SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11

Download and Installation

About this product

This DVD image contains SUSE Linux Enterprise Server optimized for SAP applications, it can be deployed automatically, including automatic installation of validated SAP solutions, or manually.

The current release is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2.

Download and Installation preparations

  1. Download the DVD ISO image of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11 (electronic media kit).
  2. Burn it onto a physical DVD, ensure it is bootable (you might use a virtual CD-ROM device for installation into a virtual machine).
  3. (Optional) Get the SAP Business All-in-One (or other SAP solution for installation wizard) installation media from SAP.

Installation

  1. Insert the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11 disk into the DVD Drive and boot from DVD.
  2. From the boot screen select "SLES for SAP Applications - Installation" (for interactive installation), "SLES for SAP Applications – Installation with Wizard" (for installation using the SAP installation wizard) or “SLES for SAP Applications – Installation with external profile” (for installation using a self-provided AutoYaST profile).
  3. Press enter to start the installation.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications - Installation

Select this boot entry to start an interactive installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. The default package selection is based on SAP recommendations. This installation path is comparable to the standard installation path experienced during an installation of a plain SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11. You will be prompted for all common installation settings, like partitioning of storage devices, network, software packages and other.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications – Installation with Wizard

Select this boot entry in order to conduct a system installation supported by a set of tools and processes which do basic system configurations according to general recommendations by SAP and assisst in installing SAP software products. You will be prompted for some essential installation parameters like storage devices and network settings but most of the time the wizard sets system parameters wherever this makes sense or according recommendations from SAP are available. After the automatic system reboot (don't change the default "Boot from Hard Disk" in case you left the DVD inserted), the system will provide some dialogs for basic system settings. The Media-Changer will start for installation of a validated SAP solution.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications – Installation with external profile

Installation based on a custom AutoYaST script. Within the boot options change the “autoyast=usb:///” parameter to the location of a custom AutoYaST script to use for automatic installation.

SAP specific instructions

For further installation instructions, the SAP specific parts in particular, please refer to the SAP Installation Guide (the "Cookbook").

Installation options in the DVD menu

How to do a system installation with the OS software installation media offered by a network service (HTTP e.g.):

  1. Copy the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications DVD content to a webserver (for example myserver.com) into the directory /srv/www/htdocs/mydir
  2. Boot from DVD
  3. Choose one of the bootmenu options and edit the command line: Remove the parameters instmode=cd netsetup=0 from the commandline and change autoyast=file:/// to autoyast=http://myserver.com/mydir/ and add a parameter install=http://myserver.com/mydir
    Just these steps are required for a network installation. If you want to avoid using a DVD to bootstrap the system and boot from the network via PXE, please read the documentation about setting up a PXE environment (http://www.suse.de/~ug/autoyast_doc/bootmedium.html).

How to use SAP software media shared over the network with the Installation Wizard:

The installation Wizard is able to read the content stored on the SAP software product media from network shared files and the supported protocols are NFS, CIFS, FTP, HTTP. Inorder to make use of it you need to copy the content of the SAP software product media to your shared file space. Please make sure to store the content of each single media into a separate directory.

The following is a brief description of how to setup a NFS server for this purpose:

If you want to put your media on a NFS Server, please follow these steps:

  1. Create a directory /srv/www/htdocs/sap_test on your installation server.
  2. Edit your /etc/exports file on the installation server by adding the following:
    /srv/www/htdocs/sap_test *(ro,root_squash,sync)
  3. Create a directory for every SAP Media you have, e.g. /srv/www/htdocs/sap_test/sapcd1
  4. Copy the content of all SAP Medias to the corresponding directory.
    Now the media changer can also install from your NFS server.

(Please note that in case of a CIFS or NFS-share it is possible to store ISO-images of the media and use these directly instead of copying its content into directories)

Information on considered SAP Notes:

The following SAP-Notes have been considered for the automated configuration and setup of this product.

SAP Note No: Title

1391070

UUID-Solutions on Linux

1275776

Linux: Preparing SLES for SAP environments

1172419

Linux: Supported Java-versions for the x86_64-platform

1056161

SUSE Priority Support for SAP-Solutions

936887

End of maintenance for Linux distributions

516716

Linux: Problems with locales after glibc-Update

405827

Journaled File System und Raw Devices on Linux

171356

SAP Software on Linux: basic comments

1597355

Swap-space recommendations for Linux

Known issues

  1. The helptext in the ISOLINUX bootloader does not match the boot menu entries, please refer to the description of the boot menu entries within these installation instructions
  2. Documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications will only be provided online at http://suse.com/documentation and is not provided on the media
  3. It is not possible to use ISO-images of SAP software product media stored in local directories, but only if they're mounted directly from a remote service like NFS. If the NFS directory is mounted locally manually, the ISO-images won't get mounted accordingly.
  4. There is a X11-display issue if a user is trying to connect from a Microsoft Windows client using a remote desktop connection (RDP) to a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11 (SP2) and any other client is using the DISPLAY variable set to :10.0 the X11-server on the SLES for SAP Applications system crashes. This can happen e.g. if there is a user connected by a ssh-connection with enabled X-forwarding at the same time.
  5. If there was an installation attempt of a SAP software product installation and the installation was incomplete, there is a chance that the incomplete data is always processed and subsequently errors may occur. In cases where you cancel an installation of a SAP software product during installation with the Installation Wizard you need to make sure, that the incomplete data is removed successfully. You can do this by inspecting the directory /data/SAP_CDs/. You will find direcotries numbered from “0” up to higher numbers. These direcotries represent product installations. Please make sure that the directory /data/SAP_CDs/ is empty before starting the Installation Wizard again.

Setup Recommendations:

Remote Desktop access with RDP: If you have used the installation path: “Installation with Install Wizard”, then the xrdp service is started by default. It is recommended to deactivate this service if you don't intend ti use it, otherwise please make sure to review some security settings for this service. Depending on your individual environment it is recommended to set the configuration option “crypt_level” from “low” to “high”. Additionally you should consider restricting access to the xrdp port to only those systems that actually need to access this system. Please read the documentation provided with the package, you'll find it in the following directory /usr/share/doc/packages/xrdp and the manpage accessible by “man xrdp” on the commandline.

SUSEfirewall not activated by default: If you have used the installation path: “Installation with Install Wizard”, then the SUSEfirewall is not activated by default. It is recommended to review the settings and configure and start the SUSEfirewall accordingly. Please make sure to include all ports and connection types required by the system and the installed SAP product components.

WebYaST: The WebYaST client service is started to listen on port 54984 for a SSL secured HTTP connection. The SSL-certificate of this service is self-issued and hence will cause an according SSL-certificate warning in your browser. It is recommended to exchange the SSL-certificate accordingly, to avoid this error and improve the level of security.

Legal notice

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