SANhtW&GroupName=SWUP&BHost=sdlc3h.sun.com&FilePath=/sc/channels3/channels.xml&File=channels.xml
     Resolving a248.e.akamai.net... 204.2.215.18, 204.2.215.19
     Connecting to a248.e.akamai.net|204.2.215.18|:443... connected.
     HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
     Length: 66505 (65K) [application/xml]
     Saving to: `/tmp/channels.xml'
     
     100%[===============================================================================>] 66,505      --.-K/s   in 0.1s   
     
     12:07:42 (449 KB/s) - `/tmp/channels.xml' saved [66505/66505]
     
     # ls /tmp/channels.xml
     /tmp/channels.xml
     # 
     

     In this example, account@sun.com and password represent the SOA and SOA password that you must provide.

To Verify Network Port Access

Verify that your system allows the following network services and ports: