The Application Manager provides a command line interface that allows you to install and manage applications.
When using the Application Manager, the basic format of a command is:
xpressworkx_app_manager <command> <variable>
The Application Manager commands are described further in Command Reference.
The Application Server must be installed on hardware that meets the minimum system requirements that are outlined in the Application Server User’s Guide.
The Application Server must have Internet access so that the running the yum install script will automatically retrieve and resolve any dependencies found during installation.
Note
Do not install the Application Manager on the secondary NIU. If there is a complete failure of the primary NIU, it is possible to administratively convert the secondary into a primary.
Log in as root on the primary NIU.
Run the following command to install the Application Manager.
yum install xpressworkx-app-manager-x.x-x.noarch.rpm
Where x.x-x is the version of Application Manager to be installed. There will be output showing on the screen as the Application Manager is installed, and any errors will be clearly indicated.
For offline installs, run the following command to set the offline install flag:
xpressworkx_app_manager set offline
The default online behavior can be restored by running the following command:
xpressworkx_app_manager unset offline
Note
It can take several minutes to complete the bootstrap process.
Before using the Application Manager to install applications, you must run any xpressworkx_app_manager command on the NIU. If this step is not completed before an application installation is attempted, the registration of that application will fail.
This command will bootstrap the installation to gather third-party components that are not provided by the default operating system repositories.
Initiated by any xpressworkx_app_manager command, the bootstrap process will run the Application Manager, run the given command, and return control to the shell. The Application Manager Help file will also be provided. Although no errors should typically be expected, they will be clearly visible if any do occur during this process.
Note
As part of bootstrapping, the Application Manager will make sure that Ansible is installed. However, some applications require versions of Ansible earlier than version 2.9. Installing one of the centos-release-ansible-* repositories would be required, and we recommend installing centos-release-sig-ansible-28.
After the bootstrap process is successfully completed, it will not run again.
To complete bootstrapping without an Internet connection, the following dependencies must be installed on the server before beginning the bootstrap process.
epel-release
python-pip
python-importlib
postgresql94
postgresql94-server
postgresql94-devel
repmgr94
ansible
Complete the following configuration steps after the bootstrap process.
Make the Application Manager aware of each NIU and AS that you are using.
The command xpressworkx_app_manager list will show a list of all application servers and applications that are currently recognized by the Application Manager. Initially, the list will be empty, and you need to manually add each server.
To add a server, use the command xpressworkx_app_manager add <role> <address> where role is app-server, niu, or secondary-niu and address is either the IPv4 address or the resolvable host name of the server.
After all servers are added, run the synchronize command.
For example:
xpressworkx_app_manager add-app-server system-01-as-01
xpressworkx_app_manager synchronize
Note
Be sure to add the server that you are currently working on.
Note
If no AS are added, only the database and web portions of application will be installed on the NIU and no AS components will be contacted.
Modify /etc/hosts so that NIUs resolve to the primary NIU or the high availability (HA) in a cluster case.
Configure each Application Server NIU and AS to accept SSH connections for the root user from the primary NIU without requiring a password. It is recommended that you use key-based authentication to achieve this, using either an SSH agent or passwordless keys.
If SSH is not configured before installation, the install command can hang at a password prompt or the SSH key fingerprint confirmation prompt. If this happens, cancel the command (C-c) and configure key-based authentication before continuing.
Configure the <ps-init> section of the ps_master config file on each NIU. The section should look like the following:
<ps-init>
<process name="ps_httpd" control-queue="ps_httpd" restart="1" critical="1" run-offline="1" notify-cluster-changes="1"/>
<process name="ps_proxy2" control-queue="ps_proxy" restart="1" critical="1"/>
<!-- Enable this for cluster operations -->
<!--
<process name="ps_proxy2"
control-queue="ps_cluster_proxy"
restart="1"
critical="1"
process-args="-queue ps_cluster_proxy"
run-offline="1"
notify-cluster-changes="1" />
-->
<!-- event routing process. -->
<process name="ps_eventdispatcher" control-queue="ps_eventdispatcher" restart="1" critical="1" run-offline="1" notify-cluster-changes="1"/>
<process name="pt_snmp_agent" control-queue="pt_snmp_agent" restart="1" critical="1" run-offline="1"/>
<!-- SIP redirect server, makes this an NIU -->
<process name="ps_sip_rs" control-queue="ps_sip_rs" restart="1" critical="1"/>
<!-- Enable for cluster operations -->
<!-- <cluster file="cluster_config.xml" /> -->
</ps-init>