Install Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite Foundation in text mode

There are cases that users need to install Sterling on a Linux/Unix/AIX machine without X Window. There are usually two different ways that the users don’t have access to the X Window:

• No display
• No X Window

No Display

Very often, the *nix system has X Window installed but users don’t have direct access to the system. In this case, the user can still perform a GUI based Sterling installation using X11 forwarding. There are many articles online explain the X11 forwarding. A Google search should yield good examples. http://www.google.com/search?q=x11+forwarding

One of the articles is http://www.math.umn.edu/systems_guide/putty_xwin32.html and it explains how to perform X11 forwarding on a Windows machine.

No X Window

There are cases that the *nix system either doesn’t have X Window installed or does not allow X11 forwarding or the user just tired of using the Sterling Installation Wizard. In those cases, the user can perform the installation using a silent installation file. The syntax of running the Sterling installer with answer file / silent file is (install.response is the response file in this example)

export LANG="en_US"
java -Djavataskargs="-XX:MaxPermSize=512m" -Dcomptaskargs="-J-Xms1024m -J-Xmx1664m" -jar ~/9_2_installer/files/SMCFS_9.2.0.jar -f ./install.response

* Refer to the article InstallSterling without IBM Installation Manager for how to run the Sterling installer without IBM Installation Manager after Sterling 9.2.

The Sterling Foundation Installation Guide has excellent explanation on the silent installation. For example Sterling 9.2 Foundation Installation Guide’s “UNIX/Linux Silent Install File Parameters” chapter on Page 70 is a good starting point.

ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/commerce/doc/ssfs/92/SSFS92Applications_Installation.pdf

If you are running Sterling Foundation Installer directly without IBM Installation Manager, remove the “user.sbx.” prefix from all properties. Here is a response file that I have used for 9.2 and 9.2.1 installation.

JVM_LOC=/opt/sterling/jdk

INSTALL_JAR=/home/nzhang/9_2_installer/files/SMCFS_9.2.0.jar

INSTALL_DIR=/opt/sterling/smcfs920/foundation

# ******************* DATABASE Configuration – Begin ******************

DB_VENDOR=Oracle

# Use the next line for oracle RAC

#ORACLE_JDBC_URL=jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=smcfs92dbrac)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=sterdbrac)))

# Use DB_HOST and DB_PORT for regular oracle connection

DB_HOST=smcfs92db

DB_PORT=1521

DB_USER=SMCFS_920_USER

DB_PASS=SMCFS_920_PASS

# use DB_SCHEMA_OWNER for multi-schema mode

#DB_SCHEMA_OWNER=SMCFS_920_USER

DB_DATA=sterdb

DB_DRIVERS=/home/sterlinguser/storage/oracle_jdbc_lib/ojdbc6.jar

DB_DRIVERS_VERSION=ojdbc6

# ******************* DATABASE Configuration – END ********************

STERLING_FOUNDATION_PRODUCT_LABEL=smcfs

multischema.version=9.2.0

SUPPORT_MULTIBYTE=false

LOAD_FACTORY_SETUP=true

OVERRIDE_LOAD_DEFAULTS_PK_GEN=true

multischema.enabled=false

ADDITIONAL_ANT_COMPILER_TASK_ARGS=-J-Xms256m -J-Xmx1408m

ACCEPT_LICENSE=yes

REINIT_DB=true

DB_CLEAN=false

PRE_INSTALL_LOG_DIR=PreInstallSI.log

multischema.applyddl=true

IC_PORT=9999

COPY_FCXML_TO_REPOSITORY=true

cluster=

STERLING_FOUNDATION_PRODUCT_VERSION=9.2.0

COPYJVM=true

JAVADOC_PRODUCT_LABEL=IBM Sterling Selling And Fulfillment Suite 9.2.0

ADDITIONAL_ANT_JAVA_TASK_ARGS=-XX\:MaxPermSize\=768m

Sterling Commerce 9.2 and 9.2.1 installation without IBM Installation Manager

Sterling Commerce 9.2 and 9.2.1 are integrated with IBM Installation Manager but there are challenges in this marriage.

The combination of IBM Installation Manager and SMCFS installer does not work on Linux. IBM Installation Manager must be run as root on a Linux machine while Sterling Multi Channel Fulfillment Suite installer does not allow installation as root. So after starts IBM Installation Manager as root, the installation fails after Sterling installer starting and complaining it is running as root.

A solution that implementation teams often use is to run the Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite installer directly without IBM Installation Manager.

After download the installer (example: STR_OM_FI_V9.2_ML_MP.zip for 9.2 or STR_OM_9.2.1_SELLING_ANDFF_MP_EN.zip for 9.2.1) and unzip it, you should have a folder like below.

[sterling@nzhangw510-fed19 9_2]$ ls -lh 9_2_installer/

total 1.5G

drwxrwxr-x. 3 sterling wheel 4.0K Feb 22 2013 atoc

-rw-rw-r--. 1 sterling wheel 674 Mar 20 2013 dlmgr.pro

drwxrwxr-x. 2 sterling wheel 4.0K Feb 22 2013 files

-rw-rw-r--. 1 sterling wheel 17M Feb 22 2013 ISADC92.zip

drwxrwxr-x. 2 sterling wheel 4.0K Feb 22 2013 Offerings

drwxrwxr-x. 2 sterling wheel 4.0K Feb 22 2013 plugins

-rw-rw-r--. 1 sterling wheel 44 Feb 22 2013 repository.config

-rw-rw-r--. 1 sterling wheel 4.9K Feb 22 2013 repository.xml

drwxrwxr-x. 2 sterling wheel 4.0K Feb 22 2013 ShareableEntities

Look for the SMCFS_9.2.0.jar or SMCFS_9.2.1.jar file. Depends on the version of the installer, you might found it at foundation/files/SMCFS_9.2.jar or files/SMCFS_9.2.jar. In my case it was just under the files folder.

[sterling@nzhangw510-fed19 9_2]$ find ./9_2_installer -name "SMCFS_9.2*.jar"

./9_2_installer/files/SMCFS_9.2.0.jar

Now follow the SterlingSelling and Fulfillment Suite Installation Guide to prepare your system before starting the installation.

To start the installation, run the following command and you should see the familiar Sterling Installation wizard.

export LANG=en_US

java -Djavataskargs="-XX:MaxPermSize=512m" -Dcomptaskargs="-J-Xms1024m -J-Xmx1664m" -jar ./9_2_installer/files/SMCFS_9.2.0.jar

BTW, you should use Java 1.6 for installation and running of SMCFS 9.2 and 9.2.1. I know some people had success with Java7 but it is not an officially supported Java version as of 2013.

Refer to the InstallSterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite Foundation in text mode article for “silent” installation or installation without UI.