Installing and Setting Up BI Server on ALT Linux

The page contains an example of installing, setting up and deleting BI server on ALT Linux OS. 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.

NOTE. The possible problems that may 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 unavailable, or from ready RPM packages. If an internet connection is provided via the proxy server, determine settings required for connection.

Setting Up User

This section is relevant if during or after OS installation an additional user is created in the system. If installation is executed under the root user (not safe), the su and sudo utilities need not to be used.

To add the user who can execute the commands using root super user permissions (root password was entered during installation of the distribution file), execute the following operations:

1. Log in to the system under the account created during installation.

2. Open the terminal by selecting the main menu item Programs > Standard > Terminal. In the dialog box that opens execute the command of console login under the root user:

su

Enter root user password.

3. Edit the /etc/sudoers file:

vi /etc/sudoers

After the strings:

## Allow root to run any commands anywhere

root ALL=(ALL) ALL

Add the string:

<user name> ALL=(ALL) ALL

In the <user name> substitution specify name of the account used for work. Press F2 to confirm changes.

4. Log in to the console by executing the command:

su <user name>

Or just close console window and reopen it.

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, xorg-x11-server-Xvfb, libpng, mesa-libGL, mesa-libGLU, openldap, liberation-sans-fonts, qt5-qtbase, qt5-qtbase-gui, qt5-qtimageformats, httpd, xorg-xvfb, libpng15, qt5-imageformats, libnsl1 (for Oracle), apache2-base, apache2-httpd-worker.

To install packages, execute the commands in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install glibc

sudo apt-get install lsb-core

sudo apt-get install xorg-xvfb

To install Apache2, execute the command:

sudo apt-get install apache2

After the required packages have been installed, install BI server:

1. Copy the foresight-fp10.x-biserver-10.5.*.rpm RPM package to the home directory. Hereinafter, 10.5 is a version of Foresight Analytics Platform release version. For example, for Foresight Analytics Platform 10.5, the RPM package has the following name: foresight-fp10.x-biserver-10.5.*.rpm.

2. Install BI server package (other utility can be used for package installation):

rpm -ihv foresight-fp10.x-biserver.*.rpm

The following will be executed during the installation: a new Apache2 configuration instance is created for BI server, the mpm_worker module is enabled, the fp10.x-biserver module is enabled for loading of mod_axis2, links of the apache2ctl-fp10.x type are created in the /usr/local/sbin directory to manage the instance, the apache2-fp10.x service is registered and added to autorun, Foresight Analytics Platform are installed, the foresight-xvfb service is registered and added to autorun to start the virtual graphic display No. 987. The foresight-xvfb service is started automatically, and apache2-fp10.x must be started by the command:

systemctl start httpd2-fp10.x.service

After installing, to monitor BI server work and detecting various errors the user can enable logging of system messages. To do this, add the following string in the file /opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver/etc/envvars:

# PP_LOG=1

Add the following strings in the files /etc/httpd2-fp10.x/conf/mods-avaible and /etc/httpd2-fp10.x/conf/mods-enabled:

Axis2LogFile "/opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver/var/log/axis2.log"

Axis2LogLevel info

Setting Up BI Server

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Activate Foresight Analytics Platform.

4. All additional files used by BI server must have access permissions for an Apache HTTP Server user:

sudo chown -R apache:apache /opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver

If there are insufficient permissions to create additional files, execute the commands:

sudo chmod -R 777 /opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver

sudo setfacl -R -m u:apache:rwx /opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver

5. After determining settings and granting permissions restart BI server service:

sudo systemctl restart httpd2-fp10.x

NOTE. In ALT Linux, commands may differ depending on the systemd or SysVinit initialization manager in use (systemctl or service).

6. Check BI server performance.

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

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 apt-get remove fp10.x-biserver

All files in the /etc/httpd-fp10.x and /etc/opt/foresight/fp10.x-biserver folders, as well as new files not included in the software package will be saved and can be used on the next package installation.