Prerequisites for installing the server software on Ubuntu

Before you install Rational® Test Automation Server on the Ubuntu platform, you must first complete certain tasks.

The following section describes each prerequisite in detail:

Internet access

You must have access to the internet to install Rational® Test Automation Server.

Harbor repository credentials

  • New customers:

    You must create a support ticket to get the credentials that are required to access the product binaries from the Harbor repository. For more information, refer to How to create an HCL Support case.

  • Existing customers:

    You must use your existing Harbor repository credentials to access the product binaries.

Ubuntu server

You must set up an Ubuntu server.

For more information about hardware and software requirements, see System Requirements.

Note: Depending on your testing workload, Rational® Test Automation Server might require more resources. You must use the entire disk space and set up Logical Volume Manager (LVM) by using the ext4 file system. If your organization requires application data to be stored in a separate partition, then you can create a mount point at /var/lib/rancher/k3s/storage/ with at least 128 GB capacity.

Backup user data

If you want to migrate user data from a previous version of the product during the installation of the server software, then you must perform the following tasks:

Mandatory software

You must install the following mandatory software:

  • Helm V3.3.4 or later. For more information, refer to the Installing Helm section in the Helm documentation.

    Note: You must ensure that you have access to the Kubernetes cluster with required privileges before installing Helm. You can contact your cluster administrator to gain access to the cluster. For more information, refer to the Accessing Clusters section in the Kubernetes documentation.

  • OpenSSH Server. For more information, refer to the Installation section in the OpenSSH Server documentation.

Optional software

You can install the following optional software:

  • Jaeger operator to trace test logs and Jaeger-based reports when you run tests. For more information, refer to the Jaeger operator documentation.

  • Prometheus server to monitor your system resources by using metrics data that are collected by a Prometheus server. For more information, refer to the Installation section in the Prometheus documentation.

Tip: Alternatively, you can also install Jaeger and Prometheus server as part of the k3s environment setup. See Setting up a Kubernetes environment on Ubuntu.

Non-root user

You can use the sudo command to execute a single command as the root user when needed. If you do not want to enter a password each time when you run the sudo command, you can enable the passwordless sudo environment by performing the following steps:

  1. Run the sudo visudo command to modify the sudo settings.

  2. Locate the %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL and modify it to %sudo ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL in the file.

  3. Save your changes, and then close the editor.

k3s environment

You must set up the k3s Kubernetes environment along with other optional configurations such as firewall, Jaeger, and Prometheus server. See Setting up a Kubernetes environment on Ubuntu.

Service virtualization through Istio

The default configuration does not enable service virtualization through Istio. To use the service virtualization feature, you must configure it appropriately and it must be installed by a cluster-admin. For more information about how to enable service virtualization through Istio, see Installing the server software on Ubuntu by using k3s.
Disclaimer: This release contains access to the virtualized services feature in Rational® Test Automation Server as a Tech Preview. The Tech Preview is intended for you to view the capabilities of virtualized services offered by Rational® Test Automation Server V10.1.2, and to provide your feedback to the product team. You are permitted to use the information only for evaluation purposes and not for use in a production environment. HCL provides the information without obligation of support and "as is" without warranty of any kind.