2. Preparing the NetWeaver installation

Before starting the NetWeaver install, you will need to do a few simple tasks.

First of all(unless you customized your packages when installing SUSE), you need to install compatibility libraries and the Java SDK, which are needed by NetWeaver along with wget, a download utility and a simple text editor, pico.

Insert SUSE CD1 in your CD-ROM drive and enter the command

yast –i java-1_4_2-sun pico wget libstdc++-libc6 compat

This will load YaST and you will be asked about the package dependencies. Select NX from the dependencies list using the spacebar and then select Solve

In the main YaST screen select Accept and then Ok in the dialog with the automatic changes list.

Next, you should set up a couple of configuration files that will be needed by for running NetWeaver properly.

The easy to use pico editor is now installed and we are going to use it to edit the temporary filesystem value in file /etc/sysconfig/kernel

pico /etc/sysconfig/kernel

Find the SHMFS_SIZE variable and set it to

SHMFS_SIZE ="1G"

Press Ctrl-X to exit pico, press Y to save changes and Enter to confirm the file path.

The next file that you need to edit is the network interface configuration file and doing this will help avoiding a problem that the NetWeaver server would have after the first system restart.
Because the NetWeaver setup script edits an obsolete network configuration script(from SUSE 9.0/9.1), unless you do this, after the first post-install system reboot NetWeaver will fail to start if the file is not edited.
The file can be found in the /etc/sysconfig/network folder and is named using the convention ifcfg-eth-id-your network card’s MAC address In order to edit this configuration file and remove the obsolete one, use the commands:

cd /etc/sysconfig/network
ls
pico ifcfg-eth-id-your network card’s MAC address

Note: If you have more than one network card, there will be more than one configuration file. If that is the case, use the command ifconfig to find out the MAC addresses of the network cards in your system and pick the configuration file that is named using the MAC address of the eth0 card.

At the end of the configuration file, append following lines:

IPADDR_0='195.155.155.1'
 
NETMASK_0='255.255.255.0'

LABEL_0=0

Next, assign the hostname nw4host to the 195.155.155.1 IP address in the /etc/hosts file:

cd /etc/
pico hosts

At the end of the file, append the following line:

195.155.155.1 nw4host

Save the file and type the command

reboot

The reboot is needed to reinitialize the temporary filesystem size you have edited earlier and will also initialize the new IP address for the eth0 network interface.

Next, you should create the NetWeaver Testdrive ISO from the part files.

After booting, if you haven't already downloaded the NetWeaver ISO part files, do it now. Create a directory for the kit files, I'll call it SAPKIT.

mkdir /SAPKIT
cd /SAPKIT

Downloading can be easily done using the command wget:

wget ftp://ftp.sap.com/pub/linuxlab/test_drive/NW4/i386/NW4_TestDrive.iso_Part_aa

...and so on to ae.

If you already have the files on a Windows system and you don't know how to mount Windows shares, you can either read a tutorial on that or transfer them from the Windows system by using SCP.
If you prefer transferring the files through SCP, you can download WinSCP. It offers a simple Norton Commander style split screen interface. Just enter the IP address that you've set up for your Linux system and login using the name and password of the user you've created at the end of the Linux setup and copy the files.

Once all the kit files are in the same directory merge them into the proper ISO file by using the command

cat NW4_TestDrive.iso_Part_a* > NW4_TestDrive.iso

After the file combine is finished, login as the superuser using the su command and mount the ISO image using the command:

mount NW4_TestDrive.iso /media/cdrom/ -o loop