WebFOCUS and ReportCaster Installation Requirements

WebFOCUS 8.2 requires Java Virtual Machine (Java VM) Version 7 or higher on the system that is hosting the application server where the WebFOCUS Reporting Server and ReportCaster Distribution Server are installed. In addition, any supported portal server (for example, SAP Enterprise Portal Server, IBM WebSphere Portal Server, and so on) that is integrated with WebFOCUS Open Portal Services must be hosted on a system that is using Java VM Version 7 or higher.

Note: For information regarding WebFOCUS release support for the different Oracle JDK versions that WebFOCUS and ReportCaster web applications are installed, see WebFOCUS Support Statement for Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) on the Customer Support Services site, https://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/tech/wbf/wbf_tmo_047_j2se.html.

This table lists basic requirements for the machine or machines that run WebFOCUS and ReportCaster. Where necessary, these requirements are described in more detail later in this chapter. If WebFOCUS components are installed on different machines, requirements apply to all machines, except where noted.

Note: The installation program includes the following third-party components: Tomcat, Java, and Derby. Later versions or releases of these third-party components, which often contain fixes for security vulnerabilities, may exist at installation time. It is your responsibility to check the vendor sites listed below for updates to newer versions or releases of these third-party components if you intend to use them with WebFOCUS. Install the new updates or versions prior to proceeding with the WebFOCUS installation. If these components are installed through the WebFOCUS installation program, it is your responsibility to update these components after the installation is completed.

• The latest version of Tomcat is available at https://tomcat.apache.org.
• The latest version of Java is available at https://www.java.com.
• The latest version of Derby is available at https://db.apache.org/derby.

This section explains the desktop requirements for running WebFOCUS and ReportCaster.

The following are disk space requirements for WebFOCUS components.

• Installation directory requires 3GB of free space.
• Temp directory requires 3GB of free space.

  If the temp directory on the host does not meet the minimum size requirements, the InstallAnywhere environment variable IATEMPDIR can be set to use an alternate directory.

  You may specify an alternate /tmp location by setting the following environment variable:

  IATEMPDIR=/large_tmp
  export IATEMPDIR

  where:

  /large_tmp

  Is a user-defined path of a file system that has enough space.

The operating system provides ways of limiting the amount of resources that can be used. These limits can affect the installation process.

Use the ulimit command to set process memory-related resource limits for your session.

The WebFOCUS installation program requires ulimit to be set to 8192.

Limits can be hard or soft. Hard limits are set by the root user. Only the root user can increase hard limits, although other users can decrease them. Soft limits can be set and changed by other users, but they cannot exceed the hard limits. To view the current limits, enter the following command:

ulimit -a

Use the /etc/security/limits.conf file to store ulimit settings. Changes to this file should be made by a system administrator.

WebFOCUS uses TCP/IP for communications between components. During the installation, you choose which ports are used. Ensure that communications are possible on those ports.

The following are the most common web and application servers certified with WebFOCUS and ReportCaster:

• IBM WebSphere application server.
• Oracle WebLogic 12c.
• Apache Tomcat 8.5.29.

Additional web and application servers are supported that meet the specifications described in JVM and J2SE Support Information. For additional support information, contact Customer Support.

Note: Depending on the level of usage, you may need to increase your application server Java memory options. See Java Memory Issues for more information.

Information on configuring web and application servers appears in Configuring Web and Application Servers. Some installation information for Tomcat is also provided. For installation information on other application servers, refer to your application server documentation.

If the WebFOCUS Reporting Server is not on UNIX, see the documentation for its platform and skip to User ID Requirements for the WebFOCUS Client.

The operating system user ID you use when installing the server will own the files and is the default server administrator. Server administrators are users that have permission to start and configure the server. You can create a new user ID to install and administer the server, or you can use any ordinary (non-superuser) ID. However, you should not install the server as root. Throughout this documentation, the name iadmin is used to refer to the server administrator ID and group, but you may use any name for this ID.

When running the server with security provider OPSYS, end users and applications are authenticated through the operating system when they need access to the server. Therefore, in addition to the iadmin ID, operating system IDs must be available for end users and applications to access the server. Server data access agents will impersonate these IDs before performing any file access on their behalf. For security purposes, you should not allow end users and applications to use the iadmin ID. The iadmin ID should be available only to users who require administrative privileges to the server.

The WebFOCUS Client user ID and file permission requirements depend on your security needs, web server configuration, application server configuration, and the preferences of the system administrator.

Be aware that most WebFOCUS Client processing is done through the web and application servers. In addition, an ID (WebFOCUS ID) should be available to browse the file system, edit text files, and execute utilities. Therefore, you must determine which IDs are used for the following processes:

• Web Server ID. ID that the web server uses when accessing static WebFOCUS files.
• WebFOCUS Client ID. ID for installing WebFOCUS. This ID should not be root and will be known as wf_user.
• Application Server ID. ID that the application server uses when running the WebFOCUS servlet. Often this is a single user ID.
• WebFOCUS ID. ID that you will use to install WebFOCUS, browse the file system, edit text files, and execute utilities. This may be the same ID as the WebFOCUS Client ID (wf_user).

The simplest configuration uses the same ID for all of the above processes. To implement this, ensure web and application server processes use the same ID and then install the WebFOCUS Client using this ID. This ID should not be root.

In other configurations, multiple user IDs can be used. If you do not install using the same ID as the web and application server processes, after installation, you must set file permissions to ensure that these processes have access to the WebFOCUS Client directories. The easiest way to implement this is to create a group to own the WebFOCUS Client directories and add user IDs to this group. Then, after installation, change directory permissions to 775.

Note: Communication between the WebFOCUS Client and the WebFOCUS Reporting Server is through TCP/IP, not the file system. However, if the WebFOCUS Client and the WebFOCUS Reporting Server are installed on the same machine as the same user, they may share the same APPROOT directory, /install_directory/ibi/apps. If this is the case, both the WebFOCUS Client and Reporting Server processes require access to this directory.

The ReportCaster Distribution Server communicates with other WebFOCUS components using TCP/IP. Therefore, if you install the Distribution Server separately, you can use the same ID as other WebFOCUS components or a different ID entirely. Do not install or run the Distribution Server as root.

Java 7 or higher is required on the machine or machines that run the WebFOCUS Client and ReportCaster Distribution Server. If you use Apache Tomcat 8, Java 7 or higher is required on the WebFOCUS Client machine. Installation of Java 7 on WebFOCUS Reporting Server machines is also required.

After the JDK is installed, the following directory must be in the PATH variable of any user IDs that run WebFOCUS components:

/java_home/bin

where:

java_home

Is the absolute path where the JDK is installed.

To test if Java is installed and in PATH, issue the following:

java -version

Information on the Java build should appear. For example:

java version "1.8.0_162"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_162-b14)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.45-b02, mixed mode)

To run the installation, the jar and javac commands must be in your search PATH. You can type the following to determine if they are found:

type jar

For IBM JDK, refer to your IBM documentation for additional information. The ReportCaster Distribution Server will use whichever Java VM is in its PATH variable. ReportCaster web components use the Java VM of the application server. Refer to your application server documentation if you need to update its Java VM.

Note: For most purposes, the terms JDK and SDK are synonymous. A JRE contains a subset of the JDK components.

The following communication requirements are necessary to schedule and distribute reports:

• Email distribution requires TCP/IP communication to an SMTP-enabled mail server that supports base-64 encoding for MIME type attachments.
• FTP distribution requires TCP/IP communication to an FTP server.
• Printer distribution requires a networked printer accessible to the ReportCaster Distribution Server.
• Managed Reporting distribution requires TCP/IP communications to the WebFOCUS Client machine.

Note: The ReportCaster web components and the ReportCaster Distribution Server need a common time zone for proper operation. Therefore, if ReportCaster components run on different machines, all machines must be in the same time zone.