Installing and Setting Up BI Server on RHEL OS

This article describes installing, setting up and removing of BI server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS 7 (further, RHEL). The article can be also useful on installation to CentOS OS that is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The supported versions of Linux are given in the Supported Versions of Linux OS article.

NOTE. BI server functionality is limited by the set of available operations and their implementation.

In this article:

Preparation

Installing BI Server

Setting Up BI Server

Removing BI Server

The video tutorial how to install BI server to CentOS 7 is available on YouTube:

BI server installation to CentOS 7.

Preparation

Execute preparatory actions before BI server installation:

Make sure that the operating system is set up and hardware and software requirements are met for correct installation and full-functional work of Foresight Analytics Platform web application.
Set up DBMS back end.

Create metadata repository by one of the following ways:

On testing environment with Windows OS create a metadata repository, service user of the security subsystem and set up repository connection using Foresight Analytics Platform desktop application.

Before creating the repository, study the Installing Foresight Analytics Platform Desktop Application section.

On testing environment with Linux OS family create a metadata repository and set up repository connection.

After executing one of the operations, transfer repository and connection setting to production environment by DBMS means.

Install DBMS front end:

Oracle PostgreSQL SQLite Microsoft SQL Server

Download Oracle client from the official website (the basic, devel, sqlplus packages in the RPM format are required).

Consider installation using the example of the Oracle 12.1 client. To do it, copy RPM packages and install them with the following command:

sudo yum localinstall oracle-instantclient*

After the installation add a path to the Oracle client libraries using the ldconfig utility to the list of dependent library search and update cache:

echo "/usr/lib/oracle/12.1/client64/lib" > ~/oracle.conf
sudo cp ~/oracle.conf /etc/ld.so.conf.d/
sudo ldconfig

After BI server is installed, it is required to add export of the TNS_ADMIN variable with specifying the directory containing the tnsnames.ora file to the /etc/opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver/envvars environment variables file for Apache2 instance. The Apache2 instance should have access to the file, the www-data:www-data owner can be set for the tnsnames.ora file.

For details about creating a repository database see the Preparing Oracle Server subsection.

To install PostgreSQL client from repository, execute the following command:

sudo yum install postgresql

Alternatively, Postgres Pro client can be installed. The installation guide is available at the manufacturer's site.

For details on creating a database for repository see the Preparing PostgreSQL Server subsection.

If BI server is installed manually from archive or DBMS front end is installed after BI server installation, the symbolic link is to be created:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/libpq.so.5 /usr/lib64/libpq.so

Setup is not required. Copy a file with repository database to the server, grant access permissions of BI server to the file and add an SQLite repository and specify the database file.

If a repository is based on Microsoft SQL Server DBMS, it can be worked via ODBC driver. For details see the Preparing ODBC Driver to Connect to Microsoft SQL Server article.

NOTE. The possible problems that can occur after installing DBMS front end on connecting to DBMS server, are given in the sections describing the solving of possible problems on installation, update and on working with Foresight Analytics Platform.

Working with BI server of Foresight Analytics Platform requires installation of third-party packages that can be downloaded from the internet or from DVD repository if the internet is not available, or from ready RPM packages. If an internet connection is provided via proxy server, determine settings required for connection.

If there are modules or packages not compatible with MPM Worker (for example, php), they must be disconnected in the BI server instance, or removed if they conflict with BI server installation.

After preparation, proceed to BI server installation.

Installing BI Server

The BI server RPM package installation requires access to the repository with dependent packages: glibc, glib2, libgomp, libjpeg, libXi, libXrandr, libXrender, libXcursor, libXinerama, fontconfig, findutils, bash, sed, openssl-libs >= 1, libglvnd-opengl, libstdc++, redhat-lsb-core, httpd, xorg-x11-server-Xvfb, libpng, mesa-libGL, mesa-libGLU, openldap, liberation-sans-fonts, qt5-qtbase, qt5-qtbase-gui, qt5-qtimageformats. If there are modules or packages not compatible with MPM Worker (for example, php), they must be disconnected in the BI server instance, or remove if they conflict with BI server installation.

Copy an RPM package of the "Foresight-fp9.2-biserver-9.2.*.rpm" type to the home directory. For Foresight Analytics Platform 9.2 name of the RPM package will be the following: Foresight-fp9.2-biserver-9.2.*.rpm.
Install the BI server package (other utility can be used for package installation, yum installs all dependent packages during installation process):

sudo yum localinstall Foresight-fp9.2-biserver*"

During installation, a new configuration instance httpd is created (hereinafter, names httpd, Apache HTTP Server and Apache2 are equal, that is, they describe the product: https://httpd.apache.org, that is not connected to Apache Tomcat web server, Java servlet container), MPM worker is enabled, the fp9.2-biserver module is enabled to load mod_axis2, links of the apachectl-fp9.2 type are created in the directory /usr/sbin to manage the instance, the httpd-fp9.2 service is registered and added to autorun, BI server files of Foresight Analytics Platform files are installed, the Foresight-xvfb service is registered and added to the autorun to start virtual graphic display No. 987. The Foresight-xvfb service will be started automatically, and httpd-fp9.2 will require to be started by the command (it is required to disable or set up SELinux and restart operating system beforehand):

sudo systemctl start httpd-fp9.2

NOTE. To change BI server version, install another package version over the previous one. Configuration files are saved if their version is not updated in the package.

After installing to monitor BI server work and detecting various errors the user can enable logging of system messages. To do this, add and uncomment the following strings in the file /etc/opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver/envvars:

## Uncomment line below to export extended log

# PP_LOG=1

Add the following strings to the file /etc/httpd-fp9.2/conf.d/fp9.2-biserver.conf:

Axis2LogFile "/opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver/logs/axis2.log"

Axis2LogLevel info

After the installation return to the basic steps and continue web application installation.

Setting Up BI Server

BI server uses settings specified in the settings.xml file. See its structure and make modifications if required.

NOTE. A file with settings is optional. If the file is absent, default parameter values are used.

To get information about repositories to work with, BI server uses the registry.reg or Metabases.xml file. For details about setting up these files, see the Configuration and Setup article.
Activate Foresight Analytics Platform.
All additional files used by BI server must have access permissions for an Apache HTTP Server user:

sudo chown -R apache:apache /opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver

After determining settings and granting permissions restart BI server service:

sudo systemctl restart httpd-fp9.2

Check BI server performance.

The installed BI server will work in background as a separate Linux service. The Apache2 instance with BI server starts on the 80xx port, where xx corresponds to the minor version of Foresight Analytics Platform release.

After installing and setting up BI server, proceed to the web application back end installation.

Removing BI Server

To remove BI server files without removing configuration files, execute the command and confirm removal:

sudo yum remove fp9.2-biserver

All configuration files in the /etc/httpd-9.2 and /etc/opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver folders and also new files that are not included into installation package in these folders and /opt/Foresight/fp9.2-biserver will be saved and can be used on the next package installation.