Preface

This manual describes how to install and setup Deployit.

Installing Deployit

This section contains information on the installation of the Deployit server.

Prerequisites

Server Requirements

To install the Deployit server, the following prerequisites must be met:

Depending on the environment, the following may also be required:

Determining Harddisk Space Requirements

The Deployit server itself only uses about 70MB of disk space. The main harddisk space usage comes from the repository which stores your deployment packages and deployment history. The size of the repository will vary from installation to installation but depends mainly on:

Follow this procedure to obtain an estimate of the total required disk space:

The needed amount of disk space in total is equal to:

Space Needed = ((SizeAfterImport - InitialSize) * NumPackages) +
    ((SizeAfterDeployments - SizeAfterImport) * NumDeployments)

If NumPackages and NumDeployments are expressed per timeunit (e.g. the number of packages to be imported per month), then the end result represents the space needed per month as well.

Unix Middleware Server Requirements

Unix-based middleware servers that Deployit interacts with must meet the following requirements:

Windows Middleware Server Requirements

Windows-based middleware servers that Deployit interacts with must meet the following requirements:

Extending Middleware Support

It is possible to connect Deployit to middleware servers that do not support SSH, Telnet or WinRM. Using the Overthere remote execution framework, a custom access method can be created that connects to the server. See the Customization Manual for more details.

Client Requirements

GUI Clients

To use the Deployit GUI, you must meet the following requirements:

CLI Clients

To use the Deployit CLI, you must meet the following requirements:

Installation Procedure

To begin installing Deployit, first unpack the distribution archive. The distribution archive contains the following:

Installing the Server

Follow these steps to install the Deployit server application:

  1. Login to the server where the Deployit Server will be installed. It is recommended to install Deployit Server as a non-root user, e.g. deployit.
  2. Create an installation directory, e.g. /opt/xebialabs/deployit.
  3. Copy the Deployit Server archive to the directory.
  4. Extract the archive into the directory.

Deployit Server Directory Structure

Once the Deployit installation file is extracted, the following directory structure exists in the installation directory (in the remainder of the document this directory will be referred to as DEPLOYIT_SERVER_HOME):

Installing the CLI

Follow these steps to install the Deployit CLI application:

  1. Login to the server where the Deployit CLI will be installed.
  2. Create an installation directory.
  3. Copy the Deployit CLI archive to the directory.
  4. Extract the archive into the directory.

Deployit CLI Directory Structure

Once the Deployit installation file is extracted, the following directory structure exists in the installation directory:

Running the Server Setup Wizard

Run the Deployit Setup Wizard to start the Deployit server and prepare it for use. The command server.sh -setup starts the wizard. If you want to stop the Setup Wizard at any time, enter exitsetup. All changes to the configuration will be discarded.

The Setup Wizard displays the following welcome message:

Welcome to the Deployit setup.
You can always exit by typing 'exitsetup'.
To re-run this setup and make changes to the Deployit server configuration 
you can run server.cmd -setup on Windows or server.sh -setup on Unix.

Do you want to use the simple setup?
Default values are used for all properties. To make changes to the default 
properties, please answer no.
Options are yes or no.
[yes]: 

Answer yes (or press Enter) to use the simple setup. Simple setup makes it easy to quickly get started with Deployit and to use the product's default configuration. See Simple Setup for more information.

Answer no to use the manual setup. Manual setup provides explicit control over all Deployit settings. See Manual Setup for more information.

Note: if you installed Deployit in the same location before, the Setup Wizard will ask you whether you want to edit the existing configuration or create a new one. Answer yes (or press Enter) to edit the existing configuration. The Setup Wizard will load all settings from the existing configuration and allow you to choose simple or manual setup. Answer no to start over with an empty configuration.

Simple Setup

Using simple setup, the Setup Wizard will assume default values for all configuration parameters. Specifically, the following defaults will be used:

The Setup Wizard will ask one more question:

Do you want Deployit to initialize the JCR repository?
Options are yes or no.
[yes]: 

Answer yes (or press Enter) if you want the Deployit repository to be recreated. The Setup Wizard must have write access to the repository directory. Answer no to leave the repository intact. This option is useful if you already have an existing repository that you want to reuse.

See Finishing the Setup Wizard for completing the setup process.

Warning: if you choose to recreate the Deployit repository and you have installed Deployit in the same location before, any information stored in the repository will be lost.

Manual Setup

The manual setup procedure contains the following steps:

Secure Communication Configuration

The Setup Wizard will show the following message:

Would you like to enable SSL?
Options are yes or no.
[yes]: 

Answer no to use regular unsecured communication between the GUI and the server. Continue with the port configuration section.

Answer yes (or press Enter) if you want to use a secure connection from the GUI to the server.

If you answer yes, the Setup Wizard will ask the following question to help you configure secure communication:

Would you like Deployit to generate a keystore with a self-signed 
certificate for you?
N.B.: Self-signed certificates do not work correctly with some versions 
of the Flash Player and some browsers!
Options are yes or no.
[yes]: 

Answer yes (or press Enter) if you want the Setup Wizard to generate a digital certificate automatically. The digital certificate is required to secure communication and is normally signed by a Certificate Authority (CA). The Setup Wizard can generate a self-signed certificate if there is no official certificate available. Beware that using a self-signed certificate may trigger security warnings in some Flash players and browsers. Continue with the port configuration section.

Answer no if you want to use your own keystore. Deployit uses the built-in Jetty webserver to communicate with the GUI. Jetty requires a certificate with the name Jetty to be present in the keystore.

The Setup Wizard prompts you for the following keystore information:

What is the path to the keystore?
[]: 

What is the password to the keystore?
[]: 

What is the password to the key in the keystore?
[]: 

Enter the filesystem location of the keystore (for example, mykeystore.jks), the password to unlock the keystore and the password for the Jetty certificate in the keystore.

Port Configuration

The Setup Wizard shows the following question:

What http port number would you like the server to listen on?
[4516]: 

Note: if you chose to enable secure communication, the default port will be 4517 instead of 4516.

Enter the port number that the Deployit server listens on for connections.

Thread Configuration

The Setup Wizard shows the following questions:

Enter the minimum number of threads the HTTP server should use (recommended: 
    3 per client, so 3 for single user usage)
[3]: 

Enter the minimum number of threads that the Deployit server uses to handle incoming connections. The recommended minimum number of threads is 3 per Deployit application client.

Enter the maximum number of threads the HTTP server should use (recommended :
    3 per client, so 24 for 8 concurrent users)
[24]: 

Enter the maximum number of threads that the Deployit server uses to handle incoming connections. The recommended maximum number of threads is 3 per Deployit application client.

Repository Configuration

The Setup Wizard shows the following questions:

Where would you like Deployit to store the JCR repository?
[repository]: 

Enter the filesystem path to a directory where Deployit will create the repository. If the directory does not exist, the Setup Wizard will create it.

Do you want Deployit to initialize the JCR repository?
Options are yes or no.
[yes]: 

Answer yes (or press Enter) if you want the Deployit repository to be recreated. The Setup Wizard must have write access to the repository directory.

Answer no to leave the repository intact.

Warning: if you choose to recreate the Deployit repository and you have installed Deployit in the same location before, any information stored in the repository will be lost.

Importable Packages Configuration

The Setup Wizard shows the following question:

Where would you like Deployit to import packages from?
[importablePackages]: 

Enter the filesystem path to a directory from which Deployit will import packages. The Setup Wizard assumes that this directory exists once the Deployit server starts and will not create it.

Finishing the Setup Process

Once you have completed configuration of the setup process, the Setup Wizard displays an overview of all selected options. The following text is an example:

Do you agree with the following settings for Deployit and would you like 
    to save them?
Changes will be saved in deployit.conf
    SSL will be disabled
    HTTP port is 4516
    HTTP server will use a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 24 threads
    JCR repository home is at repository
    JCR repository will be initialized.
    Task recovery file will deleted
    Application import location is importablePackages
[yes]:         

Answer yes (or press Enter) to store the configuration settings and end the Setup Wizard. If you selected the option to initialize the repository, this will be done now.

Answer no to abort the Setup Wizard.

If the Setup Wizard is successfully completed, it will display the following message:

You can now start your Deployit server by executing the command server.cmd 
    on Windows or server.sh on Unix.
Note: If your Deployit server is running please restart it.
Finished setup.

Changing the Admin Password

By default, Deployit is installed with a special user with administrative permissions. This user has the username admin and password admin. As the last step in the installation, the admin password should be changed to something more secure. Issue the following commands in the CLI to do this:

adminUser = security.readUser('admin')
adminUser.password = 'newpassword'
security.modifyUser(adminUser)

# Test whether the change is successful
security.logout()
security.login('admin', 'newpassword')

High Availability Setup

Deployit can be configured to ensure maximum uptime of the application. In such a high availability setup, two instances of Deployit are running in an active/passive configuration. At any one time, only one Deployit instance is active but as soon as a failure is detected, the passive Deployit instance is activated and the failed instance is taken down for repair.

The easiest way to achieve such a configuration is by using the same configuration for each Deployit instance.

Warning: unpredictable results may occur when running two Deployit instances against the same repository at the same time.

When switching from one Deployit instance to another, any running tasks will be recovered by the new instance (see the Deployit Reference Manual for more information).

To configure such a setup, a router with active/passive support must be used.

Upgrading Deployit

To begin upgrading Deployit, first unpack the distribution archive. The distribution archive contains the following:

Upgrading the Server

To upgrade an existing Deployit server installation, do the following:

  1. Make a backup copy of the existing Deployit server installation directory.
  2. Create a new installation directory with the same name as the previous installation directory.
  3. Extract the server archive in this directory.
  4. Copy the contents of the conf, repository and hotfix directories from the backup directory into the installation directory.
  5. Copy the contents of the importablePackages directory from the backup directory into the installation directory.
  6. Copy the contents of the plugins directory from the backup directory into the installation directory.
  7. Copy the contents of the ext directory from the backup directory into the installation directory.

Note: please make sure that the plugins and extensions in the old Deployit installation are compatible with the new Deployit server.

This completes upgrading of the Deployit server.

Upgrading the CLI

To upgrade an existing Deployit CLI installation, do the following:

  1. Make a backup copy of the existing Deployit CLI installation directory.
  2. Create a new installation directory with the same name as the previous installation directory.
  3. Extract the CLI archive in this directory.
  4. Copy the contents of the plugins, ext and hotfix directories from the backup directory into the installation directory.

This completes upgrading of the Deployit CLI.

Configuring Deployit

This section contains information on the configuration of the Deployit server.

Configuring Security

Security in Deployit

Deployit supports a fine-grained access control scheme to ensure the security of your middleware and deployments. Deployit's security mechanism is based on the concepts of principals and permissions.

Principals

A (security) principal is an entity that can be authenticated and that can be assigned rights over resources in Deployit. Out of the box, Deployit supports only users as principals -- users are authenticated by means of a username and password and rights within Deployit are assigned to the user itself. When using an LDAP repository, groups in LDAP are also treated as principals. See below for more information about LDAP.

There is one special user, admin, who has special rights in Deployit. This user is allowed to grant and revoke security permissions.

Permissions

Permissions are rights to execute particular actions in Deployit. Some permissions also imply the rights to make modifications to (certain parts of) the repository. Permissions can also be restricted to a subset of the resources in Deployit if fine-grained access control is required. See the Reference Manual for more information about the repository structure.

Deployit supports the following permissions:

Granting, Revoking and Denying

Access rights in Deployit can be granted to a principal or revoked from a principal. When rights are granted, the principal is allowed to perform some action or access repository entities. Rights once granted can be revoked again to prevent the action in the future. Rights can also be explicitly denied. Denying permission acts as a negative grant -- the right is explicitly disallowed.

Access rights can be used stand-alone or in combination with one or more CIs. In the former case, the principal will have access to all CIs associated with the permission. In the latter case, the access rights will be restricted to the particular CIs. For example, granting import#initial to a principal allows the principal to import any application. Granting import#initial on Applications/PetClinic allows the principal to import only PetClinic packages.

Configuring Repository Security

Security in the Deployit repository can be configured using the command line interface. See the Deployit Command Line Interface (CLI) Manual for more information.

Creating Users

Deployit can only create users in it's own repository, even if it is configured to use an LDAP repository for authentication and authorization. To do this, use a statement such as the following:

deployer = security.createUser("john", "secret")

Granting Permissions

To grant a particular permission to a principal, use a statement such as the following:

security.grant("import#initial", "john")

To grant a particular permission to a principal on a CI, use a statement such as the following:

security.grant("read", "mary", ['Environments/Dev'])

Revoking Permissions and Privileges

To revoke a particular permission from a principal, use a statement such as the following:

security.revoke("read", "john", ['Environments/Dev'])

Inherited Permissions

Permissions in Deployit are inherited for all CIs that are contained in the CI node you specified the permissions for. For example, if you have read permission on Environments/Dev, you will also have read permission on all of the CIs under this node such as deployed applications. This is what happens when you use stand-alone permissions. If you use permissions on specific CIs, these permissions are set only on the specified CIs and are inherited from this CI onwards.

Permissions on Deployed Applications

Giving users permissions on deployed applications requires some knowledge of how these CIs are stored in the repository. As described in the Deployit Reference Manual, deployed applications are stored under both the /Environments as well as /Infrastructure nodes. Giving users read permission on a deployed application involves giving them permissions under both nodes.

Security Configuration Example

Let's illustrate the security setup with an example.

In a typical medium to large size company, there several different groups of people that perform tasks related to deployments. There are administrators that install, test and maintain hardware, there are deployers that deploy applications to development, test, acceptance and production environments. And finally there are the developers who build these applications.

Translating this into Deployit terms:

See the Deployit Command Line Interface (CLI) Manual for the exact commands to implement this.

Configuring LDAP Security

By default, Deployit authenticates users and retrieves authorization information from it's repository. Deployit can also be configured to use an LDAP repository to authenticate users and to retrieve role (group) membership. In this scenario, the LDAP users and groups are used as principals in Deployit. Rights can be assigned to both users and groups. The rights assigned to a principal are always stored in the JCR repository.

Deployit treats the LDAP repository as read-only. This means that Deployit will use the information from the LDAP repository, but can not make changes to that information.

When authenticating a user, Deployit first tries to locate the user in the LDAP repository. If this fails, Deployit will check it's own repository as a backup.

To configure Deployit to use an LDAP repository, the built-in JCR repository, Jackrabbit, must defer to the LDAP server for authentication. This requires modification of the default Deployit Jackrabbit configuration. Follow these steps:

  1. Edit conf/jackrabbit_jaas.config file.

    The file must be accessible for the Deployit server. The sample file can be adapted to suit your needs. The LdapLoginModule takes the following arguments:

  2. Modify the Deployit server startup command.

    Notify the Deployit server of the new configuration file by specifying the following JVM variable in the startup script:

    -Djava.security.auth.login.config="$DEPLOYIT_SERVER_HOME/conf/jackrabbit_jaas.config"
    
  3. Edit the conf/jackrabbit-repository.xml

    Change the jackrabbit-repository.xml by looking up the Security-block, and changing it to look like this:

    <Security appName="Jackrabbit">
        <SecurityManager class="org.apache.jackrabbit.core.DefaultSecurityManager" 
           workspaceName="security" />
        <AccessManager class="org.apache.jackrabbit.core.security.DefaultAccessManager" />
    </Security>
    

Configuring the Repository

Using a Database

Deployit can also use a database to store its repository. The built-in Jackrabit repository must be configured to make this possible. The two relevant components are Jackrabbit's PersistenceManager (used for storing nodes and revisions) and DataStore (optionally used for storing large binary objects). In the default Deployit configuration, the Derby database and file system DataStore are used.

Here are some examples of configuring Deployit to use a database for various database vendors. The XML snippets below must be put into the conf/jackrabbit-repository.xml file. There are two XML fragments in this file specifying the PersistenceManager. Both need to be modified, but there is a slight difference. The first occurrence, in the Workspace section, is a template and contains the line:

<param name="schemaObjectPrefix" value="${wsp.name}_" /> 

Note the variable ${wsp.name} here.

The second occurrence, in the Versioning section, looks exactly like the previous one, except it does not have this variable. Here, the line should be:

<param name="schemaObjectPrefix" value="version_" /> 

The examples below all contain the Workspace version of the configuration.

MySQL

<PersistenceManager 
    class="org.apache.jackrabbit.core.persistence.pool.MySqlPersistenceManager">
    <param name="url" value="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/deployit" />
    <param name="user" value="deployit" />
    <param name="password" value="deployit" />
    <param name="schemaObjectPrefix" value="${wsp.name}_" />
</PersistenceManager>

Note: The MySQL database is not suited for storage of large binary objects, see the MySQL bug tracker.

DB2

 <PersistenceManager 
    class="org.apache.jackrabbit.core.persistence.pool.BundleDbPersistenceManager">
    <param name="driver" value="com.ibm.db2.jcc.DB2Driver"/>
    <param name="url" value="jdbc:db2://localhost:50002/deployit" /> 
    <param name="user" value="deployit" /> 
    <param name="password" value="deployit" />
    <param name="databaseType" value="db2" /> 
    <param name="schemaObjectPrefix" value="${wsp.name}_" /> 
 </PersistenceManager>

Oracle

 <PersistenceManager 
    class="org.apache.jackrabbit.core.persistence.bundle.OraclePersistenceManager">
    <param name="driver" value="oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"/>
    <param name="url" value="jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:orcl"/>
    <param name="user" value="deployit" /> 
    <param name="password" value="deployit" />
    <param name="schema" value="oracle" /> 
    <param name="schemaObjectPrefix" value="${wsp.name}_" /> 
</PersistenceManager>

For more information about using a database with Jackrabbit, see it's PersistenceManager FAQ and DataStore FAQ.

Installing Plugins

Deployit Server supports various plugins that add functionality to the system. When it starts, the Deployit server scans the plugins directory and loads all plugins it finds. The additional functionality they provide is immediately available. Any plugins added or removed when Deployit server is running will not take effect until the server is restarted.

Installing a Plugin

To install a new plugin, stop the Deployit server and copy the plugin JAR archive into the plugins directory, then restart the Deployit server.

Uninstalling a Plugin

To uninstall a plugin, stop the Deployit server and remove the plugin JAR archive from the plugins directory, then restart the Deployit server.

Configuring Logging

Out of the box, Deployit server writes informational, warning and error log messages to standard output as well as log/deployit.log when running. It is possible to change this behavior to write log output to a file or to log output from a specific source.

Deployit uses the Logback logging framework for it's logging. To change it's behavior, edit the file logback.xml in the conf directory of the Deployit server installation directory.

The following is an example logback.xml file:

<configuration>
    <appender name="STDOUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
       <!-- encoders are assigned the type
          ch.qos.logback.classic.encoder.PatternLayoutEncoder by default -->
       <encoder>
         <pattern>
          %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%thread] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n
         </pattern>
       </encoder>
    </appender>

    <!-- Create a file appender that writes log messages to a file -->
    <appender name="FILE" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
        <layout class="ch.qos.logback.classic.PatternLayout">
            <pattern>%-4relative [%thread] %-5level %class - %msg%n</pattern>
        </layout>
        <File>log/my.log</File>
    </appender>

    <!-- Set logging of classes in com.xebialabs to DEBUG level -->
    <logger name="com.xebialabs" level="debug"/>

    <!-- Set logging of class HttpClient to DEBUG level -->
    <logger name="HttpClient" level="debug"/>

    <!-- Set the logging of all other classes to INFO -->
    <root level="info">
       <!-- Write logging to STDOUT and FILE appenders -->
       <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" />
       <appender-ref ref="FILE" />
    </root>

</configuration>

For more information see the Logback website.

Setting up Deployit

This section describes how to setup Deployit server in your environment.

Deployit must be setup for your environment before it can be used to execute deployments. This entails the following steps:

  1. Start the Deployit server.
  2. Discover your middleware. Deployit can inspect your environment and automatically create CIs for your middleware. Alternatively, you can use a bulk-import to import your middleware or create them by hand using the Deployit GUI.
  3. Add the discovered middleware to an environment. CIs must be grouped in an environment to use them for deployment.

Setup of Deployit is performed using the Deployit Command Line Interface (CLI). For more information about the CLI, see the Deployit Command Line Interface (CLI) Manual.

Starting and Stopping

Starting the Server

Open a terminal window and change to the DEPLOYIT_SERVER_HOME directory. Start the Deployit server with the command:

bin/server.sh

on Unix and

bin/server.cmd

on Windows.

By starting the server with the -h flag, a message is printed that shows the possible options it supports:

server.sh arguments...
    -reinitialize : Reinitialize the repository, only useful with -setup
    -setup        : (Re-)run the setup for Deployit

The command line options are:

Server Options

Any options you want to give the Deployit Server when it starts can be specified in the DEPLOYIT_SERVER_OPTS environment variable.

Starting Deployit in the Background

By running the server.sh or server.cmd command, the Deployit server is started in the foreground. To run the server as a background process, use:

nohup bin/server.sh &

on Unix or run Deployit as a service on Windows.

Java Properties

Deployit server also responds to certain Java properties that influence it's behavior. These properties may be set in the environment (e.g. by executing export jetty.host=127.0.0.1 in the terminal used to start the server) or by passing them to Java on the command line (for instance, by adding the flag -Djetty.host=127.0.0.1 to the command that starts the server). The following option is supported:

Stopping the Server

It is possible to stop the Deployit server using a REST API call. The following is an example of a command to generate such a call (replace admin:admin with your own credentials):

curl -X POST --basic -u admin:admin 
    http://admin:admin@localhost:4516/deployit/server/shutdown

This requires the external curl command, available for both Unix and Windows.

Editing CIs

The CIs in the Deployit repository can also be edited, either using the command line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI). See the respective manuals for more details.

Maintaining Deployit

This section describes how to maintain the Deployit server in your environment.

Creating Backups

To create a backup of Deployit, several components may need to be backed up depending on your configuration:

Note: Deployit must not be running when you are making a backup. Schedule backups outside planned deployment hours to ensure the server is not being used.

Restoring Backups

To restore a backup of Deployit, restore one of the following components:

Note: Deployit must not be running when you are restoring a backup.