Installation Checklists

The checklists will help you prepare for installing and configuring the software.

General Installation Checklist

If you are performing an evaluation, complete the items in the EVAL column. If you are installing a production system, complete the items in the PROD column.

EVAL PROD Description
Obtain a user account Altair Marketplace for downloading the software.
Calculate the amount of free disk space needed for the installation and operation of the system. Use the tables in Plan the Installation showing disk space requirements.

The disk storage for Accelerator and FlowTracer must be shared and accessible by all machines via NFS and/or Windows Networking, as applicable. It must be possible to set permissions on files and folders and to create files which have the correct user ID.

Accelerator requires the ability to execute a setuid application from shared storage.

Select a product administrator user who will own the installed files and the running processes. This product administrator user account can be the same as one used for managing other tools.
Important: This product administrator user account cannot be the UNIX root user.

It should be a normal user without special privileges or capabilities.
Select the networked file server where the software will be installed. Use the information as a guideline for selecting the machine with sufficient disk space.
Select the server machine where the software will run. Use the System Configuration Hardware Guidelines for selecting the server machine with sufficient capacity.
  To activate the email notifications feature, you will need to configure an SMTP outbound email server after doing the install. Gather information about your SMTP outbound email server to prepare for this configuration step.

You can read about the Notification feature and configuring SMTP in Connect to an SMTP Server.
To activate the LDAP server feature for authentication of users, and for defining special groups of users, you will need to configure access to the LDAP server after doing the install. Gather information about your LDAP server to prepare for this configuration step.

You can read about the feature of using an LDAP server, and Configuring LDAP in Connect to an LDAP Server.
Ensure that the system clocks (including the license server if applicable) are correct on all machines and synchronized with a time server.
Designate a server machine to use for the Reprise license server (required for FlowTracer, optional for Monitor and Accelerator). The Reprise license server can be the same machine as the Monitor server.
Submit a support request at Altair Community for a license file. Provide the name of your company, host name and host ID for the license server or for the server which will run the software.
On Linux and Windows, the host ID is the Ethernet MAC address of the primary network interface card. Use the following commands to get the host ID:
% /sbin/ifconfig -a                            # Linux - use eth0
c:\> ipconfig /all                             # Windows
Note: Do not use the Linux hostid command, which returns an incorrect result.
  Increase the number of open file descriptors on the server you are planning to use. You can read about calculating the number of needed file descriptors in the Client Limitation and Tuning chapter.
Follow the Product Specific checklist. If you are installing Accelerator to run applications for which you have a limited number of licenses, you must follow the Monitor checklist as well.

Product Specific Checklists

Monitor Installation Checklist
EVAL PROD Description
Gather a list of license servers (port@host) to be monitored.
If interested in monitoring denial information, read Debug Log Monitoring in the Altair Monitor Administration Guide to determine an appropriate strategy for your site. Gather the list of debug logs to be monitored.
Be sure all FlexNet Publisher license files specify a port on the SERVER line.
Accelerator (and Allocator) Installation Checklist
EVAL PROD Description
Determine the number of Accelerator instances you will have running.
Identify the number of farm machines (tasker hosts) you will have.
Identify the number of processors per machine.
Determine if you use licensed tools in jobs that Accelerator will manage. This is typically a yes, which leads to choosing how to manage the licenses - either the built-in Monitor-basic or ControlCenter.
Identify the license server machine. If using a keyfile, it will be the same machine as the one running Accelerator.
Identify which desired features will be used and note the auxiliary daemons that are needed to provide each feature:
  • Enable optimized resource management. (vovresourced daemon)
  • Enable email notification about events. (vovnotifyd daemon)
  • Enable higher priority jobs to run first. (vovpreemptd daemon)
  • Enable reconciliation of mismatched resource requests. (vovreconciled daemon)
Accelerator Plus Installation Checklist
EVAL PROD Description
Determine the number of Accelerator Plus instances you will have running.
Identify the number of farm machines (tasker hosts) you will have.
Identify the number of processors per machine.
Determine if you use licensed tools in jobs that Accelerator Plus will manage. This is typically a yes, which leads to choosing how to manage the licenses - either the built-in Monitor-basic or ControlCenter.
Identify the license server machine. If using a keyfile, it will be the same machine as the one running Accelerator Plus.
Identify which desired features will be used and note the auxiliary daemons that are needed to provide each feature:
  • Enable optimized resource management. (vovresourced daemon)
  • Enable email notification about events. (vovnotifyd daemon)
  • Enable higher priority jobs to run first. (vovpreemptd daemon)
  • Enable reconciliation of mismatched resource requests. (vovreconciled daemon)
FlowTracer Installation Checklist
EVAL PROD Description
If installing in a multi-site environment, its best to ensure that the installation looks identical from a file system point of view at each site. One site may be the master where all modifications/installations are made, while the other sites are mirrored from the master site.
Identify a robust, high performance file system to host the registry directory used by all FlowTracer users. This could be a Tier 1 filer or even an SSD. It is also recommended that for multi-site installations, an independent registry file system exist at the same logical location at each site, that is, /proj/registry. It is not necessary to procure a large disk, 10GB-20GB will be more than sufficient for even the largest enterprises.
It is recommended to enable Enterprise Licensing and set it to Auto.