Setting up the NIM environment for provisioning

This section describes how to set up an IBM Network Installation Manager (NIM) environment for use in BMC Server Automation provisioning.

Before you begin

  • You must have a working NIM environment, configured for and stocked with all of the operating system installation files you want to use to provision target servers.
  • The NIM master must be running version 7.4 or later of the RSCD agent. For information on installing or upgrading the agent, see Installing-only-the-RSCD-agent-Linux-and-UNIX or Upgrading-RSCD-agents.

Note

For successful provisioning, an RSCD agent must be running on the NIM master. This agent must be licensed for use with both NSH and BMC Server Automation.

To set up NIM

  1. On the NIM master, select or create a directory to use as a BMC Server Automation staging directory. This directory holds copies of the configuration files that BMC Server Automation generates. By convention, this directory is called /export.
     Make a note of this directory. You need it when you configure BMC Server Automation for NIM. (Specifically, you need to specify this staging directory in the STAGING_DIR_PATH property when you define your NIM data store instances.)
  2. Directly beneath this staging directory, create a /BladeLogic/rscd subdirectory.
     For example, if your staging directory is called /export, your directory structure is:
    /export/BladeLogic/rscd
  3. Obtain the AIX agent installer file. For example, RSCD820-GA-AIX32.sh.
     You can download this file from the BMC Support site.
     This file installs an RSCD agent on each target server that is being provisioned.
  4. Rename the RSCD820-GA-AIX32.sh file to rscd.sh, and copy rscd.sh to the newly created BladeLogic/rscd directory.
  5. Create a response file for the installation of the RSCD agent and store the response file in the newly created BladeLogic/rscd directory. The response file is called nsh-install-defaults.
     For information about creating an nsh-install-defaults file, see Creating an installation defaults file for Linux or UNIX agents.
  6. Confirm that the BladeLogic/rscd directory on the NIM master contains the following files:
    rscd.sh
    nsh-install-defaults

Note

You might have to map the user running the NIM commands that list spot files and mksysb to root. If you do not do this, these commands will execute but will return nothing.

 

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