Platform notes

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This page provides additional implementation notes for Flow platforms in your enterprise. For a complete list of officially supported platforms for Flow, see CloudBees supported platforms.

Flow server platform notes

Here are platform notes for the CloudBees Flow, web, repository, and DevOps Insight servers.

Microsoft Windows platforms

Platform Notes

Windows 10 (64-bit)

No notes.

Windows 8.1 (64-bit)

No notes.

Windows 7 (64-bit)

  • Service Pack 1 is recommended.

  • An administrator might need to disable User Account Control (UAC). If the installer runs under account x , but services will run under account y , installation directories (both program and data) will probably have permissions that prevent y ’s access. This applies particularly to data directories.

Windows Server 2016 (64-bit) Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit) Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)

  • An administrator might need to disable User Account Control (UAC). If the installer runs under account x , but services will run under account y , installation directories (both program and data) will probably have permissions that prevent y ’s access. This applies particularly to data directories.

Linux platforms

Platform Notes

CentOS 7 (64-bit)

The following installation prerequisites apply to all CloudBees Flow installers.

Do not choose nobody for the CentOS user. CentOS does not allow a command such as su - nobody -c foo.sh, because it is not a shell account.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (64-bit)

The following installation prerequisites apply to all CloudBees Flow installers.

Do not choose nobody for the RHEL user. RHEL does not allow a command such as su - nobody -c foo.sh, because it is not a shell account.

Ubuntu 18.04 (64-bit) Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit)

Ubuntu 14.04 (64-bit)

The following installation prerequisites apply to all CloudBees Flow installers.

Choosing the Ubuntu user

Do not choose “nobody” for the Ubuntu user. Ubuntu does not allow a command such as su - nobody -c foo.sh, because it is not a shell account.

Adding the bin directory to the PATH environment variable

Update /etc/environment to include the CloudBees Flow Automation Platform bin directory in the PATH environment variable. Steps running with impersonation on Ubuntu use PATH that is set in /etc/environment. As a side-effect, the CloudBees Flow Automation Platform bin directory is not in PATH in the impersonation context, so calls to tools such as ectool and postp fail with a “not found” error.

Fixing the raise ValueError, need a file or string Error

If you receive an error during installation similar to the following:

File "/usr/lib/lsb/install_initd", line 3, in <module> import sys, re, os, initdutil File "/usr/lib/lsb/initdutils.py", line 18 raise ValueError, 'need a file or string' ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax run the following command: sudo sed -i "s/python3/python/" /usr/lib/lsb/install_initd

This error is a known Ubuntu bug.

Agent platform notes

This section lists agent platform notes. You can drive automation on target machines by either installing agents natively or by running them remotely using proxy agents.

Pure agent platforms

All server platforms support pure agents; see their notes here. Consult the table below for additional pure agent platforms.

Platform Notes

AIX 7.1

  • AIX agents are not compatible with CloudBees Flow Automation Platform server versions earlier than 5.4 over HTTPS connections.

  • If you require interaction between the agent and the repository, make sure that IBM Java 1.8.0 or newer is installed on each agent machine. To do so:

    1. Enter java -version from the command line to check the current Java version. For example:

$ java -version java version "1.8.0" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build pap6480sr3fp22-20161213 _02 (SR3 FP22)) IBM J9 VM (build 2.8, JRE 1.8.0 AIX ppc64-64 Compressed References 20161209_329148 (JIT enabled, AOT enabled) J9VM - R28_20161209_2345_B329148 JIT - tr.r14.java.green_20161207_128946 GC - R28_20161209_2345_B329148_CMPRSS J9CL - 20161209_329148) JCL - 20161213_01 based on Oracle jdk8u111-b14
  1. Make sure that the PATH environment variable is updated to point to the current Java version in all applicable files (including /etc/environment/ and /etc/profile). For example, change:

    PATH=/usr/bin:/etc:/usr/sbin:/usr/ucb:/usr/bin/X11:/sbin: /usr/java5/jre/bin: /usr/java5/bin

    to

    PATH=/usr/bin:/etc:/usr/sbin:/usr/ucb:/usr/bin/X11:/sbin: /usr/java8_64/jre/bin:/usr/java8_64/bin
  2. If you installed IBM Java after installing the agent on a machine, restart its agent service.

    An incorrect Java version can cause errors such as the following:

    host01[/opt/CloudBees/ec/wkspc] > ectool publishArtifactVersion --artifactName "myGroup:myKey" --version "1.0.1" --fromDirectory /tmp/artifacts_test --repositoryName repo_for_aix
    Exit code 1: The java class could not be loaded. java.lang. ClassFormatError: (com/CloudBees/repo/client/ PublishArtifactVersionClient) unknown constant pool entry tag at offset=253

    For more information about installing and configuring IBM Java, see: link:https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1022685IBM Java for AIX HowTo: Install, Upgrade, or Downgrade IBM Java link:https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1024496IBM Java for AIX FAQ: Identifying the Java versions and Java installation locations for an AIX system ** Setting up and checking your AIX environment

HP-UX 11i v1 (11.11) or later (PA-RISC 2.0 architecture)

  • Make sure that patches PHKL_29243 and PHSS_39077 (or patches superseding these patches) are installed.

  • HP-UX Secure Shell requires a random number generator on the system. It searches for ` /dev/urandom` and then /dev/random and uses the first device it finds. If it fails to find them, it uses its own internal random number generator.

    By default, HP-UX 11i v2 systems includes these random number devices. You can obtain them for HP-UX 11i v1 by downloading and installing the HP-UX Strong Random Number Generator from link:https://software.hp.com/\https://software.hp.com .

    HP recommends that Secure Shell users on HP-UX 11i v1 systems install the Strong Random Number Generator, because it significantly speeds up program initialization and execution for some commands.

macOS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later (Intel architecture)

No notes.

Oracle Solaris 10 (SPARC and Intel x86 architectures)

If you require interaction between the agent and the repository, make sure that Java 1.8.0 or newer is installed on each agent machine. For more information, see How do I download and install Java for Solaris? . If you install Java after installing the agent on a machine, you must restart its agent service.

Oracle Solaris 9 (SPARC architecture)

If you require interaction between the agent and the repository, make sure that Java 1.8.0 or newer is installed on each agent machine. For more information, see How do I download and install Java for Solaris? . If you install Java after installing the agent on a machine, you must restart its agent service.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.3 (32- and 64-bit)

Run zypper install libstdc++6-32bit before installing agents on a 64-bit machine. This command installs the SUSE 32-bit libraries required by the CloudBees Flow executable file.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.4 (32 and 64-bit)

No notes.

Proxy agents for other platforms

A proxy agent is a CloudBees Flow agent that channels to a proxy target, which lets you drive automation in an agentless fashion. A proxy agent is an agent on a supported Windows or Linux platform that you use to take actions on any platform that is not listed above. For example, you can use a proxy agent to automate actions on an IBM z Systems mainframe running z/OS or Linux OS.

You can use a proxy agent to communicate with any target platform that can run commands via an SSH protocol. For details, see Environment Proxy Server Configuration.