WebSphere Application Server 7 on Linux - It's been a while

I'm preparing to work with a client upgrading their infrastructure from WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Network Deployment v7, which runs on Java 6, to WAS ND 8.5.5, which runs on Java 8.

As a start, I wanted to install WAS on Linux ….

I have a VM running RHEL 7.4 ( which is a good start, as WAS 7 doesn't formally support that version of RHEL … but it works ).

However, the installation, which I'm obviously running as non-root, failed within seconds with: -

(16-Aug-2018 07:53:41), Process, com.installshield.extras.wizard.condition.AdminCondition, err, Unable to use Security Service
(16-Aug-2018 07:53:49), Process, com.ibm.ws.install.ni.ismp.actions.FeaturePanelControlAction, err, /tmp/normalFeaturePanelControl.xml (Permission denied)
(16-Aug-2018 07:53:49), Process, com.ibm.ws.install.ni.ismp.actions.FeaturePanelControlAction, err, /tmp/normalFeaturePanelControl.xml (Permission denied)
(16-Aug-2018 07:53:49), Process, com.ibm.ws.install.ni.ismp.actions.FeaturePanelControlAction, err, java.io.FileNotFoundException: /tmp/normalFeaturePanelControl.xml (Permission denied)
at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:179)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.installtoolkitbridge.UnifiedFileIO.writeFile(UnifiedFileIO.java:83)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.io.DiskFileSystem.writeEntry(DiskFileSystem.java:144)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.io.DiskFileSystem.writeEntry(DiskFileSystem.java:101)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.io.FileSystemEntry.getOutputStream(FileSystemEntry.java:242)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.xml.XMLUtils.saveDocument(XMLUtils.java:67)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.xml.XMLUtils.saveDocument(XMLUtils.java:49)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.ismp.actions.FeaturePanelControlAction.generateControlXML(FeaturePanelControlAction.java:775)
at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.ismp.actions.FeaturePanelControlAction.execute(FeaturePanelControlAction.java:620)
at com.installshield.wizard.StandardWizardListener.execute(StandardWizardListener.java:123)
at com.installshield.wizard.StandardWizardListener.currentBeanChanged(StandardWizardListener.java:106)
at com.installshield.wizard.Wizard$RunThread.run(Wizard.java:1569)

I've unpacked the WAS 7 ND bundle: -

C1G35ML.tar.gz

Source: Download WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Version 7.0 for the Linux operating system

into /tmp and was running the installation: -

/tmp/WAS7/ND/WAS/install

as wasadmin.

I'd checked that the file in question - normalFeaturePanelControl.xml - did not exist in the download: -

find /tmp -name normalFeaturePanelControl.xml

and: -

ls -R /tmp | grep -i normalFeaturePanelControl.xml

so I tried to create it: -

touch /tmp/normalFeaturePanelControl.xml

which failed with: -

touch: cannot touch '/tmp/normalFeaturePanelControl.xml': Permission denied

This reminded me of the old days with WAS 7 ( circa 2010-2011 ), and reminded me to do this: -

chmod -R 777 /tmp/

as root.

At which point, the installation ran without problems ……

Ah, what fun !