Getting Started with the Linux shell version

Operations Guide

This guide will assist you in getting started with the BI Platform Support Tool Linux Shell version. This version is useful if you do not have a 64-bit Windows client to run the UI version.

This document describes how to configure and run the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool (BIPST) on a Linux OS through the command line. This feature is available as of version 2.1. Many of the same concepts for configuring the BIPST on Windows in the classic GUI still apply. For instance, setting up your BI landscape within BIPST, configuring the SAP Host Agent on each BI node and configuring JMX for Tomcat. These concepts have already been documented in other BIPST documentation and links to these documents are referenced below when it applies.

Limitations

The SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool was developed initially to run on Windows using a graphical user interface. Many of the features, such as the Landscape Tools and E2E Trace Wizard require the GUI for basic user interaction. For this reason, as of version 2.1, the Landscape Analysis Reports is currently the only BIPST feature that can be run from the Linux console (command line). In addition, it requires JAVA 8 JVM to run correctly. If you are using BI 4.1 SP8 or newer on the same host where the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool is running, then you are already using JAVA 8. Any version prior to BI4.1 SP8 would require the JAVA 8 JVM to be installed separately.

Pre-requisites

This section helps you prepare the BI Platform landscape where the BI servers are running on Linux. The two optional configurations which need to be added to get the most functionality are:

What?

Where?

Why?

SAP Host Agent

Each BI Platform node and Tomcat node

Hardware metrics and configurations are collected using the SAP Host Agent (Hardware Analysis and Patch History Analysis)

E2E tracing has the option to use the SAP host agent when gathering log files once the trace is complete.

Tomcat JMX Configuration

Each Tomcat node in your landscape

Metrics are collected from Tomcat via JMX (Web Application Server Analysis)

Install and Configure the SAP Host Agent

This section will provide information about the SAP Host Agent requirement.

Information about the SAP Host Agent

In the BI Platform Support Tool 2.1, much of the functionality now requires the SAP Host Agent to collect the analysis data. For instance, the Host Agent is required for the Hardware_Summary report and the Patch_History_Analysis report. The SAP Host Agent is a service that has a very lightweight performance footprint and provides a secure communication channel between the BI Platform Support Tool client and your BI and Web Application Server nodes.

If you have never installed the SAP Host Agent in your environment, you will need to complete this step to get the most functionality from the Landscape Analysis Report and E2E Trace Wizard
Only one SAP Host Agent per host is needed (for example, even if both BI and Tomcat are on the same host, only one SAP Host Agent is needed on that host)
The SAP Host Agent is not required on the client where you are running the BI Platform Support Tool
If you have already installed the SAP Host Agent or Diagnostic Agent (includes the SAP Host Agent) on your BI host or Tomcat host, you should confirm that it is version 7.21 or higher. If it's older than 7.21, you should update it to the latest SP version of 7.21. The upgrade is a safe and quick process, refer to: Manual Upgrade of SAP Host Agent. To confirm the exact version of the SAP Host Agent, run the following command:

Windows
```
C:\Program Files\SAP\hostctrl\exe\saphostexec -version
```
Unix
```
/usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/saphostexec -version
```
Check for kernel 721_REL

How to install the SAP Host Agent

For a tutorial on installing the SAP Host Agent, refer to the below links:

Operating System	Tutorial Link
Windows	Installing the SAP Host Agent on a BI node or Web Application Server node (Windows Platform)
Linux / Unix	How to install the SAP Host Agent on Unix Platforms

Deploy the Host Agent operations

To get the most complete Landscape Analysis Report, you need to deploy the BIPST operations files to the SAP Host Agent.

Browse to /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe. Check if a folder named operations.d folder exists. If it does not exist, make a new directory here named operations.d
```
mkdir /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d
```
Browse to the location where you extracted / installed the BI Platform Support Tool (referred to <BIPST_HOME>

Copy the operations files (*.conf) to the SAP Host Agent exe/operations.d folder.

cp -rf <BIPST_HOME>/BISupport/bin/operations/Unix/operations.d/*.conf /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d

Sudo or switch user to root. Set the file ownership for the operations files to root and set the required permissions (only root should have permissions to write to the operations files)
```
su root
chown -R root /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d
chmod -R og-w /usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/operations.d
```

More useful resources on the SAP Host Agent

Configure JMX for Tomcat

The new Application Server Analysis feature requires you to configure a JMX listener on each Apache Tomcat instance. For development systems, you can configure the JMX listener without password protection, however for production systems, it is recommended to set a user and password for the JMX listener. The BI Platform Support Tool supports both of these scenarios.

For instructions and tutorials refer to:

Installation and Configuration

Copy BIPST to your Linux System

Download the latest SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool v2.1 build from SAP. URLs to download the latest version can be found on the home page of the BIPST Wiki.
Once downloaded, extract the BISupportToolSetup.exe and copy it to a temp folder on the Linux server. In the example below, I've copied it into /tmp. This does not necessarily need to be the same host as your BI servers but in most circumstances this will probably be the same server.

NOTE: Just like running BIPST on a Windows OS, the BIPST client only needs to reside in one place, not copied to all BI servers.
Once the BISupportToolSetup.exe is copied to the Linux server, create the 'bipst' folder and extract the contents using 'unrar'. BISupportToolSetup.exe is a self extracting archive file created and compressed with WinRar. For this reason, attempting to use the 'unzip' command in Linux will not work. Instead, use 'unrar' to extract the contents. In the example below, we use /usr/sap/bipst as the top level folder for the BIPST application.
```
cd /usr/sap
mkdir bipst
cd bipst
unrar x /tmp/BISupportToolSetup.exe
```
After extracting the contents, the bipst folder will look like the following:

Tip

If you do not have 'unrar' installed on the Linux host, then the easiest option may be to unzip the BISupportToolSetup.exe file on a Windows client and ftp or copy the files over after they've been extracted. The recommended location to store the BIPST files is in /usr/sap/bipst. However, the storage location you choose can exist anywhere. For the remainder of the document, we will be using /usr/sap/bipst as the BIPST home directory.
Change the permissions for the BISupportTool64.sh to give it execute permissions.
```
 chmod u+x BISupportTool64.sh
```
Once updated, the folder contents will look like:

Configure the BISupportTool64.sh

The BISupportTool64.sh is located in the top level folder where you extracted the BIPST application. This file is used to start the BIPST application. However, before running it there are a few options within the file that need to be configured.

Edit the BISupportTool64.sh using the vi text editor.
Find the variable at the top labelled 'JAVA8HOME'. Set this to the path of your JAVA 8 JVM install. The path you specify should include the java ‘bin’ folder. Look to the example shown in the shell script or the screenshot below. If BI4.1 SP8 or newer is installed on the same host, then you can leave this setting blank as the script should find the correct path when it’s executed.
Just below the section in step 1, look for the variable “BIPST_PATH”. Specify the full path to the BISupport/bin folder which is located under the directory where you first extracted or copied the BIPST files.
Lastly, all of the BIPST Analysis Reports are enabled by default. If there are any you do not want to run, set these to ‘false’ within the BISupportTool64.sh file.
Save your changes.

Define your BI Landscape

At this point, you've copied the BIPST application files to your Linux server and you've made a few changes to the BISupportTool64.sh The next step is to run BIPST and create a new landscape definition. This step is equivalent to the 'Landscape Configuration' tab in the Windows gui mode.

Define the BI Nodes

Run the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool from the command line.
```
./BISupportTool64.sh
```
The first time BIPST is executed, it will initialize a few files and create a folder within the user's home directory. The following will be seen during this initial startup. Before you can run the analysis reports against your BI system, you will need to define your Landscape. Choose number 2 to continue.
We will be creating a new landscape, select #1
Fill in the following prompts in order to create the new landscape. During this process the user credentials you specify will log into the CMS, retrieve the cluster name and take inventory of all BI nodes in the environment. Each BI host in this environment will have a corresponding node created. However, at this point BIPST will not know which Web Application Server nodes (IE Tomcat nodes) exist in the landscape. If you are using Tomcat and wish to run the Web Application Server Analysis Reports, continue to the next section - "Define the WebApp Nodes". Otherwise skip to the following section - "Configure and Validate Each BI Node".

Once the landscape is added and you see the message below.

Define the WebApp Nodes

In the previous step, you created a new landscape definition. After this completes, you are brought to a Configure Landscape menu as seen below.

Select item #7 - "List all Nodes" to confirm your BI nodes were added in the previous section. As seen below, it will list the cluster name and each of the BI nodes underneath by host name.
After validating the node list is correct, you will need to define each of the Web Application Server nodes in the landscape. This section is only required if you are using Tomcat. The Web Application Server Report uses a JMX connection to connect to Tomcat which allows it to extract the current settings and metrics from the server. These JMX settings are defined in each of the WebApp nodes which you are about to create. Select #4 from the menu above to define a new WebApp node.

You will see a series of prompts as seen below. Perform this step for each Tomcat instance in your environment. If you have not yet setup either the SAP Host Agent or JMX for Tomcat yet, answer 'no' to the corresponding questions. Both can be added later by choosing #5 in the menu above - "Modify WebApp Node". In this case, follow the steps outlined at the top of this document labelled Installing the SAP Host Agent and Configure JMX for Tomcat.
Next choose #9 to verify that JMX connectivity is working on each Web App node. This will cycle through each Tomcat instance you just defined and test the JMX settings for each by attempting to connect to each server.

Configure and Validate Each BI Node

At this point, you should have all BI nodes and Web Application Server nodes defined in your landscape. The BI nodes were likely all created automatically during the first step when you created a new Landscape definition. We will need to go back through and add the SAP Host Agent password to each of the BI nodes and then verify the connectivity. Start by choosing #2 in the menu below.

You will be prompted with a list of the BI nodes previously defined in the landscape. Choose the first BI node.
Next, choose #4 to modify the SAP Host Agent password.
NOTE: Typically the SAP Host Agent will use the 'sapadm' user name. If you have changed this, you will need to also set the correct name by selecting #3 in the menu.
Lastly choose #5 to validate the connection to the SAP Host Agent.
Repeat these steps for each BI.

Run a Landscape Analysis Report

All of the configuration steps done in the previous sections have written the values into a properties.xml file. This file is stored in the user's home directory and should not be modified directly. However, because of its location, other users will not have access to use and should not share the file. Different users can run BIPST from the command line on the same host, but just like in the BIPST Windows build, each user will have to define the landscape separately and maintain their own separate properties.xml.

By default, all report types have been enabled within the BISupportTool64.sh script. If you wish to disable certain reports, edit this file before executing it and set the corresponding report to 'false'.

To run the reports, execute the BISupportTool64.sh. This file is in the top level folder where you extracted the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform support tool. Typically this is in /usr/sap/bipst/
```
./BISupportTool64.sh
```
After running the bash script, you will be prompted with a menu. Choose #1 to run the Landscape Reports.
Enter your login credentials for the CMS and the reports will begin processing. From here, you will see a list of the reports enabled within the BISupportTool64.sh file which are about to being processing.
As each report is processed, output text will appear showing the status. When finished, the report data xml and all corresponding html files are compressed and zipped together. You will see a message at the bottom stating where this zip file was saved. All historical report data is saved in a folder named BISupportTool/data within the user's home directory.

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