Preparing to Install Adaptive Server

Before you start the installer, perform tasks to prepare your system.

1. Ensure that there is at least 1GB of space available in the temp directory.
2. Verify that you have gzip installed on your machine so the installer can decompress files during the installation process. If you do not have gzip, the installer displays a message similar to the following, and the installation fails:

   gzip: Not found

3. For Sun Solaris SPARC 64-bit, before the installation, set the file descriptors limit to a specific value. After the installation is complete, you can set the file descriptors to unlimited.
4. Manage permissions and privileges:
   1. Ensure that the current shell has the appropriate inheritable privileges.
      If it is not fence-capable, grant the current shell the appropriate inheritable privileges.

      sudo setsecattr -p iprivs=+PV_KER_RAS $$ 
      Then restart SCC agent

   2. Use the ls -l commands to verify paths and file permissions.
   3. Use the dd utility to verify that the “sybase” account can read and write to the devices.
   4. If you must change the permissions to install Adaptive Server, use chmod or chown to correct write permissions for /dev/sg* files. You can change the access permissions for these files to root only after restarting the machine.
   5. Log in to the machine as the “sybase” user. Maintain consistent ownership and privileges for all files and directories. A single user—the Sybase system administrator with read, write, and execute permissions—should perform all installation, upgrade, and setup tasks.
5. Review the SySAM licensing procedures, and plan your server configuration using the configuration guide for your platform.
6. For consistency and security, create a Sybase account with administrative privileges. This user account could be "sybase" or any other user name. Use this account to perform all installation and device-creation tasks.
   • This account should own all devices and files, and must have permission to read and write all devices the cluster uses.
   • Ensure that all disk devices are accessible from all the nodes in the cluster.
   • Ensure that the account used to start the cluster has permissions to read and write to all of the disk devices.
   • Ensure that the cluster and the SCSI generic driver have write permission on the /dev/sg* files that correspond to configured database devices.
   • The SCSI driver expects write access to /dev/sg* files for SCSI-3 PGR commands used in I/O fencing.

   If you are installing Adaptive Server on more than one computer, create the “sybase” user account on each machine.

7. Log in, as the "sybase" user, to the node on which you plan to install the first instance of the server.
8. If you do not have open administrative privileges, create a destination directory before running InstallAnywhere.
9. Decide where to install Adaptive Server:
   • Ensure there are no spaces in the path name of the directory.
   • If this is a shared installation, the $SYBASE location must be on a shared file system that is accessible from all cluster nodes using the same path.
   • If this is a private installation, install the Adaptive Server software on each node of the cluster.
   • Each instance in the cluster must have its own $SYBASE directory.
   • The private installation mode does not use a Network File System (NFS) or cluster file system.
10. Decide whether you want licensing events to trigger e-mail alerts, and the severity of the events that generate e-mail messages.
    If you choose to have e-mail notifications for license events, know your:

    • SMTP server host name
    • Port number for an SMTP server
      Note: If Sybase assigns any port numbers to you for use with Adaptive Server, exclude these numbers from any port-scanning software you run. Adaptive Server attempts to service each scan as a login attempt, which may lead to poor performance.
    • E-mail return address
    • Recipients of the notifications
    • Severity level of an event that triggers mail. Your choices are:
      • None
      • Informational
      • Warning
      • Error
11. Verify that your network software is configured.

    Sybase software uses network software even if Adaptive Server and Sybase client applications are installed on a machine that is not connected to a network.

    The Cluster Edition requires your network to be configured for the nodes you plan to include in the cluster.

    If you are having connection problems, or to verify your network configuration, ping the host.

12. Create a $HOME directory on the node on which you will run the installer.
13. Ensure that all nodes are running on the same operating system version.
    The number of processors and the amount of memory can vary from node to node but the operating system version cannot.
14. Ensure that the quorum resides on its own device.
15. Create the local system temporary databases on a shared device using the Adaptive Server plug-in or sybcluster. Do this for each instance during the initial start-up of the cluster and later on whenever you add an instance to the cluster.
    You can create or drop a local system temporary database from any instance, but you can access it only from the owning instance.
16. Ensure that all database devices, including quorum devices, are located on raw partitions. Do not use the Network File System (NFS).
    Warning!   Do not use file system devices for clusters. The Cluster Edition is not designed to run on a file system; mounting a nonclustered file system on multiple nodes immediately causes corruption, leading to a total loss of the cluster and all of its databases. For this reason, Sybase does not support file system devices when running on multiple nodes.
17. Ensure that the raw partitions are accessible from each node using the same access path. SAP recommends that you use storage area network (SAN) connected devices.
    Note: Local user temporary databases do not require shared storage and can use local file systems created as private devices—unlike local system temporary databases, which do require shared storage.

    For test environments, use a single node or machine to run multiple instances of the Cluster Edition in a cluster configuration. When you do this, you must use the local file system (not NFS) or SAN storage for the database devices.
18. Ensure that all hardware nodes use Network Time Protocol (NTP) or a similar mechanism to synchronize clocks.
19. If you are using a shared installation, ensure that all Adaptive Server Enterprise software and configuration files (including the $SYBASE directory, the interfaces file) are installed on a Network File System (NFS) or a clustered file system (CFS or GFS) that is accessible from each node in the cluster using the same access path.
    If you are using a private installation, each node must have its own installation on a cluster file system.
20. Ensure that you have a high-speed network interconnect (for example, a gigabit Ethernet) providing a local network that connects all hardware nodes that are participating in the cluster.
21. SAP recommends that each node in the cluster have two physically separate network interfaces; a primary network and a secondary network, both for cluster interconnect traffic.
    The primary and secondary networks should be physically separated from each other, and are needed for security, fault tolerance, and performance reasons. For fault tolerance, the two network cards should be on different fabrics so that a cluster survives network failure.
22. Private interconnect fabrics should not contain links to any machines that are not participating in the cluster (that is, all cluster nodes should have their primary interconnect connected to the same switch, and that switch should not be connected to any other switches or routers).
23. Adjust the shared memory for your operating system.

• Adjusting the Operating System Shared Memory Parameters
  Adjust shared memory segments if Adaptive Server cannot obtain large memory as a single segment, or if Backup Server stripes fail due to insufficient segments.
• Managing Java in the Database During Installations and Upgrades
  If you have enabled the Java in the database feature, create the sybpcidb database before installing or upgrading to Adaptive Server version 15.7 SP100.
• Multipathing
  Multipathing is the ability of a server to communicate with the same physical or logical block storage device across multiple physical paths between the host bus adapters (HBA) in the server and the storage controllers for the device, typically in Fibre Channel (FC) or iSCSI SAN environments. You can also achieve multiple connections with direct attached storage when multiple channels are available.