SAP Note

Header Data

Symptom

You want to use SAP software on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11.

Other Terms

SUSE, SLES, Enterprise Server, suse, SuSE, Novell, novell, LINUX, linux, as/400, as400, i386, i586, i686, ix86, ia64, iSeries, pSeries, Power, PowerPC, power, ppc, s390x, x86, x86_64, SLES11, SLES 11, sles, sles11, virtualization, XEN, KVM, SLES for SAP, SLES for SAP applications, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 11

Reason and Prerequisites

You want to use SAP software on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11.

Solution

Remarks

This SAP note is also valid for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 11 beginning from SP1. All SAP hardware and software certifications for SLES 11 are inherited by SLES for SAP 11. If you plan to install and run SAP kernels with version 720_EXT you need at least SLES 11 SP1 or SLES for SAP 11 SP1 (see also SAP note 1563102). This document is about the installation and configuration of SAP Software on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11, as well as upgrading an existing SAP system from SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 (SLES 10). Details about hardware platforms can be found in a section below.

Requirements for support

To receive full support for your SAP system, the following requirements must be met (this list is not exclusive):

l To ensure support for problems that may occur with the operating system a valid support contract for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server is required. A support contract can be made directly with Novell or with a support partner who is authorized to redirect possible level 3 support queries to Novell. For more information, see the following links or contact your local Novell sales representative: http://www.suse.com/support/ http://www.suse.com/products/server/policy.html For more information about "SUSE Priority Support for SAP applications", please, refer to SAP note 1056161.

l You must use hardware that is certified by your hardware vendor for use with SAP on Linux. See SAP note 171356 for a list of the corresponding notes of hardware partners.

l You may use any Linux kernel provided by Novell/SUSE for your architecture. For the ppc (Linux on IBM Power Servers) platform a minium kernel version is required. Please read the aproporiate section below.

Naming convention for SLES 11 and its service packs

In this SAP note we use the following abbreviations for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server and the service packs:

l SLES 11: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (all versions)

l SLES for SAP 11: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 11 (all versions)

    1310037 - SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11: Installation notes  

Version   61     Validity: 11.12.2013 - active   Language   Inglés

Released On 12.12.2013 10:44:34

Release Status Released for Customer

Component BC-OP-LNX-SUSE SUSE Linux

Priority Recommendations / Additional Info

Category Installation information

l SLES 11 GA: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 without any service pack

l SLES 11 SPx: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack x

l SLES for SAP 11 SPx: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 11 Service Pack x

Life cycle of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11)

An overview of the various life cycles for the SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server product line can be found in SAP note 936887.

Service Packs for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11)

Updates for SLES 11 are released in the form of Service Packs (SP). When you import a Service Pack, many RPM packages are updated to a new version. For SLES 11 you may use all Service Packs officially released by Novell. It is highly recommended to install the most current Service Pack. Also, kindly notice that after the release of a new Service Pack, older versions of packages that are updated with this Service Pack, are considered obsolete. If you have an issue with a package, for which a newer version is available in a service pack, you might be requested to update to the new package version in order to be fully supported with your issues. The most current Service Pack for SLES 11 is Service Pack 3 (also known as SLES 11 SP3). The most current Service Pack for SLES for SAP Applications 11 is Service Pack 3.

Installing SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 - SLES 11 (all versions)

Install SLES 11 as described in the documentation delivered with the product. The documentation is also electronically available in a number of languages and can be found on the first SLES 11 installation medium in the directory "/docu/<language>" (e.g. "en" for English):

l installquick.pdf - Quick Installation Guide

l admin.pdf - Admin Manual

l storage.pdf - Storage Admin Guide

General installation instructions:

l Important note for SLES 11 SP2 and SP3: This service pack requires the update of certain SAP components (i. e. the SAP Kernel) or the configuration of a Linux Kernel 2.6 compatibility environment. Please refer to section "SAP NetWeaver compatibility with the Linux Kernel 3.0.x shipped since Service Pack 2" for more details.

l Important note for SLES 11 SP1: After the completion of the SLES 11 SP1 installation an update of the java packages is required. See SAP note 1172419 for supported java versions on the x86_64 platform.

l Important note for SLES 11 GA (without any SP): After the completion of the SLES 11 installation an update of the glibc packages is required. This is described in section "GLIBC and sap-locale RPM packages" in this SAP note.

l Select English as the installation and system language. l Use as a starting point for package selections the default pattern selection presented by YaST in the "Software Selection" sub-menu and make the additional selections below:

l Manually select the pattern "SAP Application Server Base" from the Software Selection Dialogue. This ensures the installation of the "sapconf" RPM package (former sapinit), see also SAP note 1275776 for more details.

l Manually select the pattern "C/C++ Compiler and Tools" from the Software Selection Dialogue. l Finally you should then have the following software selections: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 - Base System - Help and Support Documentation - Minimal System (Appliances) - X Window System (only as an option, but we need at least the X11-server and X11-libs to run the grafical installer) - Print Server - SAP Application Server Base - Web-Based Enterprise Management - C/C++ Compiler and Tools Optional software selections: - Gnome Desktop Environment  

l If you intend to install Oracle and SAP on the same system, please, do not install the "Oracle Server Base" pattern (i.e. the "orarun" RPM package) on the system. Doing so, will prevent "sapinst" from doing a correct installation of the SAP system parts.

l If your SAP component requires the java jdk 1.4.2 you need to install the java JDK from the additional SDK media. This media is available at: http://download.novell.com Select the "SUSE Linux Enterprise Software Development Kit" as product and version 11 (same

Service Pack) of this product.  Press the button "search" to get a download list. You will need a Novell account to proceed with the download.

Note the following additional installation instructions (all platforms):

l Manually adjust the hard disk partitioning to the requirements of the SAP components. Usually, SAP components and any database components are installed on separate partitions.

l During network configuration do not set the option "Write Hostname to /etc/hosts" (This option has been renamed with Service Pack 1 to "Assign Hostname to Loopback IP"). Otherwise an additional entry in /etc/hosts will be created: 127.0.0.2  <hostname>.<domain> <hostname> This leads to errors in the hostname resolution later. If existing you need to remove this entry manually.

l If you configure the network settings manually, please make sure to include dns, gateway and routing.

l The "hostname" command (without options) may only output the host name and not the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). When the system has been correctly configured, "hostname -f" can be used to get the FQDN. Example: Fully qualified domain name is "ls3001.example.com". Needed output of the "hostname" command is "ls3001", while "hostname -f" will print "ls3001.example.com".

l If you can access an NTP server, you should configure and activate the Network Time Protocol service. This can easily be done using "yast2 -> Network services -> NTP client. This automatically synchronizes the date and time of all SAP application servers.

l For typical use types the recommended size of the swap is 20GB for systems with main memory sizes greater or equal than 10GB. Systems with less than 10 GB should have a swap partition size double that of the main memory (2 x RAM). However special use types and batches could cause the need to configure more swap space. For more details about sap space sizing see SAP notes: 153641 and 1262987. The Linux kernel usually requires little swap space because other limits are reached before the swap space can be used completely ("late assignment"). If you decide that a larger swap space is nevertheless necessary for operating SAP software, the necessary enhancements can be carried out at any time using the architecture specific tools for such operations.

l After the initial installation, it is strongly recommended to carry out an online update either by using YaST or manually using zypper to bring the system up-to-date. You can use either Novell Zenworks Linux Management (ZLM) or Subscription Management Tool (SMT). When using ZLM you can even define software bundles and patch lists as snap shots of the online updates. This allows to re-install a system with exactly same software versions (i.e. after a system hardware crash). SMT is a proxy server for SLES updates and patches. SMT is available on the Novell web site.

l SLES 11 SP1: Configure uuidd - The uuidd will be automatically activated when installing the sapconf package. Activated means, that the deamon is allowed to start when a time based uuid request comes in. You can check that by running the command uuidgen -t After running that command the "activated" uuidd should be running for some times (default timeout 5 minutes). If you do not want to install the sapconf package, you will need to do the following steps:

¡ Modify your local permissions setting by adding the following line to your /etc/permissions.local /usr/sbin/uuidd uuidd:uuidd 6755

¡ Set the permissions with chkstat --set /etc/permissions.local

l SLES 11 GA: Configure uuidd -  Configure the system service uuidd to be started at boot time and also activate that service before you install SAP using the following commands. For more details please also read the README file /usr/share/doc/packages/uuid-runtime/README.SUSE.uuid on your installed system.

¡ Modify your local permissions setting by adding the following line to your /etc/permissions.local /usr/sbin/uuidd uuidd:uuidd 6755

¡ Set the permissions with chkstat --set /etc/permissions.local

¡ Enable the service uuidd either in YaST or with insserv uuidd /etc/init.d/uuidd start

l Activate sysstat (service boot.sysstat) to run the System Activity aRchiver (sar). You can activate sysstat either by using YaST or command line. If you have installed a current version of sapconf, the service sysstat should be automatically activated. Follow the instructions below to  check, if sysstat is activated, if you are not sure. The program sar is sampling system activity data. This makes it more easy to analyse system performance problems. The service is intended to run during normal production.

¡ Checking, if sysstat is activated for system boot. The command should either output "on" or "off". chkconfig boot.sysstat

¡ Checking, if sysstat is activated in the running system. This command should either output "running" or "unused". /etc/init.d/boot.sysstat status

¡ Activate sysstat using YaST yast runlevel Select the "expert mode". Select boot.sysstat. Select start now and also start during boot (runlevel B must be have an active checkmark).

¡ Activate sysstat using command line (the first command activates the service boot.sysstat to be started during system boot, the second command starts the sysstat for the running system). chkconfig boot.sysstat on /etc/init.d/boot.sysstat start

Note the following additional installation instructions (ppc):

l SLES 11 GA: For the ppc64 platform an update to the kernel version 2.6.27.37-0.1-ppc is required. Furthermore updates of the nfs-server ( >= 1.1.3-19.1.1) and nfs-client ( >= 1.1.3-19.1.1) packages are required. The updates can be obtained either via download.novell.com or via the SUSE update mechanisms.

l For the duration of the SAP installation, the nscd daemon has to be stopped, i. e. using the command /etc/init.d/nscd stop

Important enhancements of Service Pack 2 and later concerning SAP

l Kernel 3.0: Introducing the new Linux Kernel version series 3.x, which improves the overall performance, offers compatibility with new hardware components (i. e. enhanced support of the Sandybridge processor generation) and introduces new features like the transparent huge pages. For Kernel 3.x compatibility with SAP NetWeaver, please refer to the section "SAP NetWeaver compatibility" below.

l Transparent huge pages: This features introduces huge memory pages (size of 2MB instead of 4KB), that are transparent to the application. Transparent huge pages are created and maintained automatically. No special configuration on OS level or adjustments in the code on application level is rquired.

Currently transparent huge pages work for anonymous memory mappings only and cannot be used for e.g. shmfs. That's why they are not a replacement for hugetlbfs pages used for example with Oracle SGA. A detailed discussion of transparent huge pages inclusive comparison to hugetlbfs pages can be found in the kernel sources in: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/vm/transhuge.txt. In addition, transparent huge pages can have a performance impact on certain workloads. Please have a look in the SLES 11 SP2 (and later) release notes for more detailed information about this.

SAP NetWeaver compatibility with the Linux Kernel 3.0.x shipped since Service Pack 2 Problem description: Most versions of SAP NetWeaver are not compatible with the Linux Kernel series version 3.x due to failing compatibility checks of some SAP programs against the Linux Kernel version. Affected SAP instances either print error messages during the start-up (ABAP instances) and / or fail to start completely (Java instances). ABAP instances start the transaction "sick". The problem is valid for already installed SAP systems as well as for new SAP system installations. For already installed SAP systems the problem occurs during the start of a SAP instance (ABAP, JAVA and Dual-Stack). For new installations (Dual-Stack and Java-only), the problem occurs during the installation phase (sapinst) when the SAP JAVA instance gets started for the first time. Reason: The problem is caused by compatibility checks during the start of several SAP programs like disp+work, jcontrol, saposcol and others, which only support the Linux Kernel series version 2.6.x. Solution from SAP: Install patches for the affected SAP programs

SAP is aware of this problem and released patches for all affected SAP programs. Please refer to the SAP note #1629558 for more information. This note contains a detailed description of the problem, possible occurring error messages as well as a list of affected programs and minimum patch releases that solve the problem. We recommend to patch all affected SAP programs. For already existing installations this requires an upgrade of the SAP kernel and of some SAP programs like the saposcol. For new installations, this requires a patch of the SAP kernel sapcar-archive on the SAP kernel installation media. Solution from SUSE: Enable a Kernel 2.6 compatibility mode for SAP For a quick solution without having the need to immediately patch the affected SAP programs, you can follow the procedures below to enable a Kernel 2.6 compatibility mode. This compatibility mode can be used without any danger, since the Kernel 3.0.x is fully backwards compatible to the Kernel 2.6.x. The steps described in this procedure have been approved by SAP. Please be aware, that the compatibility mode should only be used as a temporary solution. The final solution should always be to install the related SAP patches. For Linux on IBM System z a special PTF kernel version is required which will be available with the next maintenance update. If you intend to install / upgrade to SLES 11 SP2 (or later) before the next maintenance please open a message on component BC-OP-LNX-SUSE. Goal of this solution: Provide a compatibility environment for certain users and Unix processes that print the Kernel version 2.6.40 when calling "uname -r" or "uname -a". We use a feature in the PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) to provide 2.6 compatibility environment for certain users and the uname26 utility to provide 2.6 compatibility for certain Unix processes. This compatibility environment can be used for already installed SAP systems as well as for new SAP installations. Configuration procedure for new SAP installations: Simply start the SAP installation program sapinst with a prepended uname26 command. For example: /usr/bin/uname26 ./sapinst This call provides the Kernel 2.6 compatibility environment for the sapinst process and all of its child processes. Since the first SAP application server start is performed by a child process of sapinst, all SAP application server processes inherit the compatibility environment. After the installation has been finished, either patch the SAP kernel to a version that is compatible with the Linux Kernel 3.0 (see SAP note #1629558) or continue with the configuration procedure for existing SAP systems. Configuration procedure for existing SAP systems:

1. Make sure that all SAP related programs (SAP instances & sapstartsrv) are stopped

2. Make a list of all SAP users (Unix) on the system, that may start or initiate the start of a SAP program. These are typically all <sid>adm users.

3. Create a file under /etc/security called uname26.conf and enter all <sid>adm users (one user per line), e. g.

--- <snip> ---

nv1adm

nv2adm

nv3adm

--- <snap> ---

This file is read by the PAM library and provides Kernel 2.6 compatibility for user environments.

4. Backup and edit the SAP Initscript used for the automatic start of SAP instances /etc/init.d/sapinit. This step is NOT needed, if you do not have installed SAP host agent.

a) Replace the first line of the script

#!/bin/sh

with the line

#!/usr/bin/uname26 /bin/sh

b) Save the file. All child processes of uname26 (the shell used by sapinit and all of it childs) inherit the 2.6 compatibility environment.

5. Start the SAP instances and verify that all SAP programs have been started without errors

ABAP instances:

No error messages in $instance/work/dev_w*; no transaction "sick" after logging into the SAP system

JAVA instances:

Instance starts up and no error messages in $instance/work/dev_jstart

Please make sure to disable the Kernel 2.6 compatibility features again, after you have patched all SAP programs! Not affected SAP and 3rd-party software: During our tests with the supported databases for SAP NetWeaver, we did not find any Kernel 3.x issue. This includes MaxDB, Oracle and DB2.

Linux kernel

For SLES 11 you may use all Linux kernel packages officially released by Novell as long as the conditions described above under "Requirements for support" are met. According to functional and security patches we recommend to install a Linux kernel package which was released quite recently. If you need to install a new kernel version on your system manually, proceed as follows: Log on to the system as the system administrator (the "root" user) and install the following required kernel packages: rpm -ivh <kernel-base.rpm> rpm -ivh <kernel.rpm> These packages include the kernel, "initrd" images, shared libraries and kernel modules. During the installation, the boot loader configuration files are automatically adjusted to use the new kernel version. An additional entry in the boot loader configuration is available for booting the previous installed version of the kernel. On the AMD/Intel-compatible architecures (i.e. "ix86" and "x86_64") the default boot loader is "GRUB". This boot loader uses the configuration file "/boot/grub/menu.lst". Note: If you do not want to keep the previous kernel, use instead: rpm -Uvh <kernel-base.rpm> <kernel.rpm> This will update the already installed kernel and removes the previous one. Be aware, though, that you in this case you will not be able to fall back to the previously working kernel.

GLIBC and "sap-locale" RPM packages

l SLES 11 GA For SLES 11 GA you need to update the glibc packages  in order to get the new generated locales. This is only required for SAP software. This fix is included in SLES 11 SP1. The update is not needed with SLES 11 SP1 anymore. Please download the glibc packages from you.novell.com (At this point of time the updated packages are provided as temporary fix (PTF). These packages are currently not destributed via the online update channels.): https://you.novell.com/update/<ARCH>/update/SUSE-SLES/11/PTF/<FIX> Where <ARCH> is the system architecture of your system (x86_64,ppc, s390x or ia64) <FIX> is 1b9f32afb03429575e3dbc3d3d6a7e55/20100308 Technical details about the fixed bug are documented in Novell Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=541773

l SLES 11 (All versions): For supporting the character set of certain languages on non-Unicode systems, additional code pages are needed. These are provided by the sap-locale.rpm package. For details about how and when to apply these packages, please read SAP note: 187864. After making changes to the "glibc" (e.g. through an update) you must reinstall the "sap-locale" RPM package. You may reinstall the "sap-locale" package using the YaST2 Software Management ("Software" => "Software Management").

Linux kernel parameter (the "sapconf" RPM package)

In order to activate the specific Linux kernel parameters needed by SAP software, you need to have the "sapconf" RPM package (former sapinit) installed on the system. For more information about sapconf or sapinit please refer to SAP note: 1275776.

Upgrading from SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 (SLES 10)

Customers who previously used SLES 10 with the latest Service Pack can use YaST to upgrade their system directly to SLES 11. Known issues regarding the upgrade from SLES 10 to SLES 11 are documented in the current release notes available at: http://www.novell.com/linux/releasenotes In the following TID means "Technical Information Document". This is a support document from SUSE. The SUSE/Novell TID 7005410 "How to upgrade to SLES/SLED 11 SP1" describes in detail the supported methods to upgrade from older SLES versions to the level SLES 11 SP1. The document could be accessed via http://www.suse.com. Select "Support" -> "Self-support/Knowledgebase" -> when be redirected to the Support page search for "7005410" -> The first entry should be the related TID. Or just use the followign URL http://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7005410 The TID for SLES 11 SP2 is available at: http://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7010200

The TID for SLES 11 SP3 is available at: http://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7012368

Using raw devices, Journaling File System, and LVM

The SAP note 405827 contains information on the usage of raw devices as well as Journaling File Systems. A detailed discussion about file systems and their usage is available at: http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/File_System_Primer It is highly recommended that you choose a file system that is fully supported by the database vendor. Please consult the database vendors supportability and certification pages for more information. Note that the Linux kernels used in SLES 11 and SLES 10 systems implement the so called LVM2 (LVM Version 2) format. The LVM2 format is recommended. However, this format is incompatible with the previous LVM (LVM1 == LVM version 1) format, but SLES 11 is capable of using both formats. This incompability means that LVM volumes can be upgraded to LVM2, but not back. It also means that when upgrading from an installation, where LVM1 partitions are in use, the old LVM1 format will still be used under SLES 11. Kindly refer to the "SLES 11 Storage Administration Guide" for further information on using LVM under SLES 11. This guide is available at: http://www.novell.com/documentation/sles11

Recommended SAP kernel versions, NPTL and LinuxThreads

For compatability reasons use SAP kernel versions 46D_EX2, 640_EX2 or newer. Since the LinuxThreads model is no longer available under SLES 11, it is also no longer possible to make use of the "LD_ASSUME_KERNEL" environment variable setting, as it was under SLES 9. This poses no problems with SAP kernel versions higher than or equal to 7.00, but may be an issue with lower kernel versions (version 6.40).In these cases, please, make sure you are using the latest "KernelPatch" from SAP -- for details, please, refer to SAP note 19466.

Previous Service Packs

Differences between the versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11 GA and SLES 11 SP1) are already mentioned in the sections above. This section will be filled when there will be more differences which needs to be mentioned.

Known issues

l Transparent Huge Pages (THP) Support (SLES 11 SP2) Problem: On systems with large memory, frequent access to the Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) may slow down the system significantly. Transparent huge pages thus are of most use on systems with very large (128GB or more) memory, and help to drive performance. In SUSE Linux Enterprise, THP is enabled by default where it is expected to give a performance boost to a large number of workloads. There are cases where THP may regress performance, particularly when under memory pressure due to pages being reclaimed in an effort to promote to huge pages. It is also possible that performance will suffer on CPUs with a limited number of huge page TLB entries for workloads that sparsely reference large amounts of memory. See also release notes of SLES 11 SP2: https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/11-SP2/ Symptom: When you are running into the THP performance problem, you often can see peaks in the cpu usage and a very high value of system time (sys-time) in relation to the user time (usr-time). Solution 1: (Prefrerred) Update your linux kernel to at least version 3.0.80-0.5.1 (SP2). In this case Solution 2 is not needed any more.

Solution 2: (Not preferred) If necessary, THP can be disabled via the sysfs file "/sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled", which accepts one of the values "always", "madvise", or "never". To disable THP via sysfs and confirm it is disabled, do the following asroot: echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled cat /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled always madvise [never]

l Missing rsh package (SLES 11 for SAP Applications SP1) Problem: When using the standard installation option from the DVD the rsh Package is missing after the complete installation. The missing rsh binary might lead into error messages of the SAP gateway. Solution: Install the rsh package using the zypper command: zypper in rsh

l System Freezes after 208 days uptime (SLES 11 SP1) Problem: The system crashes after around 209 days uptime Solution 1: (Preferred) A fix for this issue has been released since kernel version 2.6.32.54-0.3 (build date 30.1.2012). We always recommend to install the latest version of the kernel. Solution 2: (Not preferred) For critical production systems that cannot update their kernel version, we currently recommend a cold reboot before the system reaches 208 days uptime. For further information please see: http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7009834

l Hummingbird Exceed Problem: You may encounter problems during an installation of NetWeaver when using Hummingbird Exceed version 10.0.0.0 or smaller. After starting the SAP installer "sapinst", the installation window will not appear, however the installation process will not terminate. Solution: Upgrade to Exceed to version 10.0.0.15 or later.

l Citrix Presentation Server on UNIX/Solaris Problem: You may encounter problems during an installation of NetWeaver when using Citrix Presentation Server on UNIX/Solaris with clients connected via Citrix. It seems that X11 display forwarding of Java application is broken and and no window will be shown. So, after starting the SAP installer "sapinst", the installation window will not appear, however the installation process will not terminate. Solution: Upgrade Citrix Presentation Server to 2011 Q1 Feature Pack v3.

l Number of "file descriptors" - The sapconf script automatically sets the number of open file descriptors for the groups sapsys, sdba and dba. So all applications that run under the above groups will already have the SAP recommended limits. However, some SAP applications (e.g. SAP J2EE Engine) might need an even larger limit. In this case you can edit the file /etc/sysconfig/sapconf and modify the limit for the group to which the application belongs. E.g. if it belongs to sapsys you can put: LIMIT_1="@sapsys soft nofile 48000" LIMIT_2="@sapsys hard nofile 48000" Afterwards you need to execute /etc/init.d/boot.sapconf restart and log off and log in again in order to make the changes take effect. You can check the result in the shell by executing: "ulimit -n". If your systems are started via sapcontrol or a web service client like SAP MMC, than the limits configured via /etc/sysconfig/sapconf will not be applied to the SAP processes. To adjust system limits for SAP systems controlled in such an environment the system limits must be set in the file /usr/sap/sapservices as described in SAP note 1437105. You may decide if your system is under control of sapcontrol by checking if its start command is contained in /usr/sap/sapservices.

l Additional notes for IBM DB2 UDB The installation of the RDBMS software IBM DB2 V8.x is only possible in scroll mode with the following command (no graphical user interface): db2_install After the DB2 installation is complete, the license must be added manually as described in SAP note 801415. Under the URL (although this does not specifically refer to Linux nor SLES 10): http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=865&uid=swg21238113 You can read more about DB2 product installation on NFS (Network File System), including a reference to the IBM white paper "Setting Up DB2 on NFS Mounted File System". When installing DB2 under SLES 11 using the DB2 V9.1 the installation procedure finishes successfully, but you may be able to find an error message in the install log file "/tmp/db2_install.log.<pid>" complaining about failing dependencies. This is a known issue by IBM and can be safely ignored -- The issue will be fixed by IBM in a later FIX PACK.

l Additional notes for ORACLE and ORACLE RAC

¡ When you get a prerequisite error like missing compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3 than please follow

our Knowledge Base Docu http://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7007574 "Oracle Database 11g R2 requesting package compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3 on SLES11".

¡ Please keep in mind not to use "cpio" when creating database backups with SAP tool BRBACKUP. "cpio" just has problems to handle file sizes equal 2 GB or larger than 2 GB. Instead "dd" is the preferred solution. More information can be found in SAP note 20577.

¡ When using ORACLE RAC together with OCFS2 i. e. for /sapmnt and /saparch, please use approriate settings for the OCFS2 cluster and block sizes. We recommend the following settings: /sapmnt:  BLOCK-SIZE: 4K, CLUSTER-SIZE: 64K /saparch: BLOCK-SIZE: 4K, CLUSTER-SIZE: 1M These settings are defined when creating the filesystem with the command mkfs.ocfs2 -b <BLOCK-SIZE> -C <CLUSTER-SIZE>

¡ Kindly refer to SAP note 986578 for specific installation instructions of ORACLE on the Intel Itanium ("ia64") platform. If you get error messages from the Oracle installer check, please refer to SAP note 980426. If you get linker errors during the installation of Oracle patch set 10.0.2.1 please refer to SAP note 1395928.

l Additional notes for Sybase ASE To avoid random stack traces of Sybase ASE, refer to SAP Note 1570335.

l Using LDAP with SAP software SUSE/Novell has decided to continue the support of the symlinks documented in this section. When using SAP software in an LDAP environment, a number of additional symbolic links for two libraries are needed, because the SAP binaries used to access LDAP where built against libraries using a non-standard "SONAME" (shared object name). To figure out, which libraries are missing in your system for the complete LDAP integration please run ldd on binary ldapreg: ldd /usr/sap/<SID>/<INST>/exe/ldapreg  (in example) ldd /usr/sap/NA0/DVEBMGS01/exe/ldapreg Check, if there are any lines like 'libldap.... => not found' and 'libber... => not found'. In that case ldapreg will miss those libraries and will not start correctly. If libldap.so.199  and liblber.so.199 are missing The two libraries that the SAP software is using are: /usr/lib/liblber.so.199 /usr/lib/libldap.so.199 Each of these two libraries need to be created as symbolic links to the actual available libraries on your system. Depending on the used architecture the symbolic links may have to be created for the 64-bit environment. On the AMD/Intel-compatible architecure "x86_64" (64-bit), in addition to the above specified symbolic links, the following links are also needed: ln -s liblber-2.4.so.2 /usr/lib64/liblber.so.199 ln -s libldap-2.4.so.2 /usr/lib64/libldap.so.199 If libldap-2.3.so.0  and liblber-2.3.so.0 are missing The two libraries that the SAP software is using are: /usr/lib/liblber-2.3.so.0 /usr/lib/libldap-2.3.so.0 Each of these two libraries need to be created as symbolic links to the actual available libraries on your system. Depending on the used architecture the symbolic links may have to be created for the 64-bit environment. On the AMD/Intel-compatible architecure "x86_64" (64-bit), in addition to the above specified symbolic links, the following links are also needed: ln -s liblber-2.4.so.2 /usr/lib64/liblber-2.3.so.0 ln -s libldap-2.4.so.2 /usr/lib64/libldap-2.3.so.0

Write Performance and barriers

On SLES11, write barriers got enabled on devicemapper devices created via lvm. This was done to improve data integrity and security on the file system, especially for local harddisks. The drawback is that write barriers have a bad impact on write performance. The Novell TID discussing the problem and solution could be reached using the following URL: http://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7009219

For SLES 11 SP2 the performance issue is already solved.

Hardware platforms

The following hardware platforms are certified to use SAP software on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11):

l x86_64 (AMD and Intel-compatible 64-bit - "x86_64") SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11) for AMD64

l IA64 (Intel Itanium2 64-bit - "ia64") SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11) for Itanium Processor Family

l IBM Power (64-bit - "ppc") SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11) forIBM POWER

l IBM zSeries (64-bit - "s390x") SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11) for IBM zSerie

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SLES are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the US, the European Community and other countries.

Validity

This document is not restricted to a software component or software component version

References

This document refers to:

SAP Notes

This document is referenced by:

SAP Notes (32)

1056161   SUSE Priority Support for SAP applications

1170809   Inst. with SAPinst: Support of X Servers on MS Windows

1172419   Linux: Supported Java versions on the x86_64 platform

1262987   Swap space requirement for R/3 64-bit kernel installation PI

1275776   Linux: Preparing SLES for SAP environments

1367498   SAP JVM installation prerequisites

1368413   Inst. 7.20/7.12 - Diagnostics Agent installation

1379130   Linux: Released NEC hardware

1391070   Linux UUID solutions

1395928   10.2.0.1: Error when linking collector ins_emdb.mk

1403020   Linux: Certified Cisco Hardware

1437105   Operating system limits for SAP instances

1448655   Inst. 7.30 SP2 - Diagnostics Agent installation

1452070   DB2-z/OS: SAP on Linux on IBM System z and z/VM

1522993   Linux: SAP on SUSE KVM - Kernel-based Virtual Machine

153641   Swap space requirement for R/3 64-bit kernel

1629558   Linux 3.x kernel

1644499   Database connectivity from Linux to SQL Server

171356   SAP software on Linux: Essential information

1763512   Support details for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability

1824819   SAP HANA DB: Recommended OS settings for SLES 11 / SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP2

1880960   IBM Systems Solution for SAP HANA PTF List

19466   Downloading SAP kernel patches

20577   Cpio cannot backup files larger than or equal to 2 GB

405827   Journaled file system and raw devices on Linux

516716   Linux: Locale problems after updating glibc

801415   DB6 Installation on Unix with db2_install

936887   End of maintenance for Linux distributions

980426   Oracle 10.2 Software installation on new operating systems

986578   Oracle support in Itanium 2 systems (Montecito & following)

1403020   Linux: Certified Cisco Hardware

1262987   Swap space requirement for R/3 64-bit kernel installation PI

1275776   Linux: Preparing SLES for SAP environments

1437105   Operating system limits for SAP instances

516716   Linux: Locale problems after updating glibc

1170809   Inst. with SAPinst: Support of X Servers on MS Windows

1172419   Linux: Supported Java versions on the x86_64 platform

1056161   SUSE Priority Support for SAP applications

1824819   SAP HANA DB: Recommended OS settings for SLES 11 / SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP2

1367498   SAP JVM installation prerequisites

1368413   Inst. 7.20/7.12 - Diagnostics Agent installation

980426   Oracle 10.2 Software installation on new operating systems

1379130   Linux: Released NEC hardware

1953429   SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP on one Server

1954788   SAP HANA DB: Recommended OS settings for SLES 11 / SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP3

1522993   Linux: SAP on SUSE KVM - Kernel-based Virtual Machine

405827   Journaled file system and raw devices on Linux

19466   Downloading SAP kernel patches

171356   SAP software on Linux: Essential information

20577   Cpio cannot backup files larger than or equal to 2 GB

153641   Swap space requirement for R/3 64-bit kernel

1448655   Inst. 7.30 SP2 - Diagnostics Agent installation

936887   End of maintenance for Linux distributions

1452070   DB2-z/OS: SAP on Linux on IBM System z and z/VM

1588667   SAP on AWS: Overview of related SAP Notes and Web-Links

1629558   Linux 3.x kernel

986578   Oracle support in Itanium 2 systems (Montecito & following)

1763512   Support details for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability

1644499   Database connectivity from Linux to SQL Server

1391070   Linux UUID solutions

801415   DB6 Installation on Unix with db2_install

1395928   10.2.0.1: Error when linking collector ins_emdb.mk