WAS v8.0 > Install the application serving environment > Distributed operating systems > Centralized installation manager (CIM) > Use the centralized installation manager (CIM) to manage v6.1.x and 7.x > Download package descriptors and binary files for previous versions to the centralized installation manager (CIM) repository
Use the v6.1.x and 7.x centralized installation manager (CIM) download function when the dmgr does not have direct Internet access
The centralized installation manager (CIM) provides a download function in the admin console to allow the cell administrator to navigate to IBM support and download the latest version of the IBM Update Installer for WebSphere Software, fix packs and interim fixes.
To use this feature, the WAS dmgr node must have Internet access to the external IBM FTP server.
New feature: Supported configurations: This topic applies
to WAS v6.1.x and 7.x only. For information about using centralized installation manager (CIM) for v8.0, see Submit Installation Manager jobs.
We must first create the CIM repository and add one or more product packages to the repository on the host workstation. For more information, read the "Adding the current installation package during installation" topic.
Alternatively, you can use the IBM WebSphere Installation Factory to add one or more product packages to the repository. The Installation Factory is included in one of the WAS Network Deployment discs, which install separately. For more details about the Installation Factory, read the "Adding installation packages with the Installation Factory" topic.
If you do not allow Internet access from your dmgr workstation, then you can set up an FTP gateway on a workstation that has internet access, point the CIM download URL to that gateway, and do the download indirectly through the gateway. The following section describes how you can set up a simple FTP gateway using a program called DeleGate. We can use other FTP gateway products with similar capability instead.
DeleGate is a multipurpose application level gateway, or a proxy server which runs on multiple platforms (UNIX, Windows and OS/2 ). See the DeleGate Home Page for more information.
Alternatively, you can manually add the packages to the repository. Read the "Manually adding package files to the repository" topic for more information.
Perform the following steps to set up DeleGate as an FTP gateway for CIM running on a dmgr node that does not have direct access to the Internet.
Procedure
- Download a copy of DeleGate. At the time of writing the latest
version is v9.7.7.
- To install the software on Windows operating systems, open
and extract the downloaded compressed file, dg9_7_7-fix1.zip, to a directory.
- Start DeleGate by running dg9_7_7-fix1.exe from the bin
directory
- To start DeleGate as an FTP Gateway for the CIM download
function, use the following command on one line:
dg -P21 SERVER=ftp MOUNT=“/* ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/*” ADMIN=administrator@ftpgate01.mydomain.com PERMIT=“*:*:*. mydomain.com”
Results
- In the above example, DeleGate is running on host ftpgate01.mydomain.com and it has direct connection to the Internet.
- For convenience, the dg9_7_7-fix1.exe file is renamed to dg.exe so that dg can be used to start DeleGate.
- The PERMIT parameter allows access from any host with the domain name, mydomain.com, to access the gateway.
- We can add the “ -v ” option to make DeleGate run in the foreground with logging to the console to observe activities.
- We can also run DeleGate using arguments loaded from a configuration file with the +=filename option with the specified file holding all the arguments (1 argument per
line), for example:
dg +=dg.conf
With the previous setup, you can then replace ftp:/public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere
with ftp://ftpgate01.mydomain.com anywhere you see Download Options in any of the CIM download panels and you will be able to access the IBM Support FTP Server via the FTP gateway.
Best practice: Expand the Download Options tag
to reveal the FTP URL field that replace. Only replace
the front portion of the URL as described and keep the remaining portion of the URL string as is.
For example, if the FTP URL field shows
the following:
ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/websphere/appserv/support/fixpacks/was70/cumulative/
Replace it with the following:
ftp://ftpgate01.mydomain.com/appserv/support/fixpacks/was80/cumulative/bprac
Manually adding package files for previous versions to the centralized installation manager (CIM) repository
Add installation packages of previous versions to the centralized installation manager (CIM) repository using the Installation Factory
Download package descriptors and binary files for previous versions to the centralized installation manager (CIM) repository