I'm looking forward seeing what everyone is going to do and how everything works. Please do ask questions, express hopes and dreams for what you'd like to see, share what you did get to work (or what you didn't).
We are all going together!
Going to bump this to see if anybody has thoughts now that installs are happening and as we approach an expected update in May.
Any successes or ongoing tests feel free to share. Questions or plans either in this thread or on a new topic of course. Real problems or blockers, please do continue to use the new thread for best exposure.
My vision - thoughts from an administrator's point of view
My first touch with the Volt MX Go installation (documentation) reminds me a little bit at the Nomad for web browers EAP.
At the beginning of the Nomad Beta, the documentation was worse and it took me about 50 hours to finsh the installation and configuration of DB2 / mySQL, SafeLinx & Nomad. I discussed this in the beta forum with the development team and now we have very good whitepapers to install and configure SafeLinx with Nomad for web browsers.
When I compare it with the Volt MX Go documentation I have to say... "wow a very good documentation .... BUT " when I open the installation page of Volt MX Go and follow the instructions and the links at the end I have to jump between different documentation web sites (RestAPI, Volt MX, Foundary etc.) to find the necessary information. Please don't get me wrong, but at the moment I need a "compass for orientation" ;-)
My visions and wishes:
Please create a short overview page on the HCL Volt MX Go documentation this will be a starting point for an administrator
- download software packages
- Domino RestAPI 1.0.x
- Domino Server
- Volt MX Go Foundry
- install Domino
- install RestAPI
- install database (mariaDB, mySQL, MS SQL, Oracle or ...)
- install Volt MX Foundry
- ....
with links to the relevant installation documentations would be helpful.
Note: we need no link to the Domino marketing site which is insert in the prerequisite section of the RestAPI installation page
As I always say: "Writing a good product documentation is like developing the product"
But more important is a easy way to install, configure and update such an environment like the Volt MX Go is.
Since the read of the books "Project Phoenix", "The DevOps Handbook" and "Project Unicorn" I love to improve installation and configuration processes by automation where I can.
In my first step to use the restAPI installer I failed, because not every installation has default paths. So I created a flexible script to install the RestAPI on Windows Domino successful.
SET INSTALL_PATH=%cd%
SET JAVA_BIN=C:\domino\jvm\bin
SET DOMINO_PRG_PATH=C:\domino
SET DOMINO_DATA_PATH=C:\domino\data
SET DOMINO_INI_PATH=C:\domino\notes.ini
SET DOMINO_RESTAPI_PATH=%DOMINO_PRG_PATH%\restapi
cd %JAVA_BIN%
java.exe -jar %INSTALL_PATH%\restapiInstaller.jar -d="%DOMINO_DATA_PATH%" -i="%DOMINO_INI_PATH%" -p="%DOMINO_PRG_PATH%" -r="%DOMINO_RESTAPI_PATH%" -a
Therefore my vision is
I would like to have scripts or better Ansible playbooks like the Github project connections-automation to install / update and configure all or some parts of the Volt MX GO environment.
@Michael Alexander what do you think about my thoughts?
Thank you for listening.
@Martin - I love it.
The doc will evolve and we've got a great team helping with that. As you say, documentation is a product and where I am investing at this point on that journey has a lot to do with both the big picture (make it easy to install, navigate, reference...) and some more tactical topics like make sure we can automate the execution of the steps in tutorials to ensure we never give instructions that lag behind the product.
As of today, we are not currently focused on using Ansible to deploy in preference of Kubernetes based on the practical advantages it provides in runtime efficiencies. I love Ansible as well and see lots of room to expand in that direction either HCL initiated or community launched.
Thank you for your support and enthusiasm for MX Go!
@Michael Alexander Every journey starts with the first step.
I agree with you - the first step must be a good documentation. Based on this we can track the automation way.
Hi Martin,
I have shared your vision and thoughts with a member of our ID team.
Thank you for posting!
Note: I recreated the response direct on the main thread so it is more visible.
My second thoughts during the manual deployment
I'm an curious administrator who wants to look behind the scences of an environment. This is why I install (new) environments manually to see what is good, bad or ugly. ;-)
In my first comment I explained my vision and thoughts about the documentation and my first step with the Rest API.
In this post I would like to write down my thoughts during the manual installation of the VoltMX Go environment.
At the beginning I have to realize the setup of environment is more than to execute a setup.exe, because the Foundry Installer (under Windows) asked me so many settings which I wasn't aware of because I didn't read the documentation especially the requirements of the Volt MX components.
So I dived deeper in the Volt MX documentation and was lost, because the documentation has only the installation steps for the Volt MX components itself. No Tomcat or MySQL description - I had a aha-moment because I had the same situation in the nomad for web browsers beta program.
I started another try and installed this time the environment under Linux (Ubuntu)
What I miss:
- a check list of users, servers, addresses, ports, such a table like the Connections work list is perfect
because during the installation process I have to define users and their passwords for:
Tomcat : service account, web management user
MySql : mysqlroot
Voltmx : non-root Volt MX Foundry Installer user, Volt MX administrator account for console and identity provider
and need more information about the system like SSL for Tomcat or not, etc.
About Foundry installation user:
Do we have to create installation user with its home dir?
we can't read an info about this in the docu https://opensource.hcltechsw.com/volt-mx-docs/95/docs/documentation/Foundry/voltmx_foundry_linux_install_guide/Content/Prerequisites.html
So we decided to use the commands in the docu.
About MySQL:
Please correct the configuration of the etc/mysql/my.cnf:
[client]
default-character-set = utf8
[mysql]
default-character-set = utf8
[mysqld]
character-set-client-handshake = FALSE
collation_server='utf8_unicode_ci'
character_set_server='utf8
And the console output, too:
mysql> show variables like '%coll%';
+----------------------+-----------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+----------------------+-----------------+
| collation_connection | utf8_unicode_ci |
| collation_database | utf8_unicode_ci |
| collation_server | utf8_unicode_ci |
+----------------------+-----------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> show variables like '%char%';
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| character_set_client | utf8 |
| character_set_connection | utf8 |
| character_set_database | utf8 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | utf8 |
| character_set_server | utf8 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
+--------------------------+----------------------------+
Link where to fix: https://opensource.hcltechsw.com/volt-mx-docs/95/docs/documentation/Foundry/voltmx_foundry_linux_install_guide/Content/DB_PRe-reqs.html
Database Pre-installation Tasks:
If an admin is not familar with mysql he struggle with this step, because you have to log in to mysql
mysql -u root -p
Set global max_allowed_packet=10*1024*1024;
exit
About Tomcat:
Please update with an example how the heap settings should defined in catalina.sh
CATALINA_OPTS="$CATALINA_OPTS -server -Xms2048m -Xmx2048m"
About the installer:
Missing steps in the documentation:
Missing command before execute installer:
chmod +x VoltMXFoundryInstaller-x.x.x.x_GA.bin
Missing MySQL configuration step:
We got a question about "Encrypted rotational key for database user".
This question we skipped with Enter.
There is a typo in the console output:
Administrator Account Configuration
-----------------------------------
Please provide the details for the Foundry Console administrator acccount. The
email will be used as your login ID and your name is used for display purposes
in the console.
About the installation:
Voltmx foundry installer seems finished but no prompt is shown.... in the background more files are created.
===============================================================================
Installing...
-------------
[==================|==================|==================|==================]
[------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------]
several minutes later we got this
===============================================================================
Application server setup is not complete
----------------------------------------
Unable to complete environment setup as application server setup is not
complete. Please setup the environment manually.
PRESS <ENTER> TO ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING (OK):
After <Enter> we see this message :
===============================================================================
Installation Complete
---------------------
Congratulations. Volt MX Foundry has been successfully installed to:
/opt/VoltMXGOFoundry
Identity Services URL: http://<SERVER>:8080/authService
Console URL: http://<SERVER>:8080/mfconsole
Developer Portal Services URL: http://<SERVER>:8080/apiportal
Integration Services URL: http://<SERVER>:8080/admin
Engagement Services URL: http://<SERVER>:8080/kpns
PRESS <ENTER> TO EXIT THE INSTALLER:
... and now?
@Michael Alexander @Mark Benge
How can I check if the setup failed or finished successfully?
--- Update ---
I follow the documentation and can't login in the Admin console http://<servername>:8080/mfconsole.
I got an tomcat error 404 The requested resource [/mfconsole] is not available
Which tomcat configuration/access is necessary for the installation of VoltMX Go necessary?
As I mentioned I get this warning in the installer.
===============================================================================
Application server setup is not complete
----------------------------------------
Unable to complete environment setup as application server setup is not
complete. Please setup the environment manually.
PRESS <ENTER> TO ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING (OK):
Where can I find the manual steps in the documentation to get the environment up and running?
Please accept my apologies Martin as I am just catching up on reading your posts. Our scrum team's expertise centers upon the helm install of Volt MX Go. However, we do work directly from time-to-time with the team who is responsible for the Windows and Linux installers for Foundry. Their team lead will be reviewing your install experience, issues, and suggestions concerning the install. Our team will be working with him as well to clarify any issues you have presented, as well as responding to your concerns.
Thank you!
Mark Benge
Thank you @Mark Benge for your response.
In the Nomad for webbrowsers Beta programm I had provided my installation and configuration steps, which I used to setup the environment (after 50 hours with some ups and downs) successfully.
Should I create such document in this forum, too?
So your team will get a better understanding where the gaps in the documentation are.
At the moment I have a broken installation of the Foundry server and can't finish the installation (as I mentioned in the thread) because of a missing troubleshooting document for the error
Unable to complete environment setup as application server setup is not
complete. Please setup the environment manually.
Hi Martin,
I have opened the following stories and bug reports in Jira for the Volt Foundry Development and ID teams to address. I will also be lending assistance if needed. Please forgive and correct me if I have overlooked anything.
Please feel free to provide additional documentation based upon your experience and we can work to incorporate it into our documentation.
Thank you,
Mark Benge, HCL Labs
Hi Mark,
thank you for your effort to bring the documentation and everything behind it on the right course.
I will assist you on this journey where I can. I hope I find the time to provide my installation documentation of Tomcat and mysql in the next days.
Thank you for the good overview to fill in the gaps and move it forward.
In the meantime I had an idea / enhancement for the installer.
User story:
As an admin I hate it when an installation process fails because of missing settings or network issues during the installation. To avoid such errors I would like to have an installer which checks all necessary dependencies before the installation process starts.
Thank you,
Martin Vogel
Hello @Mark Benge ,
Any news regarding Application server setup is not complete help?
We're facing the same problem with Volt MX Go 2.0.4 on Windows.
Thanks