C H A P T E R 3 - Installing the RFID Event Manager (UNIX)

C H A P T E R 3

Installing the RFID Event Manager (UNIX)

This chapter describes how to install the Sun Java System RFID Event Manager (RFID Event Manager) on the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) and Linux platforms. To install this software on the Microsoft Windows platform, see Chapter 6. The following sections are included in this chapter:

Selecting the Installation Type

Installing the RFID Event Manager (UNIX)

Troubleshooting During RFID Event Manager Installation

Selecting the Installation Type

Before beginning your installation of the RFID Event Manager, decide whether you are using the Typical Installation or Custom Installation option.

Using the Typical Installation Option

Use the Typical Installation option to install the minimum required event manager components to run the RFID Event Manager.

This option installs all RFID Event Manager components on one machine. Therefore, do not use this option when you need to install the Execution Agent and Control Station components in a distributed system. To create a distributed installation, see Creating a Distributed RFID Software Installation.

You do not need to have an application server installed to perform this type of installation.

The typical installation option installs the following basic components:

RFID Control Station components. The control station contains components necessary to run the code provisioner, the Jini Lookup Server, and the workload monitor.

RFID Execution Agent

RFID Common Files

Using the Custom Installation Option

Use the custom installation option in the following scenarios:

To install the web services for ALE and device access.

To install the SAP plug-in for integration with the SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure.

To create a distributed RFID installation. See Creating a Distributed RFID Software Installation.

To install the SAP plug-in or the web services components, you need the following:

An application server installed on the local system

The custom installation option installs one or more (as you choose) of the following components:

RFID Control Station

RFID Execution Agent

RFID common files

Web services for ALE and device access

SAP Plug-in for SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure

Creating a Distributed RFID Software Installation

An alternative configuration to a typical installation of the RFID Event Manager is to deploy the RFID Event Manager's Control Station on a different host in the subnet from that used for the Execution Agent. An RFID Event Manager can be distributed over multiple computer nodes so that there is no single point of failure.

The RFID Event Manager is designed to process streams of tag or sensor data (event data) coming from one or more reader devices. To localize reader traffic, an enterprise may have numerous instances of the RFID Event Manager's Execution Agent at each geographically remote site, such as a store, distribution center, or warehouse. A typical store or warehouse is likely to have many readers. Given the amount of network traffic from readers, it is important to localize data by enabling the RFID Event Manager's Execution Agents to filter the tag data at each site, instead of sending the data over the Internet. See To Install the RFID Event Manager Components for a Distributed Environment.

Installing the RFID Event Manager (UNIX)

Use the installation wizard, to install the components of the RFID Event Manager.

To Install RFID Event Manager Using Typical Installation

This procedure does not walk through each wizard panel. It does cover panels that need additional explanation.

Note - You do not need to have an application server to do a typical installation of the RFID Event Manger.

1. Get the software.

See Getting the RFID Software and the RFID Documentation.

For web download, locate your unzipped software and change to the directory containing the unzipped download file.

For CD installation, insert the Sun Java System RFID Software 3.0 CD.

2. Enable access to the X server.

% xhost + machine-name

3. Become superuser (root).

% su root

4. Set the DISPLAY environment variable to display to your machine name.

For example, using the csh shell, you would type:

% setenv DISPLAY [machine-name:]0.0

5. Start the installation.

a. Change to the appropriate directory.

For web download, change to the directory containing the unzipped download file, then change to the rfidem directory.

For CD installation, change to the rfidem directory for your platform.

For example, /linux/rfidem/setup.

b. Start the installer.

#./setup

The Welcome page displays.

6. From the Welcome panel, click Next and follow the instructions on the panels to perform the installation.

7. When specifying the location of your Java 2 Standard Edition, version 1.4.2 installation, be sure to select only the top level of the installation path.

For example, if your J2SE version is located in /usr/j2se, JAVA_HOME should be /usr/j2se. If your J2SE version is located in /usr/jdk1.4.2/bin/java, JAVA_HOME should be /usr/jdk1.4.2.

8. On the Station Location and Group Configuration panel, complete the required fields.

Host Name/IP Address - You need to know the host name of the system you are installing.

Group Name - This field is the Jini group name for the Control Station. The group name must be unique for every Control Station you set up. The group name gives the Control Station its identity over the network. The software comes with a default group name of AutoID.

Note - When installing multiple Control Stations in the same subnet, verify that the Jini Group Name is consistent among files and is unique for your deployment.

The following screen capture shows this panel of the installer wizard.

Screen capture of the Station Location and Group Configuration panel. Buttons are Back, Next, Cancel and Help.

9. When the installation is complete, click Close to dismiss the wizard.

10. (Optional) Start the RFID Event Manager.

See To Start the RFID Event Manager.

To Install the RFID Event Manager Using the Custom Installation Option

Prerequisite - If you choose to install the ALE web service or the plug-in for SAP AII, you must have either Sun Java System Application Server Enterprise Edition 8.1 2005Q1 (Application Server Enterprise Edition) or Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 8.1 2005Q2 UR2 (Application Server Platform Edition) installed and running before you start the RFID Event Manager installer.

1. Verify that your Application Server is running.

2. Begin the installation as described for performing a typical installation.

See To Install RFID Event Manager Using Typical Installation.

3. On the Select Type of Installation panel, select Custom Installation, and click Next.

The Select Components panel appears.

Screen capture showing Component Selection panel that appears during custom installation of the RFID Event Manager. Buttons are Back, Next, Cancel, Help.

4. Select the components to install and click Next.

When you select the web services for ALE and device access or the plug-in for SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure, the Application Server Selection Panel appears during the installation.

5. When prompted, specify the location of your installation of Java 2 Standard Edition, version 1.4.2.

6. When the Application Server Verification panel appears, select the application server that you are using and click next.

If the installer cannot detect your application server, use the Browse button to find and specify your application server location.

The Application Server Configuration panel appears as shown in the following screen capture.

Screen capture showing the Application Server Verification panel. Buttons are Browse, Back, Next, and Cancel

7. Type the parameters specific to your application server and click Next.

The following screen capture shows sample values for Application Server Platform Edition.

Screen capture showing Application Server Configuration panel. Data fields are User Name, Password, Confirm Password, Host Name, Admin Port, Intance. Buttons are Back, Next, Cancel, and Help.

For Sun Java System Application Server 8.1, the parameters and default values are as follows:

User Name	admin
Password	admin password
Host name	name of the machine where Application Server is installed

For the Enterprise Edition

Admin Port	4849
Instance	domain1

For the Platform Edition

Admin Port	4848
Instance	domain1

8. On the Application Server Policy panel, indicate if the installer should update the server.policy file during installation.

Selecting this option causes the installer to overwrite the existing application server's server.policy file.

Screen capture of Application Server Policy Panel showing the option to have the installer update the policy file. Yes, is preselected. Buttons are Browse, Next, and Cancel.

9. Click Next to continue.

When the installer has completed the installation, you can review the log message by clicking Details.

10. When installation is complete, click Close to dismiss the installer.

11. (Optional) Verify that the web services were deployed to the application server.

See To Verify the Deployment of RFID Event Manager Services.

12. (Plug-in for SAP AII only) To complete the setup of the plug-in for SAP AII, you must configure the RFID Event Manager and the SAP AII system in order to establish the proper communication between these systems.

Follow the procedures in Chapter 4 of the Sun Java System RFID Software 3.0 Administration Guide.

To Install the RFID Event Manager Components for a Distributed Environment

In configuring a distributed installation, you need at least one Control Station on one machine, and multiple Execution Agents installed on one or more different machines.

Note - When installing multiple Control Stations in the same subnet you should verify that the Jini Group is consistent amongst files and unique for your deployment.

1. To create a distributed installation of the RFID Event Manager, begin the installation as described for performing a Typical Installation.

See To Install RFID Event Manager Using Typical Installation. Perform Step 1 through Step 6 as needed.

2. Select Custom Installation and install only the Control Station on one machine, machine A.

3. On machine B, use the custom installation option to install only the Execution Agent.

When prompted, specify the IP address and the host name for machine A where you have installed the Control Station.

4. When you have finished installing the distributed components, you can start each component on its respective machine.

See Appendix A for the location of the start scripts and their descriptions.

Note - During installation, the installer reports the IP address on which the installer is running. Be sure to specify the specific remote host location for each component when you are performing a distributed installation.

To Start the RFID Event Manager

Also see Appendix A for the location and description of the start and stop scripts related to the RFID Event Manager and its related components, such as the Tag Viewer and PML Reader utilities. For additional information on using the Tag Viewer, see the Sun Java System RFID Software 3.0 Administration Guide.

1. After you install the RFID Event Manager, change to the installation directory that contains the start script.

cd rfid-install-dir/bin

2. (Linux) Enable the multicast option.

The Execution Agent and the Control Station cannot start properly unless the multicast option is enabled. For Linux systems, this option needs to be enabled before starting the RFID Event Manager. Use a command similar to the following where eth0 is the network device of the system. This can be eth0, eth1, or some other value and depends on the specifications of your machine.

%ip route add multicast 224.0.0.0 dev eth0

3. Execute the script to start all the components of the RFID Event Manager.

./startall

4. (Optional) To verify proper installation, start the pmlreader.

./pmlreader

You see output similar to the following:

pmlreader: Using property file: /

/etc/opt/SUNWrfid/system/Simulators.properties

pmlreader: Creating new Reader (port=9011, readerepc=urn:epc:tag:gid-96:1.255.1, epc=urn:epc:tag:gid-96:1.1.100, tagSetSize=10, generator=com.sun.autoid.simulator.StaticEPCGenerator, minCycleTime=9000, maxCycleTime=11000)

pmlreader: Waiting for readers to complete

5. (Optional) To display the Tag Viewer, execute the script to start the viewer.

./tagviewer -p PMLReader

You see the generated tags appearing in the Tag Viewer.

Note - On Linux, if a version of Sun Java System Message Queue prior to version 3.6 is detected on the system, you are prompted to upgrade to the latest version of Message Queue (recommended). If you choose not to upgrade your system, you might encounter unsupported Message Queue interfaces.

To Verify the Deployment of RFID Event Manager Services

1. If it is not already started, start your application server.

2. Access the application server's Admin Console.

3. Expand the Applications node, then expand the Web Applications node.

Web application entries corresponding to the components you selected for installation are displayed. The following list and screen capture show those entries. The screen capture represents an installation of all RFID Event Manager components deployed to Application Server Platform Edition.

Web services for ALE - ale

Web services for device access - printerAccess and readerAccess

Plug-in for SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure - sapAiiLink

Screen capture of the Application Server Admin Console showing the deployed RFID Event Manager web applications in the left pane.

Troubleshooting During RFID Event Manager Installation

After installing the RFID Event Manager, if you start your RFID software and attached readers, and observe that the readers you have defined don't seem to be responding, an RFID Event Manager with the same group name might be running.

Reason: The Jini group name must be unique.

Solution: Specify a unique group name. See Sun Java System RFID Software 3.0 Administration Guide for details on how to correct this situation.