Installing Pulse on Linux

Starting with Pulse v6.1, Pulse can be installed on a Linux server. The recommended Linux version is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4. Given the nature of CentOS, this may run on that environment too.

This article details the step on how to install Pulse and how to run it on this OS. 

OS: RHEL 8.4 Onwards

Required OS Components/Libraries:

• systemd

• External Libraries

  • Graphviz (https://graphviz.org/download/)

  • WHtmlToPdf (https://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html)

Linux Account Requirements when running the services:

• Pulse Monitor – an account with root privilege; part of the wheel group

• Pulse Server – a normal non-root account

• Pulse Kibana – a normal non-root account

• Pulse Elastic – a normal non-root account

To add, for the TM1 server side:

• TM1 services needs to be run via systemd like the example below

For the TM1 Admin server:

[Unit]Description=tm1adminserverAfter=network.target[Service]ExecStart=/opt/ibm/cognos/tm1_64/bin64/startup_tm1admsrv.shExecStop=/opt/ibm/cognos/tm1_64/bin64/shutdown_tm1admsrv.shType=forking[Install]WantedBy=default.target

For the TM1 Services:

[Unit]Description=cmxdRequires=tm1adminserver.serviceAfter=tm1adminserver.service[Service]ExecStart=/opt/ibm/cognos/tm1_64/bin64/startup_tm1s.sh ‘/home/ec2-user/TM1Data/cxmd/data’ExecStop=/opt/ibm/cognos/tm1_64/bin64/shutdown_tm1s.sh ‘/home/ec2-user/TM1Data/cxmd/data’Type=forking[Install]WantedBy=default.target

Go to the Cubewise Forum and download the latest Linux version, the name of the installer will usually have the linux64 in the name.

Copy/download the above file into your RHEL/CentOS environment.

Extract the contents of the zip file into a folder. To extract content, one of the ways will be:

sudo unzip Pulse.6.0.4-linux64.zip -d pulse_install

Inside the folder, you will see the above files.

You can either update the pulse.install.default.env file for the settings that will be used by Pulse during installation or create your own pulse.install.env. For the sake of being able to retain our settings for the upgrade, duplicate the pulse.install.default.env file, and rename that file into pulse.install.env.

Open your pulse.install.env file:

# License Location - UPDATE WITH THE CORRECT LICENSE PATHPULSE_LICENSE_SOURCE_PATH=License.xml# User account to be used with systemd unit files creation - UPDATE WITH THE USER AND GROUP ASSIGNED TO RUN PULSEPULSE_INSTALL_USER=ec2-userPULSE_INSTALL_GROUP=ec2-user# Location of your OS' systemd config files - UPDATE WITH THE LOCATION OF WHERE THE SYSTEMD FILES WILL BE COPIED TOSYSTEMD_SERVICE_FILE_INSTALL_PATH=/etc/systemd/system# Pulse Configuration - UPDATE WITH WHERE PULSE WILL BE INSTALLEDPULSE_DIR=/opt/pulsePULSE_INSTALL_MEMORY_MAX=2048ELASTICSEARCH_PORT=8097ELASTICSEARCH_TRANSPORT_PORT=8096KIBANA_PORT=8095PULSE_SERVER_PORT=8099PULSE_SHUTDOWN_PORT=8091PULSE_HTTPS_PORT=8093PULSE_MONITOR_PORT=8094# graphviz library is required# visit the following website on instructions on how to install# https://graphviz.org/download/# alternatively, there is an RPM included with Pulse if you have not yet installed it, under **lib-ext** folder# sudo dnf install graphviz-2.40.1-43.el8.x86_64.rpm# afterwards, update the following with the executable pathGRAPHVIZ_INSTALL_PATH=/usr/bin/dot# wkhtmltopdf library is required# visit the following website on instructions on how to install# https://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html# alternatively, there is an RPM included with Pulse if you have not yet installed it, under **lib-ext** folder# sudo dnf install wkhtmltox-0.12.6-1.centos8.x86_64.rpm# afterwards, update the following with the executable pathWKHTMLTOPDF_INSTALL_PATH=/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf

Fill up and update where necessary. Typically, the following needs to be updated:

PULSE_LICENSE_SOURCE_PATH=License.xml

PULSE_INSTALL_USER=pulse_user

PULSE_INSTALL_GROUP=pulse_group

SYSTEMD_SERVICE_FILE_INSTALL_PATH=/etc/systemd/system

Pulse requires the following libraries to fully work later:

• wkhtmltopdf

• graphviz

Links and instructions on how to download and install them can be found on the site. Alternatively, depending on the OS and internet connection, they can be installed through the files included on the zip file via the following sample commands (navigate to where these RPMs are):

sudo dnf install graphviz-2.40.1-43.el8.x86_64.rpm

sudo dnf install wkhtmltox-0.12.6-1.centos8.x86_64.rpm

After installation, update the following paths in the pulse.install.env file:

GRAPHVIZ_INSTALL_PATH=/usr/bin/dot

…

WKHTMLTOPDF_INSTALL_PATH=/usr/local/bin/wkhtmltopdf

Navigate into where pulse.sh file is (this is in the directory where the Pulse*zip has been extracted).

To do a full/fresh installation of Pulse:

sudo sh pulse.sh install

Pulse can be started manually, or via the systemd

Go into the directory where Pulse was installed, and execute the following:

Pulse Application Server

sh bin/pulse_service.sh start server

sh bin/pulse_service.sh stop server

Pulse Monitor

sudo sh bin/pulse_service.sh start monitor

sudo sh bin/pulse_service.sh stop monitor

Pulse Elasticsearch

sh bin/pulse_service.sh start elastic

sh bin/pulse_service.sh stop elastic

Pulse Kibana

sh bin/pulse_service.sh start kibana

sh bin/pulse_service.sh stop kibana

Copy the service files from resources/system-unit-files. For example:

And paste them into your systemd directory i.e. under /usr/lib/system

After copying, you may need to reload systemd. Below is a sample command:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

 To stop or to start these systemd services,

Pulse Application Server

sudo systemctl start pulse-server.service

sudo systemctl stop pulse-server.service

Pulse Monitor

sudo systemctl start pulse-monitor.service

sudo systemctl stop pulse-monitor.service

Pulse Elasticsearch

sudo systemctl start pulse-elastic.service

sudo systemctl stop pulse-elastic.service

Pulse Kibana

sudo systemctl start pulse-kibana.service

sudo systemctl stop pulse-kibana.service

Navigate into where pulse.sh file is (this is in the directory where the Pulse*zip has been extracted).

To uninstall,

sudo sh pulse.sh uninstall /opt/pulse