Preparing for installation — Anaconda Enterprise 4.4 documentation

Anaconda Enterprise: Documentation

# Preparing for installation

- Downloading AEN installers
- Gathering IP addresses or FQDNs
- Set up variables
- What’s next

## Downloading AEN installers

Download the installers and copy them to the corresponding servers.

    RPM_CDN="https://820451f3d8380952ce65-4cc6343b423784e82fd202bb87cf87cf.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com"
    curl -O $RPM_CDN/aen-server-4.2.2-Linux-x86_64.sh
    curl -O $RPM_CDN/aen-gateway-4.2.2-Linux-x86_64.sh
    curl -O $RPM_CDN/aen-compute-4.2.2-Linux-x86_64.sh

NOTE: The current $RPM_CDN server will be confirmed in an email provided by your sales rep.

NOTE: These instructions use curl or wget to download packages, but you may use other means to move the necessary files into the installation directory.

## Gathering IP addresses or FQDNs

AEN is very sensitive to the IP address or domain name used to connect to the server and gateway nodes. If users will be using the domain name, you should install the nodes using the domain name instead of the IP addresses. The authentication system requires the proper hostnames when authenticating users between the services.

Print this page and fill in the domain names or IP addresses of the nodes below and record the user name and auto-generated password for the administrative user account in the box below after installing the AEN server node:

Node | Name or IP address | Port Number | Username | Password
--- | --- | ---
AEN server | |  |
AEN gateway | |  |  |
AEN compute | |  |  |

NOTE: The values of these IP entries or DNS entries are referred to as `<AEN_SERVER_IP>` or `<AEN_SERVER_FQDN>`, particularly in examples of shell commands. Consider actually assigning those values to environment variables with similar names.

## Set up variables

Certain variables need to have values assigned to them before you start the installation.

### AEN server address

To define an environment variable for the AEN server address—FQDN or IP:

    export AEN_SERVER=<AEN_SERVER_IP>  # <from table above>

NOTE: The address—FQDN or IP—specified for the AEN server must be resolvable by your intended AEN users’ web clients.

To verify your hostname, run `echo $AEN_SERVER`.

### AEN functional ID

AEN must be installed and executed by a Linux account called the AEN Service Account. The username of the AEN Service Account is called the AEN Functional ID (NFI). The AEN Service Account is created during AEN installation—if it does not exist—and is used to run all AEN services.

The default NFI username is wakari. Another popular choice is aen_admin.

To set the environment variable AEN_SRVC_ACCT to `wakari` or your chosen name before installation, run `export AEN_SRVC_ACCT="aen_admin"`.

This name is now the username of the AEN Service Account and of the AEN administrator account.

When upgrading AEN, set the NFI to the NFI of the current installation.

WARNING: The Service Account should only be used for administrative tasks, and should not be used for operating AEN the way an ordinary user would. If the Service Account creates or starts projects, the permissions on the AEN package cache will be reset to match the Service Account, which will interfere with the normal operation of AEN for all other users.

### AEN functional group

The AEN Functional Group (NFG) may be given any name. Most often, it is set to `aen_admin` or `wakari`. This Linux group includes the AEN service account, so all files and directories that have the owner NFI also have the group NFG.

When upgrading AEN, set the NFG to the NFG of the current installation.

To set the NFG before installation, run:

    export AEN_SRVC_GRP="<NFG>"

NOTE: Replace `<NFG>` with your NFG name.

### AEN install sudo command

During AEN installation the installers perform various operations that require root level privileges. By default, the installers use the sudo command to perform these operations.

Before installation, set the AEN_SUDO_CMD_INSTALL environment variable to perform root level operations. You can also set it to no command at all if the user running the installer(s) has root privileges and the sudo command is not needed or is not available.

EXAMPLES:

    export AEN_SUDO_CMD_INSTALL=""
    export AEN_SUDO_CMD_INSTALL="sudo2"

### AEN sudo command

By default the AEN services uses `sudo -u` to perform operations on behalf of other users—including `mkdir`, `chmod`, `cp` and `mv`.

To override the default sudo command when sudo is not available on the system, before installing, set the AEN_SUDO_CMD environment variable.

AEN must have the ability to perform operations on behalf of other users. Therefore, this environment variable cannot be set to an empty string or to `null`.

CAUTION: Any command that replaces AEN_SUDO_CMD must support the `-u` command line parameter—similarly to the sudo command.

EXAMPLE:

    export AEN_SUDO_CMD="sudo2"

The optional environmental variable AEN_SUDO_SH is another way to customize AEN sudo operations. When AEN executes any sudo command, it will include the value of AEN_SUDO_SH, if it is set.

EXAMPLE: If your username is “jsmith” and the values are set as:

    AEN_SUDO_CMD=sudo
    OWNER=jsmith
    AEN_SUDO_SH=sudologger
    PROJECT_HOME=/projects/jsmith/myproj

Then AEN will resolve:

    $AEN_SUDO_CMD -u ${OWNER} $AEN_SUDO_SH rm -rf $PROJECT_HOME

As:

    sudo -u jsmith sudologger rm -rf /projects/jsmith/myproj

In this case the sudologger utility could be a pass-through utility that logs all sudo usage and then executes the remaining parameters.

### Post-installation Sudo configuration

While root/sudo privileges are required during installation, root/sudo privileges are not required during normal operations after install, if user accounts are managed outside the software. However root/sudo privileges are required to start the services, thus in the service config files there may still need to be an AEN_SUDO_CMD entry.

For more information, see Configuring sudo customizations.

### AEN remote database settings

By default AEN server uses a local database. To override the default database location, see Install AEN connected to a remote Mongo DB instance.

## What’s next

Install the AEN server.