Preparing agents for provisioning

To set up RSCD agents so that they can be installed as part of the BMC Server Automation provisioning process, you create an Agents directory. This directory holds the operating system-specific RSCD agent installers for unattended installations.

When you create a system package for provisioning, if you check the Install RSCD agent option, the provisioning process:

• Installs an RSCD agent on each server that is being provisioned.
• Registers the agent and adds the server to the list of managed servers under Available Servers in BMC Server Automation.

In this way you can seamlessly move from provisioning servers to managing servers with BMC Server Automation and Network Shell.

The topics in this section provide instructions for preparing RSCD agents for provisioning:

• • To create the Agents directory
  • To create an installation defaults file for Linux or UNIX agents

To create the Agents directory

1. Under the data store directory, create a directory called Agents.
2. In the Agents directory create directories for each operating system that you plan to provision. For example:
   • ESX
   • RHEL_5
   • WIN-32
   • WIN-64

3. Copy the correct RSCD agent installation file into each of the respective directories that you just created. 

   Note

   ESXi 4.1 and ESXi 5.0 operating systems do not require an RSCD agent installation file. (These operating systems use agentless managed objects.)

4. Rename the agent installation files so that the file name is rscd with the same extension as the original name. 

   Note

   The installation programs for the RSCD agent must be named rscd.msi for Windows, and rscd.sh for Linux and UNIX platforms.

   The following table shows examples of original and renamed file names.The [confluence_table-plus] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
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5. (optional) For Linux and UNIX systems, if you want to override the agent installation defaults, you can create an nsh-install-defaults file. Store the response file in the data store in the same location as the agent installation program.
    For information, see Creating an installation defaults file for Linux or UNIX agents.
6. In the BMC Server Automation Console, on the System Package Types tab of the Provisioning Configurations window, identify the location of the agent installation program. For information about this tab, see Configuring-a-system-package-type.
7. When you create the system package in the BMC Server Automation Console, on the Post-Install Configuration tab, select the Install RSCD agent check box. (For Windows RSCD agents, you also specify the properties of the agent installation on this tab.) For information about this tab, see Post-install configuration - Windows and Windows R2.

To create an installation defaults file for Linux or UNIX agents

1. Using any server, create a text file named nsh-install-defaults in the /tmp directory. The file must belong to root.
2. In the file, create an entry for each variable you want to set. Then for each variable you enter in the file, create another entry to export the variable. For example:
   NSH_INSTALL_SKEL=yes
   export NSH_INSTALL_SKEL
    The following table describes how to set each possible variable:The [confluence_table-plus] macro is a standalone macro and it cannot be used inline. Click on this message for details.
   This macro generates standalone content. As a consequence you need to make sure to use a syntax that separates your macro from the content before and after it so that it's on a line by itself. For example in XWiki Syntax 2.0+ this means having 2 newline characters (a.k.a line breaks) separating your macro from the content before and after it.
3. Save /tmp/nsh-install-defaults.