Pre-Installation Steps for JBoss, WebLogic and WebSphere Application Servers with SAS^® 9.2

SAS recommends that you increase the per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors to at least 10240 on UNIX platforms. When you run Java 5, this increase is required to enable the opening of class files within the various SAS web applications. Before you modify any system resource settings, determine the current hard limit for the machine by running ulimit -Hn. The ulimit shell command displays the current limits for a particular system. HP-UX users can also use the command /usr/sbin/kctune -q maxfiles to display the system's open file-descriptor limit. You might need to ask your system administrator to increase it if the ulimit command reports the limit to be too low. Changing the limit requires root privilege.

An example where the number of file descriptors needs to be increased:

$> ulimit -Hn
1024

An example where the number of file descriptors does not need to be increased:

$> ulimit -Hn
unlimited

 

Note for WebLogic Server users: When the value for open file descriptors is unlimited, the common WebLogic Server configuration script commEnv.sh throttles back that number to 1024. If you enable the SAS Deployment Wizard to configure your WebLogic Server domain, the SAS wrapper script, commEnvSAS.sh sets this value to 10240 before calling commEnv.sh. Setting the value to 10240 before calling the script prevents the script from throttling the value back further. If you manually configure your domain, you either can use the SAS wrapper that is generated for the sample domain as an example, or you can modify this value in Oracle-home-directory/weblogic92/common/bin/commEnv.sh.

Setting ulimit in Linux Operating Environments

Under Linux, you can increase open file descriptors by changing the /etc/security/limits.conf file and then rebooting the machine. Changing the configuration file requires root privilege.

Add the following line to the limits.conf file:

* - nofile 10240

 

Setting ulimit in the Sun Solaris Operating Environment

Under Solaris, you increase open file descriptors by setting rlim_fd_max in the /etc/system file.

Setting ulimit in the IBM AIX Operating Environment

Under AIX, you increase open file descriptors by changing the /etc/security/limits file and then rebooting the machine.

Add the following line to the limits file:

default:
nofiles=10240

 

Setting ulimit in the Hewlett-Packard HP-UX Operating Environment

Under HP-UX, you use the tunable kernel parameter maxfiles_lim to set the hard limit for the maximum number of files that can be open per process. Use the HP-UX command kctune to display and modify kernel tunable parameters. SAS recommends that you use kctune to modify the value of the kernel parameter maxfiles_lim to 10240.

An example of increasing the maximum open file limit under HP-UX using kctune:

# kctune maxfiles_lim=10240

 

SAS 9.2 software uses multicast networking in the SAS Remote Services application. IBM has identified that AIX 6.1 systems might require updates to support multicast networking correctly. Review the IBM support note for APAR IZ35571. If necessary, apply the appropriate fix pack from the IBM support website for the issue.

The problem that is described in the IBM support note generates an entry similar to the following in the web application server log:

********************************************************************************
16:25:16,648 ERROR [SimpleCache] Required entry, '/sas/properties/environment', not found in the cache.
16:25:16,648 ERROR [SimpleCache] Possible causes include: the RemoteServices VM is not started or
16:25:16,648 ERROR [SimpleCache] there is a multicast address/port mismatch; using
16:25:16,648 ERROR [SimpleCache] address=239.nn.nn.nn and port=nnnn.
********************************************************************************

Note: The previous error message indicates a communication failure between the SAS Remote Services application and SAS Web Infrastructure Platform applications. Therefore, the multicast networking issue that is associated with IBM AIX 6.1 is not the only cause of the message.

When you install and configure SAS^® software on Oracle WebLogic 10.3.x, be sure that the directory that is referenced by WL_HOME resides directly under the directory that is referenced by MW_HOME. If this is not the case, errors can occur during installation and configuration of SAS on WebLogic 10.3.x. For details, see SAS Note 42361, "A 'BUILD FAILED. . .' error occurs when you install and configure SAS^® software on Oracle WebLogic 01.3.x."

On platforms that use a single Java Development Kit binary to provide 32-bit and 64-bit modes, make sure that you install WebLogic Server in 64-bit mode with the -d64 parameter, as shown in the following example:

$> java -d64 -jar server922_generic.jar

If WebLogic Server is accidentally installed on 32-bit on a 64-bit platform, then the SAS Deployment Wizard fails to configure WebLogic Server. When that happens, the error message NodeManager failed to start is generated.

On 64-bit Windows, if the WebLogic download comes with the .exe and .jar installation files, the .jar file must be used to install WebLogic.

The SAS Shared Services web application uses a JDBC data source. The default configuration is for the web application to use a connection to a SAS^® Table Server. If you prefer to use a different database, then see Configuring an Alternative Database for SAS Shared Services.