Installing VMware tc Server
- Install tc Server Standard Edition From a ZIP or TAR File
- Mac OS X - Install VMware tc Server Developer Edition Using Homebrew
- RHEL - Install VMware tc Server Standard Edition from an RPM
- Install tc Server Developer Edition From a ZIP or TAR File
- Overview of tc Server Directories, Variables, and Configuration Files
- Setting Up Unix Users for tc Server
- Uninstalling tc Server - Typical Steps
Installation options vary according to your operating system.
Install tc Server Standard Edition From a ZIP or TAR File
Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and System Requirements.
- Review information about tc Server Standard edition and its
*.zip
or*.tar.gz
distribution files. See tc Server Editions. - If you are installing from a
*.tar.gz
on a Solaris, make sure to use GNUtar to unpack the archive. Determine the user that is going to create and run the tc Runtime instances, and create it if necessary. Consider creating a user dedicated to tc Server tasks, putting the user in a separate group from regular users, and disabling its interactive login for security purposes. See Setting Up Unix Users for tc Server.
Attention: On Unix, never run tc Runtime instances as the root user.
For clarity, it is assumed in this topic that you will install and run tc Server as the
tcserver
user.
Procedure
See Obtaining tc Server for instructions on how to download tc Server.
Download the Standard Edition package distribution in ZIP or compressed TAR format then transfer to a directory on the target host, for example
~/Downloads
.Log in to the computer on which you are installing tc Server as the appropriate user. On Unix, if you have disabled interactive login, login as a user with
sudo
privileges and usesu -s /bin/sh tcserver
to become the user. It is not recommended that thetcserver
user have sudo privileges. On Windows, this should be a user withAdministrator
privileges.Open a terminal (Unix) or command window (Windows) and create the main tc Server installation directory, such as
/opt/pivotal
.For example, on Unix:
sudo mkdir -p /opt/pivotal/tcserver
Windows example:
mkdir \opt\pivotal\tcserver\standard
Extract the tc Server distribution file into the new directory.
This action installs tc Runtime; there is no installer program.
For example, if you created a directory called
/opt/pivotal
in the preceding step, and downloaded the Standard Edition tar.gz file in the user’s home directory directory:cd /opt/pivotal/tcserver sudo tar xzf ~/pivotal-tc-server-standard-4.1.0.RELEASE.tar.gz
This action creates a directory called
standard-4.1.0.RELEASE
in the main tc Server installation directory that contains the tc Runtime utility scripts, the templates directory, the runtimes directory, and so on. The directory layout should look like the following
/opt/pivotal/tcserver/
- standard-4.1.0.RELEASE/
- runtimes/
Windows (zip):
In Windows Explorer, double-click the ZIP file you downloaded to launch the Windows Extraction Wizard and extract the file into the directory you created in the preceding step. After you unzip the ZIP file you will have a directory called
\opt\pivotal\tcserver\standard\standard-4.1.0.RELEASE
. This directory contains all the tc Runtime files and directories.
Add
tcserver
to your PATH variable. This procedure varies based on your operating system and your own internal policies. The following are the recommended methodsUnix: Create a file named
/etc/profile.d/tcserver.sh
and add the followingexport PATH=/opt/pivotal/tcserver/standard-4.1.0.RELEASE:$PATH
Change 4.1.0.RELEASE to the version you downloaded if different.
You’ll need to log out and back in our source that file. Example
. /etc/profile.d/tcserver.sh
Windows:
- Open Control Panel
- Open System
- Select
Advanced
tab - Under
System Variables
select Path then clickEdit
- Add \opt\pivotal\tcserver\standard\standard-4.1.0.RELEASE
- Click Ok
- Restart command prompt if open
Change ownership of the files. VMware recommends running the
tcserver
command as a user dedicated to tc Server. It is necessary to give this user permissions to write to theruntimes
andtemplates
directory.Unix:
chown -R tcserver:tcserver /opt/pivotal/tcserver
What to do next
- For details about the directories you installed, see Overview of tc Server Directories, Variables, and Configuration Files
- For typical post-installation procedures such as creating tc Runtime instances and starting tc Server components, see Creating and Managing tc Runtime Instances.
Mac OS X - Install VMware tc Server Developer Edition Using Homebrew
You can install VMware tc Server Developer Edition on Mac OS X computers using Homebrew.
Note: You may not be able to install the tc Server brew from inside a firewall.
Install VMware tc Server Developer Edition
Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the supported configurations described in Supported Configurations and System Requirements.
Update the formulae and Homebrew itself
brew update
Procedure
- Log in to the Mac OS X computer on which you will install VMware tc Server.
Execute the following
brew
commands:brew tap pivotal/tap
brew install tcserver
What to do next
- For details about the directories you installed, see Overview of tc Server Directories, Variables, and Configuration Files.
- For typical post-installation procedures such as creating tc Runtime instances and starting tc Server components, see Creating and Managing tc Runtime Instances.
Run the following command to create a new tc Server instance in the current directory:
tcserver create <instance_name>
Run the following command to start a tc Server instance in current directory:
tcserver start <instance_name>
RHEL - Install VMware tc Server Standard Edition from an RPM
Note: In previous tc Server versions RPM packages were uploaded to a YUM repository. As of tc Server 4.0, this is no longer the case. RPM packages have to be manually downloaded and installed.
You can also download the RPM from the VMware download page and install it on your RHEL computer using the rpm
command, as described in Install VMware tc Server from a Downloaded RPM. For detailed information on obtaining tc Server please see obtaining tc Server.
Note: tc Server 4.0.x RPM obsoletes 3.x RPMs packages. Multiple versions of tc Server RPM packages may not be installed at the same time. If this is desired then tc Server must be installed via the .tar.gz package.
Install VMware tc Server From a Downloaded RPM
You can install VMware tc Server on RHEL by downloading the RPM from the VMware download center and executing the rpm
command.
Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and System Requirements.
Procedure
- Log in to the RHEL computer on which you will install VMware tc Server as the
root
user (or as an unprivileged user who hassudo
privileges). - See Obtaining tc Server for instructions on how to download tc Server.
- Download the tc Server Standard Edition RPM file to a directory on your computer. The RPM file is called
pivotal-tc-server-4.1.0.RELEASE.noarch.rpm
. In addition, download a tc Runtime. For new installations it is recommended to use tc Runtime 9. The tc Runtime RPM will is calledpivotal-tc-runtime-9.0.6.B.RELEASE.noarch.rpm
- Start a terminal and change to the directory in which you downloaded the RPM.
Execute the following
rpm
command to install tc Server and tc Runtime:rpm -Uvhf pivotal-tc-server-4.1.0.RELEASE.noarch.rpm rpm -Uvhf pivotal-tc-runtime-9.0.6.B.RELEASE.noarch.rpm
If necessary, use
sudo
to run the preceding command if you are not logged in as theroot
user. For example:sudo rpm -Uvhf pivotal-tc-server-4.1.0.RELEASE.noarch.rpm sudo rpm -Uvhf pivotal-tc-runtime-9.0.6.B.RELEASE.noarch.rpm
In the previous section, see What the yum install command does for post-installation information, such as the installation directory and the user that is automatically created by the RPM installation. (The
yum
install command corresponds to therpm
command in this procedure.)
Install tc Server Developer Edition From a ZIP or TAR File
The procedure covers Unix and Windows installation, although most instructions are specific to Unix. If you install on Windows, change the forward slashes (/) to back slashes (\); other differences in the installation are called out.
Prerequisites
- Verify that your system meets the supported configurations and installation requirements. See Supported Configurations and System Requirements.
- Review information about tc Server Developer edition and its
*.zip
or*.tar.gz
distribution files. See tc Server Editions. - If you are installing from a
*.tar.gz
on a Solaris, make sure to use GNU tar to unpack the archive. Determine the user that is going to create and run the tc Runtime instances, and create it if necessary. Consider creating a user dedicated to tc Server tasks, putting the user in a separate group from regular users, and disabling its interactive login for security purposes. See Setting Up Unix Users for tc Server.
Attention: On Unix, never run tc Runtime instances as the root user.
For clarity, it is assumed in this topic that you will install and run tc Server as the
tcserver
user.
Procedure
See Obtaining tc Server for instructions on how to download tc Server.
Download the Developer Edition distribution in ZIP or compressed TAR file format.
Login to the computer on which you are installing tc Server as the appropriate user, such as
tcserver
. On Unix, if you have disabled interactive login, login as theroot
user and usesu - tcserver
to become the user.Open a terminal (Unix) or command window (Windows) and create the main tc Server installation directory, such as
/opt/pivotal
.For example, on Unix:
sudo mkdir -p /opt/pivotal/tcserver
Extract the tc Server distribution file into the new directory.
This action creates a directory called
pivotal-tc-server-developer-version
in the main tc Server installation directory that contains the tc Runtime utility scripts, thetemplates
directory, thetomcat-version
directory, and so on.Add
tcserver
to your PATH variable. This procedure varies based on your operating system and your own internal policies. The following are the recommended methodsUnix: Create a file named
/etc/profile.d/tcserver.sh
and add the followingexport PATH=/opt/pivotal/tcserver/developer-4.1.0.RELEASE:$PATH
Change 4.1.0.RELEASE to the version you downloaded if different.
You’ll need to log out and back in our source that file. Example
. /etc/profile.d/tcserver.sh
Windows:
- Open Control Panel
- Open System
- Select
Advanced
tab - Under
System Variables
select Path then clickEdit
- Add \opt\pivotal\tcserver\standard\developer-4.1.0.RELEASE
- Click Ok
- Restart command prompt if open
Change ownership of the files. VMware recommends running the
tcserver
command as a user dedicated to tc Server. It is necessary to give this user permissions to write to theruntimes
andtemplates
directory.Unix:
chown -R tcserver:tcserver /opt/pivotal/tcserver
Create a tc Runtime instance.
For example:
tcserver create demo-instance
Start the new tc Runtime instance.
Unix: Execute the
tcserver
script to start the instance; use the -i option to specify the directory in which the instance is located. For example:tcserver start demo-instance
Windows: Execute the
tcserver
script to first install the tc Runtime instance as a Windows service and then start it; for both commands, use the -i option to specify the directory in which the instance is located:tcserver install demo-instance tcserver start demo-instance
Note: On Windows, VMware recommends that you subsequently start and stop the tc Runtime instance through the Windows Services console. The tc Runtime instance is displayed in the console with the name
VMware tc Runtime instance - unique-name
, whereunique-name
is a unique combination of server name and server directory.
Overview of tc Server Directories, Variables, and Configuration Files
When you install the tc Runtime component, you simply unpack the appropriate *.zip
or *.tar.gz
file into the main installation directory. This action creates a <edition>-<version>
subdirectory, where <edition>-<version>
refers to the edition of tc Server that you are using (standard
or developer
) and the version of tc Server. This subdirectory in turn contains the following tc Server-related files and directories:
-
templates
Out-of-the-box templates for creating customized tc Runtime instances, such as cluster-node enabled or SSL-ready. You can specify one or more of these templates when you run thetcserver
script to create a new tc Runtime instance. This is also the default location for custom template or template retrieved from the template repository. See Templates Provided by tc Runtime for the full list. -
lib
JAR files that implement the templating mechanism and are used by thetcserver
script. -
tcserver
Script for provisioning, lifecycle, and administration of tc Runtime instances. When you create a new tc Runtime instance with this script, the script creates the instance directory specified with the-i
option or, by default, a subdirectory of thepivotal-tc-server-edition-version
directory with the same name as the new tc Runtime instance. This new directory is theCATALINA_BASE
of the tc Runtime instance. The new directory contains the instance-specific configuration files, its own Web application deployment directory, log files, and so on.
In addition to <edition>-<version>
a runtimes
directory is created which contains
-
tomcat-*version*
Whereversion
is the version of the core Apache Tomcat on which this version of the tc Runtime is based, such astomcat-9.0.6.B.RELEASE
. These directories are the basic Apache TomcatCATALINA_HOME
directory. Standard Apache Tomcat users recognize its contents. These are referred to astc Runtimes
tc Server Variables
tc Server uses the following variables:
CATALINA_HOME
. Root directory of your tc Runtime installation.The
CATALINA_HOME
variable points to the directoryINSTALL_DIR/runtimes/tomcat-<version>
, whereINSTALL_DIR
is the directory in which you installed tc Server (such as/opt/pivotal/tcserver
);<version>
refers to the tc Runtime (Apache Tomcat) version, such as9.0.6.B.RELEASE
.CATALINA_BASE
. Root directory of a particular tc Runtime instance.This directory contains the instance-specific files, such as the
conf/server.xml
file that configures this particular instance. If you created a tc Runtime instance calledmyserver
and you are using the Standard Edition, then theCATALINA_BASE
of the instance isINSTALL_DIR/instances/myserver
by default.
The following variables are “exposed” by tc Runtime, which means that you can set them or use them in your environment (or in the bin/setenv.sh
file of your tc Runtime instance) to achieve the specified results:
CATALINA_OUT
. Unix only. Use this environment variable to specify a file to which a tc Runtime instance writes stdout and stderr messages. If you do not set this environment variable explicitly, the tc Runtime instance writes stdout and stderr messages to the fileCATALINA_BASE/logs/catalina.out
.For example, to specify that the tc Runtime instance write its stdout and stderr messages to
/opt/pivotal/tcserver/tcruntime-instance-6.log
, set the variable in your environment orsetenv.sh
as follows:CATALINA_OUT=/opt/pivotal/tcserver/tcruntime-instance-6.log
INSTANCE_NAME
. Name of the tc Runtime instance. You can use this variable to create other unique variables within configuration scripts.For example, on Unix platforms you can update the
bin/setenv.sh
file to use the name of the tc Runtime instance when defining theCATALINA_OPTS
variable as follows:CATALINA_OPTS="-Dinstance.name=$INSTANCE_NAME"
On Windows, the equivalent change would be to the
conf/wrapper.conf
file as follows:set CATALINA_OPTS=-Dinstance.name=%INSTANCE_NAME%
INSTANCE_BASE
. Specifies the parent directory of the tc Runtime instance. The full pathname of the tc Runtime instance directory would be$INSTANCE_BASE/$INSTANCE_NAME
.You can use the
INSTANCE_BASE
variable in the same way as theINSTANCE_NAME
variable, as described in the preceding bullet.
tc Runtime Instance Directory Structure
After you create a new tc Runtime instance, its CATALINA_BASE
directory contains the following subdirectories:
-
bin
. Contains thesetenv.*
scripts. The*.sh
Unix files are functional duplicates of the*.bat
Windows files. -
conf
. Contains the configuration files for the tc Runtime instance, such asserver.xml
,catalina.properties
,web.xml
,context.xml
, and so on. -
lib
. Contains resources shared by all Web applications deployed to the tc Runtime instance. -
logs
. Location of the logs files. -
webapps
. Deployment directory for the Web applications deployed to the tc Runtime instance. -
work
. Temporary work directory for all deployed Web applications. -
temp
. Directory used by the JVM for temporary files.
tc Runtime Instance Configuration Files
You configure a particular tc Runtime instance by changing its configuration files. Other topics in this documentation describe how to do this. All the configuration files for a tc Runtime instance are located in its CATALINA_BASE/conf
directory. The most important configuration files are as follows:
server.xml
. Main configuration file for a tc Runtime instance. It configures the behavior of the servlet/JSP container.By default, the
server.xml
file for a tc Runtime instance uses variable substitution for configuration properties that must be unique across multiple tc Runtime instances on the computer, such as HTTP and JMX port numbers. These variables take the form${var}
. For example, the variable for the HTTP port that the tc Runtime instance listens to is${http.port}
. The specific values for these variables for a particular tc Runtime instance are stored in thecatalina.properties
file, in the same directory as theserver.xml
file.catalina.properties
. Properties file that contains the tc Runtime instance-specific values for variables in theserver.xml
file.context.xml
. Configures the context that is loaded by all Web applications deployed to the tc Runtime instance.web.xml
. Defaultweb.xml
file that is loaded by all deployed Web applications, in addition to their individualweb.xml
files.wrapper.conf
. Windows only. Configures the Java Service Wrapper from Tanuki Software used to install the tc Runtime instance as a Windows service. The Wrapper correctly handles user log outs under Windows, service dependencies, and the ability to run services that interact with the desktop.jmxremote.access
andjmxremote.password
. Configures the JMX users and passwords. The default JMX user, added at instance creation time unless you specify something different, is calledadmin
with a password made up of a list of random characters.logging.properties
. Configures the logging system of the tc Runtime instance.
Setting Up Unix Users for tc Server
Subtopics
Creating Users and Groups for tc Server
Creating Users and Groups for tc Server
The following procedure shows how to create a group and add user to it for tc Server on Red Hat Linux. The exact commands may be different on other operating systems.
Procedure
- Log in as root and start a terminal session.
Use the
groupadd
command to create a new group. The following example creates apivotal
group:groupadd pivotal
Note that if you installed from RPM on RHEL, the
pivotal
group may already exist.Use the
useradd
command to create a user to run tc Server instances. The following example creates atcserver
user in thepivotal
group:useradd tcserver -g pivotal
You can include the
-M
option to prevent creating a home directory for the user and the-s /sbin/nologin
option to prevent anyone from logging in as thetcserver
user. If specifying /sbin/nologin as a shell tosu
to this user later-s /bin/bash
needs to be added to thesu
command.su - tcserver -s /bin/bash
Create the tc Server instance and run it as this user.
If you want to run multiple tc Runtime instances under separate user accounts on the same computer, repeat the previous step to create additional tc Server users.
Uninstalling tc Server - Typical Steps
You can uninstall one or more of the following components:
Uninstallation of tc Server mostly entails removing the directories that contain the component files, although a few extra steps might be required, as described below.
Each section covers both Unix and Windows commands. The documentation uses Unix-like forward slashes (/) for directories; if you are on a Windows platform, change these to back slashes (\).
Warning: The procedures in this section describe how to completely remove the components of tc Server from your computer.
Uninstalling tc Server
The following procedure describes how to uninstall the tc Runtime and all its associated instances.
- If currently running, stop all tc Runtime instances. See Starting and Stopping tc Runtime Instances.
- Start a terminal window (Unix) or Command Prompt (Windows).
Windows only. Uninstall the service using the following command:
tcserver uninstall demo-instance
Remove the main tc Server installation directory. For example, if you installed Standard Edition, the delete command might look something like the following:
rm -rf /opt/pivotal/tcserver
Remove the instances by deleting the instances directory. This will remove the instances and any web apps and configuration swell.