System requirements for Linux

This topic summarizes the system requirements for the installer host, the supporting products, and databases used by BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management on Linux operating systems.  

• • Linux installer host requirements
    • Installer host operating system, hardware, and permissions
    • Installer host port requirements
  • Linux supporting product requirements
    • Requirements for installing all Linux product hosts
    • Requirements for installing Platform Manager
    • Operating systems requirements
    • Oracle database requirements for Linux
    • Database requirements overview
    • Supported Oracle database version
    • Unicode and character set requirements for the Oracle database
    • Packages required for the Oracle client
    • Environment variables
    • Tablespace and database instance requirements
    • Oracle RAC ASM requirements
    • Precreate database support and requirements for Linux
    • Linux database requirements for supporting products
    • Oracle processes and sessions
    • Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD)
  • To configure rpcbind process
  • Where to go from here

Linux installer host requirements

Before you launch the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management installer, make sure that the installer host meets the requirements described in the following sections, based on your operating system. An installer host is the physical or virtual machine host on which you run the installer.

Installer host operating system, hardware, and permissions

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Installer host port requirements

If a firewall is configured in your environment, ensure that the firewall allows communication from the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management installer host to the target computers by using the ports listed in the following table. The installer uses these ports to run commands to check application connectivity, database connections, RSCD connectivity, remote installation status, and so on. The port numbers in the table are the default values and might change based on user input or user environment configuration. For example, the database might be installed on port 1522 instead of port 1421. In that case, you must ensure that the port is enabled in the firewall.

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Linux supporting product requirements

The following sections list the hardware and software requirements, and the tasks that you must perform before you install the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution on Linux. For more information about product-specific hardware requirements per deployment type, see deployment architecture and sizing guidelines.

Requirements for installing all Linux product hosts

1. On each product host:
   1. Open /etc/services.

   2. Comment out the following entries:

      #ssad   4750/tcp    # Simple Service Auto Discovery
      #ssad   4750/udp    # Simple Service Auto Discovery
      #board-roar 9700/tcp # Board M.I.T. Service
      #board-roar 9700/tcp # Board M.I.T. Service
   3. Save the file and reboot the host.
2. Synchronize the same system time on the install planner host and all the product hosts, for example, Pacific Standard Time. 
3. Ensure that you have execute permission on the default /tmp directory. 

Requirements for installing Platform Manager

1. On the host where you want to install the Platform Manager, go to /root/.bash_profile, and add the following entry:

   ulimit -n 20000
2. Restart the host.

Operating systems requirements

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 (64-bit)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6 (64-bit)

These are the minimum hardware requirements to  begin with. Based on the load and usage, you may have to add additional hardware as required going ahead.

Oracle database requirements for Linux

This section explains the Oracle requirements for a Linux installation, such as precreate options, tablespace requirements, and database requirements. 

Database requirements overview

Not every product in the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution requires a database. Certain products can share a database with other products in the solution. You can install the database on the same host as the BMC product, or you can install a remote database. Regardless of where you install the database, you can use the precreate database option if you meet the requirements listed in this topic.

This section explains the database requirements for the following products:

• BMC AR System Server – Cloud Portal and Database
• TrueSight Server Automation
• TrueSight Network Automation

Supported Oracle database version

The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution supports the following Oracle database versions on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 and 7.6 64-bit OS:

• 19.9
• 19c
• 11g R2 or 12c 
  

Unicode and character set requirements for the Oracle database

The following Unicode and character set requirements apply to Oracle databases:

• You must synchronize all your databases so that their character sets and Unicode settings are correctly aligned with their <product>, for example, BMC Remedy AR System settings.
• You must run Unicode to Unicode or non-Unicode to non-Unicode. Do not mix these settings.
• For Oracle, you must set the character sets to AL32UTF8.

Packages required for the Oracle client

Install these packages for products that require an Oracle client.

Packages required for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

• unixODBC-devel-2.3.1-11.el7.x86_64
• unixODBC-devel-2.3.1-11.el7.i686.rpm
• unixODBC-2.3.1-11.el7.x86_64
• unixODBC-2.3.1-11.el7.i686
• glibc-devel-2.17-196.el7.x86_64
• glibc-devel-2.17-196.el7.i686
• compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-72.el7.x86_64
• compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-72.el7.i686
• libgcc-4.8.5-16.el7.x86_64
• libgcc-4.8.5-16.el7.i686
• bc-1.06.95-13.el7.x86_64

Packages required for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

• unixODBC-devel-2.2.14-11.el6.x86_64
• unixODBC-devel-2.2.14-11.el6.i686
• unixODBC-2.2.14-11.el6.i686
• unixODBC-2.2.14-11.el6.x86_64
• glibc-devel-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64
• glibc-devel-2.12-1.47.el6.i686
• libstdc++.so.5 (use yum install compat-libstdc++-33.x86_64)
• libgcc_s.so.1
• bc-1.06.95-1.el6.x86_64

All the packages listed are required for an Oracle client.

Environment variables

Make sure that you properly set the following Oracle environment variables in /root/.bash_profile:

• ORACLE_HOME
• ORACLE_SID
• TWO_TASK

Tablespace and database instance requirements

For products in the solution that require a database, you can use a local or remote database. Certain products in the solution can share a database. Therefore, you can apply a specific Oracle database instance to one or more product installations, as explained in the product-specific database requirements. Before you begin your product installations, make sure that the database software and the instance that you created are running.

Additionally, you can use a pre-created tablespace or allow the installer to create a tablespace for a given product, if the product supports it, during the installation. To use the pre-created tablespace option, you must have required system user and password credentials. For more information about the tablespace and database requirements per product in the solution, see the product-specific database requirements.

Oracle RAC ASM requirements

If you are using Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) Automatic Storage Management (ASM) in your environment, ensure that the DB_CREATE_FILE_DEST property is set to an appropriate value. Otherwise, the tablespace is not created successfully.

Precreate database support and requirements for Linux

In the table in the product-specific database requirements, the valid values for the precreated tablespace support for Oracle are as follows:

• Yes, but optional — A pre-created tablespace is supported. However, you can choose to have the installer create the tablespace during the installation process.
• No, mandatory — A pre-created tablespace is not supported. You must allow the installer to create a tablespace. However, you must create default, index, and temporary tablespaces for the user in advance.

For more information about pre-created databases, see the documentation for the respective product in the documentation for related products.

Oracle processes and sessions

Set the Oracle processes and sessions:

alter system set processes=1000 scope=spfile; 

alter system set sessions=1000 scope=spfile; 

restart Oracle

Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD)

Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) is not officially supported for BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management, BMC AR System, TrueSight Server Automation, or TrueSight Network Automation, because BMC Software has not tested it. Many 3rd-party technologies are transparent for use with BMC products.  If Oracle VPD (or any other database feature) is 100% transparent, for example, to the AR System server or TrueSight Server Automation, it should not affect your installation or usage of these BMC products. If there are problems that can be reproduced in an environment without Oracle VPD, contact BMC Support so that they can investigate whether or not this is a BMC product issue.

To configure rpcbind process

(For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 only) Start the process with the -i option on Cloud Portal and Database host before installing to avoid install failures:

(For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 only) Update the /etc/sysconfig/rpcbind file with RPCBIND_ARGS="-i" parameter. Restart the rpcbind process by using the command below:

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Where to go from here

Permissions required for Linux installations