Installing and Configuring HERO

Checking system prerequisites

Before starting to install HERO, you must check the following system prerequisites:

1. Verify that Docker and Docker Compose are installed, configured, and ready to use. For the required version, see System Requirements.  

If you don't have Docker and Docker Compose already installed, see Installing Docker and Docker Compose.

2. HERO requires some values to be set for ulimit parameter, for Linux OS. See: How to verify and set ulimit parameter.

3. Verify the available virtual memory. See: How to verify and set the available virtual memory.

4. If you are installing HERO on RHEL or CentOS distros, SELinux must be set to Permissive or Disabled. See: How to set SELinux to permissive.

5. If you are planning to install HERO on Windows with Hyper-V (Linux containers) see Running Linux containers on Windows Server 2019.

Installation procedure

To install and configure HERO, run the following procedure.

1. From HCL License Portal download the appropriate HERO installation package.  

2. Extract the content of the tar.gz file into <BUILD_DIR>, a directory of your choice using one of the extraction tools available on your system or downloadable from the Internet. The tool you use must be able to keep the file permissions on the extracted files.

3. Depending on your environment, download the DB2 or Oracle JDBC driver .jar file from your database provider, and copy it to the <BUILD_DIR>/EXT directory. Use the same JDBC drivers configured in  Workload Automation for DB2 or Oracle connectivity.  

4. HERO supports SSL encryption for JDBC connection.  If you want to use a custom SSL truststore file, replace the file <BUILD_DIR>/devops/cert/hero.jks with a custom one. During the installation process you will be prompted to provide the truststore password. You can also change the truststore password during the installation.

5. If you want to enable IPv6 connectivity in Docker containers, you must properly set the subnet values (gateway and ipv6_address)  in the <BUILD_DIR>/devops/templates/ipv6/docker-compose.yml file. For details, see Docker documentation.

6. Hero server uses Tomcat standard time zone (UTC). If the monitored servers use a different time zone, this might impact HERO monitoring activities. To set up a different time zone in HERO, before starting with the installation, you must edit the <BUILD_DIR>/docker-compose.yml file in the following way:

• At the end of the following line:    

- CATALINA_OPTS=-Xmx4g -Xms4g -Dnashorn.args=--no-deprecation-warning  

add the following parameter:

-Duser.timezone=selected_time_zone

 

Configuration example for GMT time zone:   

- CATALINA_OPTS=-Xmx4g -Xms4g -Dnashorn.args=--no-deprecation-warning  -Duser.timezone=GMT

 

Note:

Make sure you do not change file indentation.

 

For the list of supported time zones in Tomcat, see the section Available Time Zones in the Java documentation.  

7. To install HERO on Windows operating system, user must have administrator permissions. To install HERO on Linux operating system, user must have read and write permissions for the  <BUILD_DIR>  directory. The user must have execute permissions for Docker commands. This means that the user must be a member of sudoers group or Docker group. If the user is a member of sudoers group but not of Docker group, the installation script must be run with sudo. Also, in order for Docker containers to access HERO configuration files, all sub-folders and files in the <BUILD_DIR>/EXT directory must have permission set to 775 .

8. For Windows, open a PowerShell console. For Linux, open a Bash shell.

9. From the <BUILD_DIR> directory, start the installation script:  

   • For Linux, issue the command: ./installHERO.sh       

             To get the command help, type: ./installHERO.sh --help

   • For Windows, issue the command: .\installHERO.ps1  

     To get the command help, type: Get-help  .\installHERO.ps1  

     Note: By default HERO installation script will start offline but if the installation script is executed with “-o” flag, HERO will be installed online.

10. You can supply the required parameters either within the command:

    • For Linux:  ./installHERO.sh  -h <current hostname>  -d < current deploy path > -p < current port >  -l < current licenseID>      

    • For Windows: .\installHERO.ps1  -HOSTNAME <current hostname> -deployPath <current deploy path> -port <current port> -licenseID <current licenseID>

    or when the installHERO script requires them during the installation process. Required parameters are:

    • hostname - the host name of the machine where you are installing HERO. It must be reachable from any server where you want to deploy the monitoring scripts. This parameter is mandatory.

    If you are installing HERO on a SELinux machine such as RHEL or CentOS, set the hostname to the Fully Qualified Domain Name of the machine. To identify it, run the command hostname --fqdn.

    • port - the https port of the HERO server. This parameter is optional.

    • licenseID -  the License Key you received when you purchased the product. This parameter is mandatory.

    • deployPath - the directory on the target server in which the monitoring scripts must be deployed. This directory cannot contain blanks. This parameter is optional.

11. If you want to configure alerting by email, you are required to enter the following SMTP parameters:

    • alert SMTP email - The recipients to whom the alerts by email must be sent. Can be a comma separated list of email accounts [Example: username1@gmail.com, username2@gmail.com]

    • alert SMTP password - The password associated to the sender email account

    • alert SMTP server - Fully qualified hostname of the SMTP Server that will be used by HERO to send alerts by email [Example: smtp.gmail.com]

    • alert SMTP port - The port of the SMTP mail server [Must be a TLS Port. Example for gmail: 587]

    • sender email - The sender email account  [Example: username@gmail.com]  

12. If you are using a custom SSL truststore file for your JDBC connection, you are required to enter the following parameter:

• sslTrustStorePassword - the SSL truststore password. You can also change the truststore password during HERO installation.

13. The installation script runs the installation process and verifies its successful completion.

Post installation steps

When the installation is complete, the following link is prompted to access the HERO dashboard: https://<your_host_machine_address:port>/Dashboard  

The installation script generates two HERO users:

• userid test, password test, with user role

• userid admin, password admin, with administrator role

Use the Keycloak administration console to define new users, new roles, or change default passwords. You can access Keycloak administration console at the following link: https://<IP:PORT>/keycloak/auth/admin by using the following credentials:

• userid=admin

• password=password

 If you want, you can change Keycloak default password. For instructions, see Configuring Security.

Before adding environments to the HERO dashboard, verify that the installation process has created a Kibana default index pattern:

• In the environment page, check if the KPI link appears on top of the server card.

• If the link doesn't show up, manually set the Kibana default index pattern by following the procedure in the Appendix.

To stop HERO, from the <BUILD_DIR> directory, type docker-compose stop

To restart HERO, from the <BUILD_DIR> directory, type docker-compose start

For any reference, you can find the manual installation procedure in the Appendix. It guides you to manually execute the steps run by the automatic installation script.  

Managing containers

To manage HERO containers, run the following procedures from the <BUILD_DIR> directory.

• To gracefully stop/restart HERO, run the following commands:

1. docker-compose stop

2. docker-compose start

• To reset the containers, while maintaining HERO configuration and data stored in the DB, run the following procedure:

1. docker-compose down

2. docker-compose up --build -d

This procedure doesn't reset the custom client secret if you have created one (see Configuring Security).

• To reset the containers and the HERO configuration, while maintaining the data stored in the DB, run the following procedure:

1. docker-compose down

2. docker volume rm <BUILD_DIR>_hero-home

3. docker-compose up --build -d

This procedure doesn't reset the custom client secret if you have created one (see Configuring Security).

• To reset the containers, the HERO configuration, and the data stored in the DB, run the following procedure:

1. docker-compose down

2. docker volume rm <BUILD_DIR>_hero-home <BUILD_DIR>_ build_hero-db-data <BUILD_DIR>_ build_hero-es-data <BUILD_DIR>_ build_keycloak-nginx-ssl <BUILD_DIR>_ build_pgdata

3. docker-compose up --build -d

This procedure resets also the custom client secret if you have created one (see Configuring Security). Reconfigure HERO with the default client secret or create a new one.  

• In addition, to delete also HERO images, run the following command:

docker rmi <BUILD_DIR>] _tomcat <BUILD_DIR>_prediction <BUILD_DIR>_keycloak <BUILD_DIR>_nginx <BUILD_DIR>_licensesrv <BUILD_DIR>_kibana docker.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-oss docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss

This command completely uninstall HERO.  

Applying changes to Runbooks and Monitors

Every time a runbook is added, or a new monitor is created, run the following commands from the <BUILD_DIR> directory:

1. docker stop hero-tomcat

2. docker rm hero-tomcat

3. docker volume rm <BUILD_DIR>_hero-home   (to remove the configuration volume)

4. docker-compose up --build -d

Configuration Files

The dashboard.properties file contains general configuration parameters:

The ui.properties file configures the connection to the HERO web application services: