Configuring Linux systems for HCL Docs

The changes referenced in the followings sections are required on each Linux server hosting the HCL Docs components.

Host name and IP

Set the host name for the system and the IP address. The name will vary depending on your flavor of Linux. Ensure that the host names and the corresponding IP addresses have been obtained for all the systems in the HCL Docs infrastructure.
  • Log in to the Linux server.
  • Open the Network Manager and set the IP address of the server.
  • Open the following file with a text editor such as nano or vim.
    • vim /etc/sysconfig/network
  • Modify or add the HOSTNAME= line to reflect the name of the system. An example is provided.
    • HOSTNAME=<Server.domain.com>
  • Save the changes and exit the editor.

Validate the Linux Version

Ensure that the Linux operating system that HCL Docs is being deployed on is a supported version.

Open a terminal window on the Linux server and run the following command:
  • RHEL: cat /etc/redhat-release
  • SuSE: cat /etc/SuSE-release

Set the ulimit

The default settings for the file descriptors on a system are typically not enough for IBM® Connections and HCL Docs. Setting the ulimit for the server addressess this.
  • Open a terminal window on the Linux server.
  • Change to the root user.
    • su
  • Open the following file on the server: /etc/security/limits.conf
  • Add the following lines to the end of the file:
    • * soft nofile 20000
    • * hard nofile 20000
  • Save the file and close the text editor.
  • Reboot the server.
  • Confirm the ulimit setting using the following command:
    • ulimit -a
  • Review the output to verify that the open files setting has been updated to reflect the required value (20000 in this example).

Disable the Linux server firewall

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux server firewall needs to be disabled so that the Deployment Manager can communicate with the WebSphere® Application Server node. During the deployment of WebSphere® Application Server and the clusters needed for HCL Docs, the ports generated are not known, resulting in invalid communication through the firewall. If you need to re-enable the firewall after deployment, contact support for the full list of ports that need to be enabled.

  • Open a terminal window on the Linux server.
  • Change to the root user.
    • su
  • Run the following commands:
    • chkconfig iptables off
    • service iptables stop
  • Verification:
    • Run iptables --list. This command can be used to verify that no chains remain active.
    • Run service iptables status. This command can be used to verify that the firewall has been stopped.

Remove the requirement of tty for sudo

To support remote installation jobs ran by sudo users on linux systems, you must disable the requirement of tty to use sudo to run remote commands. Otherwise these linux systems cannot be registered in Server Enrollment panel.

  1. Run visudo.
  2. Find the line Defaults requiretty and comment out it.