(Dist) Create custom installation repositories with IBM Packaging Utility
IBM WAS uses IBM Installation Manager for product installation and lifecycle management. Installation Manager accesses source repositories containing the content for a software product installation. Repositories are available on product media, in IBM-hosted web-based repositories, and from Passport Advantage. IBM Packaging Utility can be used to create custom enterprise repositories containing a combination of products and maintenance levels.
We use Installation Manager to connect to an Installation Manager repository (or set of repositories) to find products and service updates available for installation. An Installation Manager repository is simply a tree-structured file folder that includes product payload and metadata. We can install the software products needed directly from an IBM web-based service repository or download and unpack compressed files from Passport Advantage and install the products from the resulting unpacked file folders. The result of unpacking the files is also considered to be an Installation Manager repository. Like any Installation Manager repository, these unpacked files can be hosted on an internal HTTP server, FTP server, or network mount in order to make them available to the organization.
Packaging Utility is a companion tool for Installation Manager used to create custom Installation Manager repositories. We can copy multiple packages, maintenance levels, and fixes into a single repository. Packaging Utility copies from source repositories to our target custom repositories.
Create custom or "enterprise" Installation Manager repositories
Use Packaging Utility to create custom or "enterprise" Installation Manager repositories that contain specific products and maintenance levels. We can control the content of our enterprise repository, which then can serve as the central repository to which our organization connects in order to perform product installations and updates.
Packaging Utility essentially copies from a set of source Installation Manager repositories to a target repository and eliminates duplicate artifacts, helping to keep the repository size as small as possible. We can also delete (or "prune") a repository, removing maintenance levels or products that are not needed.
We can download the latest version of Packaging Utility from the IBM Support Portal.
Like Installation Manager, Packaging Utility has GUI and command-line interfaces. Specify repository URLs for Installation Manager repositories that contain the offerings to copy.
Installation Manager repository URLs follow this pattern:
http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/offering_name
This location does not contain a web page that we can access using a web browser.
For example, WAS v9.0 product repositories are located at the following URLs:
- WAS Base v9.0
http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90
- WAS Network Deployment v9.0
http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.ND.v90
See Online product repositories for WAS offerings for additional product repositories.
The target repository created with Packaging Utility will always support a full installation; therefore, we cannot use Packaging Utility to create a repository that is only a copy of a fix pack. We can, however, create a repository containing the minimum content to support direct installation to a fix-pack level. Consider the following two examples that use the Packaging Utility command-line interface (PUCL.exe) available in the Packaging Utility installation folder.
- Example 1
Because no version number is specified with the offering name, this command will create a new repository that supports direct installation to the latest fix-pack level for WAS Base v9.0. This new repository does not support the installation of v9.0.0.0, but it does support the update from an existing v9.0.0.0 installation to the latest version.
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBase_version -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
We must read the license agreement that we can find with the product files and then signify our acceptance of the license agreement by specifying -acceptLicense.
- Example 2
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90_9.0.0.20160503_0200 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBase -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90_9.0.1.20160829_1838 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBase -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
The first command creates a target repository with WAS Base v9.0.0.0. The second command adds the v9.0.0.1 fix pack to the same repository. We can now use this resulting repository to install v9.0.0.0, install v9.0.0.1, or update from Version 9.0.0.0 to v9.0.0.1.
Create a repository scoped to our platforms and architectures
Use IBM Packaging Utility Version 1.8.5 or later with the -platform option (sometimes called "platform slicing") to create a repository scoped to a specific platform and architecture.
The repository can be scoped for platforms other than the one on which it is created or stored. For example, we can run Packaging Utility on a Windows system to create a repository with the content needed to install on a Linux system. During installation on Linux, we point Installation Manager to our custom repository.
This feature is available in command-line mode by specifying the -platform option with the os and arch arguments...
- Example 3
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90_9.0.0.20160503_0200 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBase_Linux -platform os=linux,arch=ppc64 -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
This command will create a new repository for installation to WAS Version 9.0.0.0 on Linux Power. We can then add the v9.0.0.1 fix pack for Linux to the same repository:
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90_9.0.1.20160829_1838 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBase_Linux -platform os=linux,arch=ppc64 -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
We can also create a repository for direct installation to any fix-pack level for a particular platform.
After creating a repository for a particular platform, we can add content for additional platforms. In the following example, the first command creates a Linux repository for direct installation to the latest fix pack for WAS. The second command adds the content for AIX. The delta for adding the additional platform content should be relatively small because much of the installation content is common across platforms.
- Example 4
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBaseV9 -platform os=linux,arch=ppc64 -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -repositories http://www.ibm.com/software/repositorymanager/com.ibm.websphere.BASE.v90 -target D:\WASBaseV9 -platform os=aix -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
We do not need to specify both the os and arch options to the -platform argument. In the last command, only os=aix is specified.
Known issues:
- If we specify unsupported operating-system and architecture combinations for WAS offerings when using the -platform option of the Packaging Utility copy command, unusable local repositories might be created. The following table lists valid combinations for creating a local WAS offering repository that is sliced by operating system and architecture.
Platform Options Resulting Repository Windows os=win32,arch=x86_64 os=win32
Windows 64 bit Linux Intel os=linux,arch=x86_64 Linux Intel 64 bit Linux Power os=linux,arch=ppc64 Linux Power 64 bit zLinux os=linux,arch=s390x zLinux 64 bit AIX os=aix,arch=ppc64 os=aix
AIX 64 bit Solaris Sparc os=solaris,arch=sparc64 Solaris Sparc 64 bit Solaris Intel os=solaris,arch=x86_64 Solaris Intel 64 bit HP-UX Itanium os=hpux,arch=ia64 HP-UX Itanium 64 bit IBM i os=os400,arch=ppc64 os=os400
IBM i z/OS os=zos,arch=s390x os=zos
z/OS Restriction: When using the Packaging Utility command-line interface (PUCL.exe) that is available in the Packaging Utility installation folder, we can only specify the -platform parameter once.
- If we create a platform-specific repository from Passport Advantage and Fix Central fix-pack ZIP files that are first downloaded and unpacked, we must then reference both repositories when copying platform-specific maintenance into our target repository. If we unpack the Passport Advantage ZIP files for WAS Network Deployment v9.0.0.0 into Windows folder C:\WASND9000 and then you unpack the v9.0.0.1 ZIP files to C:\WASND9001, for example, we would next create a Windows repository for v9.0.0.0 with the following command:
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.ND.v90_9.0.0.20160503_0200 -repositories C:\WASND9000 -target C:\WASND_Windows -platform os=win32,arch=x86_64 -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
...and then add the fix pack, specifying both source repositories:
PUCL copy com.ibm.websphere.ND.v90_9.0.1.20160829_1838 -repositories C:\WASND9000,C:\WASND9001 -target C:\WASND_Windows -platform os=win32,arch=x86_64 -prompt -showProgress -acceptLicense
Related:
Online product repositories for WAS offerings IBM Installation Manager documentation