9.4

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Servers preparation and high-level installation flow

Before installing WorkFusion Software, read this section carefully and perform the required preparations.

Servers preparation

Make sure the requirements are met for each server.

note

VDS (Virtual Data Scientist) is the former name for the AutoML component. VDS refers to AutoML in all cases.

It's advised to use mounted HDD/SDD volume for the installation and keep it separate from the root volume where Operating System is installed.

caution

Workfusion SPA is designed to be installed via a non-privileged user account. When first provisioning servers for WorkFusion SPA installation, make sure the system packages listed in Required packages are installed. If you skip this step, root permissions will be required to install these packages later. Besides installation of 9.4.x required packages, root permissions will be required for execution of a small number of operations on the servers before actual installation. All these operations are documented in details on Run preinstall manually. If during installation, you will not have root permissions, you should request root access or ask server administrators to execute everything from Run preinstall manually.

If root access is available, then you don't need to care about any preparations (aka preinstall steps). The installer will perform all of them automatically.

High-level installation flow

The information below will give you the big picture of what to expect during the installation of Workfusion SPA.

The entire Workfusion SPA product consists of a small number of components.

These components are logically grouped into 7 roles that are distributed across 7 servers as the default, recommended architecture scheme. The Product architecture documentation contains a diagram of all the components and how they are distributed across 7 servers:

  1. DB (Linux)

  2. APP (Linux)

  3. APM (Linux)

  4. OCR (Linux or Windows)

  5. AutoML (AutoML-Cluster) (Linux)

  6. RPA (Windows)

  7. BI (Windows)

Each server role (APP, DB, APM, etc.) represents a predefined set of software (workfusion-produced binaries and integrated third-party software). Each server role is assumed to be installed on a separate server for best performance, although some custom combinations of components and their custom distribution across servers is supported (e.g. for high availability scenarios). Custom installation schemes can be performed individually per-customer on-demand. This installation guide describes the default installation scheme (components are distributed across servers as per scheme described in the product architecture section (7 servers with predefined set of software components). The installation process is a defined set of actions that needs to be performed on each server;DB server should be installed first. The second is APP server. Other servers don't have dependencies from each other and can be installed in parallel or one-by-one in any order. Installation of software components on each Linux server is performed using the same single installation package. It doesn't matter what server role you are provisioning (DB, APP, APM, OCR or AutoML), you'll use the same installation package and the same common config files for any of them.Installation steps which need to be performed on each server are described further in documentation.

The steps below show a big picture of the activities. All the steps will be described in detail further in documentation in Preparation steps and Linux Servers installation.

Installation process on each Linux server (DB, APP, APM, OCR, AutoML [vds-master, vds-slave]) consists of the following steps:

  1. Upload installation package to each server and unarchive it.
  2. Fill two config files on DB server (config.yml and secrets.yml) inside the folder where the package was unpacked.
  3. Put required for installation TLS certificates into the <PACKAGE_DIR>/certificates directory on DB server. You have two options on how to do it:
    1. Use self-signed certs. For this just execute the generate-certificates.sh script bundled into the installer. It will generate all required certificates and put them into the certificates directory.
    2. Provide your own certs. Requirements for certificates are described in Using TLS certificates.
  4. Copy config files (config.yml and secrets.yml) and the certificates directory with all certs from DB server to all other Linux servers.
  5. On APP server, put your license file license.properties to the directory where you have extracted the installation package.
  6. Prepare Servers for installation. It is recommended to do it in automated fashion using single command: ./install.sh preinstall <SERVER_ROLE> as root user. If you don't have root access, ask your system administrator to provide it. If it is not an option, request system administrator to ensure that all steps from the Run preinstall manually page are performed on Linux servers. Otherwise, you'll not be able to proceed with installation.
  7. Execute the ./install.sh install <SERVER_ROLE> command on each server. Available server roles: db, app, ocr, apm, vds-master, vds-slave. This is actual installation.
  8. Execute the ./install.sh check <SERVER_ROLE> command on each server. This ensures the software is operational.

Password complexity verification

Since 9.0.0.8

The password complexity verification was implemented. We recommend the use of stronger passwords for better security. The mandatory password complexity requirements are listed below:

  • In passwords English alphabetical characters must be used.
  • Passwords must contain 6-20 characters.
  • Passwords must contain at least one capital letter [A-Z].
  • Passwords must contain at least one number [0-9].
  • Passwords must contain at least one of the following special symbols unless limitations are explicitly described in comments: "!", "*", "#", "%", "^", "@".
  • Passwords must not contain the following symbols: "$", "&".

All passwords settings are configured in secrets.yml file. In case, when these rules aren't applicable, password complexity verification can be turned off in the config.yml file by setting the variable passwords_check: false.

Domain name configuration

The steps below assume that you have provisioned the 7 servers where WorkFusion Software will be installed (5 Linux servers + 2 Windows servers).

Before performing any installation steps, configure DNS names for the servers as described in DNS names configuration section.

Network availability between servers

The steps below assume that you have provisioned the 7 servers where Workfusion Software will be installed (5 Linux servers + 2 Windows servers).

Check that the following network ports are opened between servers and for end users as described in the Application ports section.

Installation packages

Download links for all required installation packages are provided by WorkFusion. The full distribution of Workfusion Software is a set of files (archives):

  • For DB, APP, APM, OCR, AutoML Linux Servers: workfusion-full-package-.tar.gz
  • For RPA Server (Windows): RPAInstaller-.zip
  • Java SE Runtime Environment. Download from Oracle.
  • For OCR Server (Windows): OCRInstaller-.zip
  • For BI Server (Windows): WorkFusionAnalyticsInstaller-.zip, WorkFusionAnalyticsWorkbooks-.zip

Linux installation package structure

The main installation package workfusion-full-package-.tar.gz used for provisioning all Linux servers has the following file structure.

AutoML installation types

AutoML supports two types of installation. Choose the one that best suits your needs.

AutoML Cluster: a combination of one AutoML Master + one or more AutoML Agents. Additional agents may be configured and added as required at any point after the initial setup.

When installing AutoML Cluster, ensure system requirements for your infrastructure are met as described in System requirements.

AutoML Cluster

AutoML Cluster installation consists of a AutoML Master server + a number of separate AutoML Agent servers.

Choose NFS approach before proceeding. Note that AutoML Cluster uses NFS for sharing data between the master and the agents. There are several ways of using NFS for clustered AutoML setup.

  • NFS on AutoML Master: This is the default behavior when using clustered AutoML. No changes required.
  • NFS on a separate server (provided by customer): In case you have a dedicated NFS server for AutoML, it is necessary to set up and provide the shared location.
  • NFS on a separate server (configured via the installer): NFS will be configured by the installer on a separate server. Follow the instructions in Preparation steps and Linux Servers installation using vds-nfs as server_role before installing AutoML Cluster.

Once you've chosen one of the options above, you should follow the requirements of that configuration according to the system requirements. Re-configuring an already installed AutoML NFS component is not supported.

Once NFS has been configured:

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