Railo installer in unattended mode

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Dan Skaggs

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May 29, 2012, 4:17:47 PM5/29/12
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The client that I'm working for right now asked me today if the Railo installer can be run in unattended mode. They are setting up a system called Puppet (www.puppetlabs.com) to script standing up new servers for clients that purchase their application and wanted to know if it was possible to script the options that the installer uses to set things up. I couldn't find anything in this group about it so I thought I'd ping the list and see if anyone knew.

Thanks
Dan

Gert Franz

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May 29, 2012, 6:00:08 PM5/29/12
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If the Railo express version suffices then it is possible right now already (just unzip to any directory and start the batch), if not, I am sure Jordan has an answer to this...

Gert

Sent from my iPhone

Jordan Michaels

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May 29, 2012, 6:12:46 PM5/29/12
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Yes, it's possible, although I admit I've never taken the time to try it.

The Railo installers use BitRock as the installer platform, and BitRock
installers do support unattended mode. Here's a blog post talking about it:

http://blog.bitrock.com/2009/10/unattended-mode.html

So, apparently you just add "--mode unattended" and an "option file"
with the values to the requested fields.

The catch is that I don't have an "option file" yet.

If you like, I can provide you with the XML file which contains the
options names in order to create the options file, or if you're willing
to wait, I can add it to my list of things to do.

If you can't wait and don't want to build the file yourself, maybe
consider Railo Professional support in order to bump up the priority on it.

Let us know how you'd like to proceed.

Warm Regards,
Jordan Michaels

Dan Skaggs

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May 29, 2012, 10:27:26 PM5/29/12
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Thanks for the info Jordan. The guys are wanting to try to get the Puppet install script baked this week if possible so the XML file would be great. Shouldn't be any problem to create an option file from that. I'd be glad to contribute a "sanitized" option file back for your use when we get done.

Dan

justaguy

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May 29, 2012, 11:01:30 PM5/29/12
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If Railo with Resin would suffice, Gert's suggestion, works perfectly
for us for quite some time, though I figured it out myself about two
years ago...

Specifics (one way for Windows OS):
1. Download and install Railo with Resin manually
2. At your Railo installation, say, "Program Files\Railo", there's a
batch file named install-service.bat, click on this guy to install
Railo with Resin web server.
3. Access its admin via URL, http://127.0.0.1:8600/railo-context/admin/server.cfm
or web.cfm
Do you admin thing...
4. Test it out with your app something.
5. Modify the railo-server.xml file to fit your need...

Write a batch script for coping files and execute the install-
service.bat file,
Zip this batch script together with the entire /Railo installation,
bundle it with your client's package, bingo!

Dan Skaggs

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May 29, 2012, 11:34:57 PM5/29/12
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Thanks for that, but we specifically want Railo running on Tomcat and deployed to Linux servers as part of a larger scriptable setup process through Puppet.

Dan

stofke

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May 30, 2012, 1:37:12 AM5/30/12
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Similar to the previous comment, you could also create warfiles and package up each project folder (including railo libs in your web-inf folder) and deploy that way to TomCat.  However you'd end up with a separate Railo instance for each project with it's own server and web admin.  That's more or less how you would deploy to cloudbased servers like Jelastic or cloudbees.  That is easy to script, using maven you could just haven a deploy command packaging up the code and deploy it.

Basically for cloudbees I'd setup an new folder locally have a script download Railo and add it to the folder, do "bees run" and "bees deploy" when ready.  Everything is then pushed to cloudbees (with deltas) so your entire war is not send over each time.  You could come up with something similar to your servers.

In the end it's all just java.

Op woensdag 30 mei 2012 05:34:57 UTC+2 schreef Dan Skaggs het volgende:

Jordan Michaels

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May 30, 2012, 2:11:10 PM5/30/12
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Hey Dan,

Awesome. I am truely thankful for the offer to contribute the option
file. That's extremely cool of you. =)

I'll send you the most recent XML file directly as to not pollute the
list with attachments.

Thank you again!

Warm Regards,
Jordan Michaels
> > called Puppet (www.puppetlabs.com <http://www.puppetlabs.com>) to

Cameron Childress

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Jun 13, 2012, 12:24:29 AM6/13/12
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Dan / Jordan -

I'm working on scripting a deployment using RightScale (rightscale.com) and would also be interested in getting a copy of the options file to use. I have found that I can get the installer to run unattended *without* the options file by supplying it with the single required non-default param.

./railo-*-installer.run --mode unattended --tomcatpass [yourpass]

This works with the most recent beta version for 3.3.3.001 that Jordan posted to this list a couple of hours ago. I have the entire RightScale deployment working at this point but would like to clean up the RightScripts and put all the options in there.

-Cameron
--
Cameron Childress
--
p:   678.637.5072
im: cameroncf

Dan Skaggs

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Jun 14, 2012, 11:36:45 AM6/14/12
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I finally got a chance to work on this today. Last night I had to do a fresh install of Railo and I wrote down all the prompts that I had to go through during the install. This morning I combed through the XML file that Jordan sent me and correlated as many of the options as I could locate.

The only things that I wasn't sure how to deal with are:
  1. Language selection option
  2. The 2 times you have to press enter to get through the license display
  3. Agree to license
  4. Continue setup prompt at the end of the process
Here is the content of the options file so far with placeholders for the 4 items mentioned above:

------- Language option goes here ----------
------- How to deal with 2x enter presses for license viewing -----------
------- Agree to license goes here ------------
installdir=/opt/railo
tomcatuser=admin
tomcatpass=<YOUR PASSWORD HERE>
tomcatport=8888
systemuser=apache
startatboot=Y
installconn=Y
apachever=22
bittype=64
apachecontrolloc=/etc/init.d/httpd
apachemodulesloc=/usr/lib64/httpd/modules
apacheconfigloc=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
apachelogloc=/var/log/httpd
------- Continue Setup prompt goes here ----------

Jordan...any thoughts on how to deal with those 4 items?

Thanks
Dan

Jordan Michaels

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Jun 14, 2012, 12:24:27 PM6/14/12
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Based on Cameron's experiences, I would say that *probably* none of
those prompts matter. The language doesn't matter because you won't be
reading any prompts from the installer anyway, and the license doesn't
matter because it's more of an "acknowledgement" then an "agreement".
Plus, if Cameron got the installer to work with just the one parameter,
I would imagine that all these parameters would work even better.

I'd suggest trying it with these and seeing how it goes. It'll be an
adventure! "Where no one has gone before..." lol

Warm Regards,
Jordan Michaels

On 06/14/2012 08:36 AM, Dan Skaggs wrote:
> I finally got a chance to work on this today. Last night I had to do a
> fresh install of Railo and I wrote down all the prompts that I had to go
> through during the install. This morning I combed through the XML file
> that Jordan sent me and correlated as many of the options as I could locate.
>
> The only things that I wasn't sure how to deal with are:
>
> 1. Language selection option
> 2. The 2 times you have to press enter to get through the license display
> 3. Agree to license
> 4. Continue setup prompt at the end of the process
> (rightscale.com <http://rightscale.com>) and would also be

Dan Skaggs

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Jun 14, 2012, 12:31:59 PM6/14/12
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Thanks Jordan…I was actually setting up a new VM that I could snapshot just before the Railo install and play with it. I'll let the group know what I find.

Dan

Jordan Michaels

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Jun 14, 2012, 12:36:31 PM6/14/12
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Shiny. Thanks Dan! =)

Warm Regards,
Jordan Michaels

On 06/14/2012 09:31 AM, Dan Skaggs wrote:
> Thanks Jordan�I was actually setting up a new VM that I could snapshot just before the Railo install and play with it. I'll let the group know what I find.

Cameron Childress

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Jun 14, 2012, 3:07:39 PM6/14/12
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Yes, I believe you should be able to get the installer to run in unattended mode using all the defaults. You can use an options file if you want to, but if you are scripting this, it is probably just as easy to use comment line arguments.  They seem to just be the option name with two dashes in front of it for each.  

I can confirm that using "--mode unattended" did not require me to hit enter twice or agree to anything. It installed it and started it up with no further intervention required on my part.

Dan - thanks for the list of options, I think that's all that's left for me to completely script my deployments.

Jordan - If BitRock allows you to add content for the "--help" flag, it might be a nice touch to add these args into it.

-Cameron

Dan Skaggs

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Jun 14, 2012, 3:29:51 PM6/14/12
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Hey folks...

I just got finished testing this on a new CentOS 6 VM and can confirm that it works. There's one slight difference from what I posted earlier and that's the value of the Yes/No options. The options file requires them to use true/false.  I've pasted the new options file contents below as well as the command to install it in unattended mode. The options values below are for a CentOS server--obviously you'd adjust paths and such as required for whatever system you're installing to.

Thanks everyone!

Command:
sudo ./railo-3.3.1.000-pl1-linux-x64-installer.run --mode unattended --optionfile /path/to/options.txt

Options file contents (options.txt)
installdir=/opt/railo
tomcatuser=admin
tomcatpass=password
tomcatport=8888
systemuser=apache
startatboot=true
installconn=true
apachever=22
bittype=64
apachecontrolloc=/etc/init.d/httpd
apachemodulesloc=/usr/lib64/httpd/modules
apacheconfigloc=/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
apachelogloc=/var/log/httpd

Jordan Michaels

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Jun 14, 2012, 3:50:31 PM6/14/12
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Thank you!

Warm Regards,
Jordan Michaels

On 06/14/2012 12:29 PM, Dan Skaggs wrote:
> Hey folks...
>
> I just got finished testing this on a new CentOS 6 VM and can confirm
> that it works. There's one slight difference from what I posted earlier
> and that's the value of the Yes/No options. The options file requires
> them to use true/false. I've pasted the new options file contents below
> as well as the command to install it in unattended mode. The options
> values below are for a CentOS server--obviously you'd adjust paths and
> such as required for whatever system you're installing to.
>
> Thanks everyone!
>
> *Command:*
> sudo ./railo-3.3.1.000-pl1-linux-x64-installer.run --mode unattended
> --optionfile /path/to/options.txt
>
> *Options file contents (options.txt)*
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