Documentum introduced some time ago already the silent installations for its software. The way to use this changed a little bit but it seems they finally found their way. This blog will be the first of a series to present how to work with the silent installations on Documentum because it is true that it is not really well documented and most probably not much used at the moment.

We are using this where possible for our customers and it is true that it is really helpful to avoid human errors and install components more quickly. Be aware that this isn’t perfect! There are some parameters with typos, some parameters that are really not self-explanatory, so you will need some time to understand everything but, in the end, it is still helpful.

Using the silent installation is a first step but you will still need a lot of manual interventions to execute these as well as actually making your environment working. I mean it only replaces the GUI installers so everything you were doing around that is still needed (preparation of files/folders/environment, custom start/stop scripts, service setup, Java Method Server (JMS) configuration, Security Baselines, SSL setup, aso…). That’s why we also developed internally scripts or playbooks (Ansible for example) to perform everything around AND use the Documentum silent installations. In this blog and more generally in this series, I will only talk about the silent installations coming from Documentum.

Let’s start with the basis:

  1. Things you need to know
  2. Documentum Content Server installation (binaries & JMS)

 

1. Things you need to know

  • Each and every component installation needs its own properties file that is used by the installer to know what to install and how to do it, that’s all you need to do.
  • As I mentioned above, there are some typos in a few parameters coming from the properties files like “CONGINUE” instead of “CONTINUE”. These aren’t errors in my blogs, the parameters are really like that. All the properties files I’m showing here have been tested and validated in a lot of environments, including PROD ones in High Availability.
  • To know more about the silent installation, you can check the installation documentation. There isn’t much to read about it but still some potentially interesting information.
  • The Documentum documentation does NOT contain any description of the parameters you can/should use, that’s why I will try in each blogs to describe them as much as possible.
  • You can potentially do several things at once using a single silent properties file, the only restriction for that is that it needs to use the same installer. Therefore, you could install a docbroker/connection broker, a docbase/repository and configure/enable a licence using a single properties file but you wouldn’t be able to do the silent installation of the binaries as well because it needs another installer. That’s definitively not what I’m doing because I find it messy, I really prefer to separate things, so I know I’m using only the parameters that I need for a specific component and nothing else.
  • There are examples provided when you install Documentum. You can look at the folder “$DM_HOME/install/silent/templates” and you will see some properties file. In these files, you will usually find most of the parameters that you can use but from what I remember, there are a few missing. Be aware that some files are for Windows and some are for Linux, it’s not always the same because some parameters are specific to a certain OS:
    • linux_ files are for Linux obviously
    • win_ files are for Windows obviously
    • cfs_ files are for a CFS/Remote Content Server installation (to provide High Availability to your docbases/repositories)
  • If you look at the folder “$DM_HOME/install/silent/silenttool”, you will see that there is a utility to generate silent files based on your current installation. You need to provide a silent installation file for a Content Server and it will generate for you a CFS/Remote CS silent installation file with most of the parameters that you need. Do not 100% rely on this file, there might still be some parameters missing but present ones should be the correct ones. I will write a blog on the CFS/Remote CS as well, to provide an example.
  • You can generate silent properties file by running the Documentum installers with the following command: “<installer_name>.<sh/bin> -r <path>/<file_name>.properties”. This will write the parameters you selected/enabled/configured into the <file_name>.properties file so you can re-use it later.
  • To install an additional JMS, you can use the jmsConfig.sh script or jmsStandaloneSetup.bin for an IJMS (Independent JMS – Documentum 16.4 only). It won’t be in the blogs because I’m only showing the default one created with the binaries.
  • The following components/features can be installed using the silent mode (it is possible that I’m missing some, these are the ones I know):
    • CS binaries + JMS
    • JMS/IJMS
    • Docbroker/connection broker
    • Licences
    • Docbase/repository (CS + CFS/RCS + DMS + RKM)
    • D2
    • Thumbnail

 

2. Documentum Content Server installation (binaries & JMS)

Before starting, you need to have the Documentum environment variables defined ($DOCUMENTUM, $DM_HOME, $DOCUMENTUM_SHARED), that doesn’t change. Once that is done, you need to extract the installer package (below I used the package for a CS 7.3 on Linux with an Oracle DB):

[dmadmin@content_server_01 ~]$ cd /tmp/dctm_install/
[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ tar -xvf Content_Server_7.3_linux64_oracle.tar
[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$
[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ chmod 750 serverSetup.bin
[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ rm Content_Server_7.3_linux64_oracle.tar

 

Then prepare the properties file:

[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ vi CS_Installation.properties
[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ cat CS_Installation.properties
### Silent installation response file for CS binary
INSTALLER_UI=silent
KEEP_TEMP_FILE=true

### Installation parameters
APPSERVER.SERVER_HTTP_PORT=9080
APPSERVER.SECURE.PASSWORD=adm1nP4ssw0rdJMS

### Common parameters
COMMON.DO_NOT_RUN_DM_ROOT_TASK=true

[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$

 

A short description of these properties:

  • INSTALLER_UI: The mode to use for the installation, here it is obviously silent
  • KEEP_TEMP_FILE: Whether or not you want to keep the temporary files created by the installer. These files are generated under the /tmp folder. I usually keep them because I want to be able to check them if something went wrong
  • APPSERVER.SERVER_HTTP_PORT: The port to be used by the JMS that will be installed
  • APPSERVER.SECURE.PASSWORD: The password of the “admin” account of the JMS. Yes, you need to put all passwords in clear text in the silent installation properties files so add it just before starting the installation and remove them right after
  • COMMON.DO_NOT_RUN_DM_ROOT_TASK: Whether or not you want to run the dm_root_task in the silent installation. I usually set it to true, so it is NOT executed because the Installation Owner I’m using do not have root accesses for security reasons
  • On Windows, you would need to provide the Installation Owner’s password as well and the path you want to install Documentum on ($DOCUMENTUM). On linux, the first one isn’t needed and the second one needs to be in the environment before starting.
  • You could also potentially add more properties in this file: SERVER.LOCKBOX_FILE_NAMEx and SERVER.LOCKBOX_PASSPHRASE.PASSWORDx (where x is a number starting with 1 and incrementing in case you have several lockboxes). These parameters would be used for existing lockbox files that you would want to load. Honestly, these parameters are useless. You will anyway need to provide the lockbox information during the docbase/repository creation and you will need to specify if you want a new lockbox, an existing lockbox or no lockbox at all so specifying it here is kind of useless…

 

Once the properties file is ready, you can install the Documentum binaries and the JMS in silent using the following command:

[dmadmin@content_server_01 dctm_install]$ ./serverSetup.bin -f CS_Installation.properties

 

This conclude the first blog of this series about Documentum silent installations. Stay tuned for more soon.