Installing IBM software with Puppet

In this playground, we will show you how you can use Puppet to install your IBM MQ setup. You will see that Puppet cannot only take care of the IBM MQ software installation itself but also take care of all prerequisites.

After Puppet executed the prerequisites and IBM MQ installation, we will show you that Puppet also can create your messaging setup..

The playground system

The playground system contains a pre-installed puppet agent. There is no server available, so to run Puppet, you have to use the puppet apply command. The playground text will guide you with this.

This system is what we call a “stem-cell” system. At this point in time, it is not predestined to become an IBM MQ messaging server. In fact, it could just as easily become a WebLogic server. All of the steps needed to make this stem-cell system become an IBM MQ messaging server are performed by Puppet.

Working in the playground

Under this text, you see the working area. You can inspect the system and issue any command you like in the terminal. In the editor window, you can see the Puppet production environment. You can edit anything you wish. The documentation tab shows the documentation for the ibm_profile module.

Beware

This system will self destruct in about one hour. So please don’t use it to build or create anything you wish to keep!

Subjects in this playground

The playground contains the following sub paragraphs:

Puppet code for IBM MQ installation
Ensure prerequisites
Install the IBM MQ software
Introducing the MQ packages
Set up the server

Happy exploring!!

Puppet code for IBM MQ installation

We have done our best to make it as easy as possible to use Puppet to change your “stem-cell” system into a running ‘IBM MQ server. Let’s look at some of the Puppet code needed to do this.

In the editor tab, go to the directory hierdata\nodes and open the file mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com. This file contains all the node-specific data.

At the top, you see:

role:    role::mq

This hiera definition tells Puppet that for this node, node mq91.enterprisemodules.com, we want to apply the Puppet class role::mq.

The role `role::mq`

Let’s see what this Puppet class is doing for us. In the editor tab, go to the directory modules\role\manifests and open the file mq.pp. For your convenience, I have included the contents here as well.

class role::mq()
{
  contain ::profile::base
  contain ::ibm_profile::mq_machine

  Class['::profile::base']
  -> Class['::ibm_profile::mq_machine']
}

As you can see, this role class contains (is special sort of include) two other classes. The ::profile::base class is what we call the base profile. A base profile contains all Puppet definitions you would like to apply to all nodes in your organization. It includes all the standard settings you want to apply to your system, no matter what.

The second include is the ::ibm_profile::mq_machine class. This Puppet class is where all the magic happens needed to transform this node into an IBM MQ server.

As you can see, this is pretty easy. Let’s see it in action!

Ensure prerequisites

In a normal situation, the ibm_profile Puppet class would silently take care of all prerequisites for you. For teaching purposes, we have disabled this.

In the editor tab, go to the directory hierdata\nodes and open the file mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com. This file contains all the node-specific data.

In tis file you see this:

ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip

This is the hiera settings that tell ibm_profile NOT to execute the software, autostart etc steps.

First Puppet run

With all the skips in place, let’s run Puppet and see what happens.

puppet apply site.pp

Well, that didn’t do a lot.

Notice: Compiled catalog for mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com in environment production in 0.12 seconds
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.10 seconds

Actually, what it did, is executing only the base profile. And in this playground, the base profile is minimal.

Re-enable all prerequisite steps.

For the next step, we are going to remove some of the skip defintions in the hiera. Open the node yaml in the editor tab and remove or comment out all lines in the second block of skips. Your hiera should look something like this now:

#
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
#
ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip

Re-run Puppet

So now mq_machine executes much more of its regular steps. Let’s see what a re-run of Puppet provides us.

puppet apply site.pp

The result is following:

Notice: Compiled catalog for mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com in environment production in 0.44 seconds
Notice: MQ limits
Notice: MQ Groups and Users
Notice: MQ Packages
Notice: /Stage[main]/Limits/File[/etc/security/limits.d/20-nproc.conf]/ensure: removed
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Limits/Limits::Limits[mqm/nofile]/File[/etc/security/limits.d/mqm_nofile.conf]/ensure: defined content as '{md5}374afb4b0ec6eb8ff05ca85838166d8c'
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Limits/Limits::Limits[mqm/nproc]/File[/etc/security/limits.d/mqm_nproc.conf]/ensure: defined content as '{md5}d6573e5d14f62d8b76e9b742cfcf376a'
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Groups_and_users/Group[mqm]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Groups_and_users/User[mqm]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Packages/Package[unzip]/ensure: created
Notice: Applied catalog in 13.45 secon

Wow, that is a lot more. Puppet now:

Set’s limits
Installs required packages
Creates the required IBM MQ users and groups
Manages tmpfile settings for Mq named pipes

All prerequisites needed for a successful IBM MQ server installation are now fulfilled.

Next up: Install the IBM MQ software itself.

Install the IBM MQ software

With all of the prerequisites done, it is time to install some IBM software.

In the editor tab, go to the directory hierdata\nodes and open the file mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com. This file contains all the node-specific data.

Let’s comment out the skip for the step ibm_profile::mq_machine::software as well. Meaning do execute this step now.
Your hiera should look something like this now:

#
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:            skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:          skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:          skip
#
ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip

Re-run Puppet

Let’s see what Puppet has got in store for us now and re-run Puppet.

puppet apply site.pp

Be aware that installing the IBM MQ software takes some time. It can take from two up to four minutes.
The result should be similar to following:

Notice: Compiled catalog for mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com in environment production in 0.55 seconds
Notice: MQ limits
Notice: MQ Groups and Users
Notice: MQ Packages
Notice: MQ version 9.1.0.0 software from /install
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Groups_and_users/User[mqm]/password: changed [redacted] to [redacted]
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Archive[/tmp/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz]/ensure: download archive from /install/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz to /tmp/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz and extracted in /tmp with cleanup
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Exec[Accept MQ License Requirements]/returns: executed successfully
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Package[MQSeriesRuntime-9.1.0-0]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Package[MQSeriesJRE-9.1.0-0]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Package[MQSeriesJava-9.1.0-0]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Package[MQSeriesServer-9.1.0-0]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/File[Remove temporary files]/ensure: removed
Notice: Applied catalog in 36.85 seconds

So now ibm_profile executes all of the steps needed to install the IBM software. Because it has already taken care of the prerequisites in the previous Puppet run, it will see everything is already set up correctly and report no additional changes on this.

For the actual IBM MQ software installation, it executes these steps:
1) Pick components to add and components to remove
2) Create all required directories
3) Fetch the IBM software zip from a file server and unzip it.
4) Run the installer specified for kernel.
5) Cleanup

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

What happens now if we run Puppet again:

puppet apply site.pp

Puppet detects everything is as it is described in your Puppet manifest and hiera settings and changes nothing. It is idempotent.

Next up: Set IBM MQ machine settings.

Introducing the MQ packages

With MQ installed it is a good moment to see what extra components can be installed.
If you take a look at documentation of software class, unskipped in the previous page, you can see the following code:

  install_ams      => false,
  install_ft       => false,
  install_client   => false,
  install_explorer => false,
  install_xrserver => false,
  install_samples  => false,
  install_sdk      => false,
  install_man      => false,
  install_gskit    => false,
  install_amqp     => false,

These parameters tells puppet whether extra components should be installed with basic IBM MQ instance.
In the following table you can see short description of each parameter based on documentation.
|Parameter name|MQ component description|
|—|—|
|install_ams|Specify a value of true when you want to install Advanced Message Security (AMS) component.|
|install_ft|Specify a value of true when you want to install Managed File Transfer| component.|
|install_client|Specify a value of true when you want to install Standard Client component.|
|install_explorer|Specify a value of true when you want to install IBM MQ Explorer component.|
|install_xrserver|Specify a value of true when you want to install Telemetry Service component.|
|install_samples|Specify a value of true when you want to install Sample programs component.|
|install_sdk|Specify a value of true when you want to install SDK component.|
|install_man|Specify a value of true when you want to install Man pages component.|
|install_gskit|Specify a value of true when you want to install IBM Global Security Kit component.|
|install_amqp|Specify a value of true when you want to install AMQP Service component.|

More info about IBM MQ components, can be found on IBM website.

Adding MQ components to the installation

All components are not installed by default, in this example AMQP Service will be added. All other components can be added in the same way.
In the editor tab, go to the directory hierdata\nodes and open the file mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com.

The third block of settings in this file looks like this now:

# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip

ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip

Let’s add line to the yaml.

ibm_profile::mq_machine::software::install_amqp: true

Your third block of hiera code should look like this now:

# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::software::install_amqp: true

ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip
#

With all the components in place, let’s run Puppet and see what happens.

puppet apply site.pp

The result should be similar to following:

Notice: Compiled catalog for mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com in environment production in 0.79 seconds
Notice: MQ limits
Notice: MQ Groups and Users
Notice: MQ Packages
Notice: MQ version 9.1.0.0 software from /install
Notice: /Stage[main]/Ibm_profile::Mq_machine::Groups_and_users/User[mqm]/password: changed [redacted] to [redacted]
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Archive[/tmp/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz]/ensure: download archive from /install/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz to /tmp/IBM_MQ_9.1.0.0_LINUX_X86-64.tar.gz and extracted in /tmp with cleanup
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Exec[Accept MQ License Requirements]/returns: executed successfully
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/Package[MQSeriesAMQP-9.1.0-0]/ensure: created
Notice: /Stage[main]/Mq_install::Software/Mq_install::Software::Unix[mq_installation_9.1.0.0]/File[Remove temporary files]/ensure: removed
Notice: Applied catalog in 19.89 seconds

From the logs above you can see, that AMQP component have been correctly added and installed. Other components can be installed in the same way.

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

What happens now if we run Puppet again:

puppet apply site.pp

Puppet detects everything is as it is described in your Puppet manifest and hiera settings and changes nothing. It is idempotent.

Set up the server

Last but certainly not least is to ensure an MQ objects like managers, topics and queues are available.

In the editor tab, go to the directory hierdata\nodes and open the file mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com. This file contains all the node-specific data.

Let’s remove or comment out all of the skips, so Puppet will apply a full manifest that ensures the creation of the MQ manager too.

Your second block of hiera code should look like this now:

# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::software::install_amqp: true

ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip

This tell’s Puppet to skip all mq steps. Like I explained before, this is here for teaching purposes. Let’s remove or comment out all of these skips, so Puppet will apply a full manifest that ensures the creation of the mq too.

Your third block of hiera code should look like this now:

# ibm_profile::mq_machine::limits:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::groups_and_users:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::packages:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::software:  skip
ibm_profile::mq_machine::software::install_amqp: true

# ibm_profile::mq_machine::fixpack:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::manager_setup:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::authorization_setup:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::messaging_setup:  skip
# ibm_profile::mq_machine::mq_web:  skip
#

What has been set?

MQ service autostart with system start
Fixpacks for specific IBM MQ version
Creates MQ Manager (when defined)
Sets MQ topics, queues etc (when defined)
Sets MQ authorization (when defined)
Sets MQ webs settings (when defined)

In the playground customising MQ, we will show you how you can add MQ managers queues and topics to your setup.

Re-run Puppet

Let’s see what Puppet has got in store for us now and re-run Puppet.

puppet apply site.pp

The result should be similar to following

Notice: Compiled catalog for mq91.playground.enterprisemodules.com in environment production in 0.57 seconds
Notice: MQ limits
Notice: MQ Groups and Users
Notice: MQ Packages
Notice: MQ version 9.1.0.0 software from /install
Notice: Ensure MQ Manager(s) 
Notice: Applied catalog in 0.64 seconds

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

What happens now if we run Puppet again:

puppet apply site.pp

Puppet detects everything is as it is described in your Puppet manifest and hiera settings and changes nothing. It is idempotent.

You like it?

Do you like what you see here and want to test this on your own infrastructure? No problem. You can sign up for a free trial.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Installing IBM software with Puppet

The playground system

Working in the playground

Beware

Subjects in this playground

Puppet code for IBM MQ installation

The role `role::mq`

Ensure prerequisites

First Puppet run

Re-enable all prerequisite steps.

Re-run Puppet

Install the IBM MQ software

Re-run Puppet

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

Introducing the MQ packages

Adding MQ components to the installation

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

Set up the server

Re-run Puppet

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

You like it?

Company.

Quick Links.

Contact us?

Installing IBM software with Puppet

The playground system

Working in the playground

Beware

Subjects in this playground

Puppet code for IBM MQ installation

The role role::mq

Ensure prerequisites

First Puppet run

Re-enable all prerequisite steps.

Re-run Puppet

Install the IBM MQ software

Re-run Puppet

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

Introducing the MQ packages

Adding MQ components to the installation

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

Set up the server

Re-run Puppet

Re-run Puppet and check idempotency

You like it?

Company.

Quick Links.

Contact us?

The role `role::mq`