3 Pre-Installation Tasks

Introduction

The instructions in this guide show you how to install Connect’s supporting software, which must be completed before you install Connect.

Pre-installation Software Requirements

Make sure that the appropriate versions of the operating system software and supporting software are installed. The following list provides information about the required operating system software and supporting software for your platform. Where applicable, software download information is provided.

Note: Connect is certified to run with only the version numbers provided. Uninstall other versions before installing certified versions of any of the supporting software.

If the Connect Tracker will be installed on more than node, a software or hardware-based HTTP load balancing solution will be required to distribute incoming traffic to the Tracker nodes.

Operating System Software

Connect is certified to run under all versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 with latest Service Packs.

Supporting Software

In order to run Connect, Windows systems need the following additional software to be installed:
  • The NSSM Service Manager
  • The CopSSH SFTP service. Connect can also be used with the Windows FTP Service, but this is not recommended in production environments due to security concerns.
  • A software or hardware-based HTTP load balancing solution may be required to distribute incoming traffic to the Tracker nodes if the Connect Tracker will be installed on more than node. Windows Network Load Balancing is one option (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758834.aspx for more information).
Note: Previous versions of Connect required the Windows NT Resource Kit and the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit to be installed on all nodes. No Resource Kits are required to install or run Connect 10 R4.

Install the NSSM Service Manager

The NSSM Service Manager is used to install and run the CRM Service that starts and stops the Connect software. It must be installed on each node in a Connect messaging cluster. The NSSM installer is available for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows. The installer will copy the NSSM binary exe file to an install folder and will add the folder to the system path.

NSSM is a public domain product with source code available at http://nssm.cc.

Note: Prior versions of Connect required the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit and the Windows Server 2003 resource kit. Neither Resource Kits are required in Connect 10 R4 and later.

Database Configuration

In general, an empty database must be configured before installing Connect.
  • If installing on Oracle, you must create an Oracle schema user, and tablespaces for storing the Connect schema.
  • If installing on Microsoft SQL Server, you must create a new database, a login with the database owner role for the database, and file groups for storing the Connect schema.
  • If installing on MySQL, you must create a new database, and one or more logins so that Connect can access the MySQL database from every inside node.

Configuring Oracle

The Oracle database used for Connect should have its character set configured to UTF8. Make sure that the NLS_CHARACTERSET and NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET parameters are both set to UTF8. If the UTF8 character set is not used, Connect may not be able to store content from all languages properly.

Installing Oracle Tablespaces

Before the Connect schema objects can be created, the Connect tablespaces must exist. Connect does not create these tablespaces automatically; they must be created by the Database Administrator at the customer site.

The Connect software distribution contains sample scripts that can be edited and run to create these tablespaces. The sample scripts are found in:

$KCHOME\kc\initdb\oracle\setup\tablespaces_10g.sql
$KCHOME\kc\initdb\oracle\setup\tablespaces_ETL_10g.sql

These sample scripts should be used for Oracle 10G and later. They use locally managed, unlimited tablespaces. Note that Oracle tablespace creation scripts provided with the software distribution are just guidelines. You will need to refine the scripts for your physical database layout. Also, please refer to the Connect Database Administration Guide for additional information on sizing tablespaces for schema growth.

Creating Oracle User

Log in as the system user and create a new Oracle user for the Connect application:

create user connect10 identified by PASSWORD;
grant connect, resource, select_catalog_role to connect10;
grant create view to connect10;
In addition, the following statement should be executed for each tablespace: 
alter user connect10 quota unlimited on <tablespace_name>;

Unpack the Connect Software Distribution

  1. Typically, Connect will be deployed under a dedicated user account. In this document, we will assume the user name of this account is connect.
  2. On the Connect install node, create a directory for the Connect installation directory (e.g. /opt/connect C:\connect).

In the Connect installation directory, uncompress and unpack the Connect software distribution. This will create two directories, kc and java. The kc directory is the Connect home directory $KCHOME.