Overview
Agent packages are available in three forms:
| Extension |
Type |
| exe |
Windows installers. |
| tgz |
Compressed tar archives. |
| zip |
Zip archives. |
The Windows installers are the recommended way to install on Windows systems. The tar archives are recommended for Unix-like systems as they retain file permissions in a standard form. Zip archives also retain permission information, but this may not be supported by all unzip tools.
Package Naming Conventions
Package names have the form:
pulse-agent-<version>.<ext>
where <version> is the version of the pulse agent and <ext> is one of the extensions listed above. Make sure the version matches that of your pulse™ server exactly.
Requirements
The agent requires a Java Runtime Environment, version 1.5 or above, on the host machine. A suitable runtime is made available by Sun Microsystems at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp
. When installing the runtime, make sure you set the value of the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the runtime install directory, and add the java binary to your path.
Additionally, support for Perforce requires the Perforce command line client p4. This is available for many platforms from http://perforce.com/perforce/loadprog.html. Ensure that the p4 binary is in the path of your pulse™ process. The easiest way to achieve this is to add the binary to a directory on the system path (e.g. /usr/bin on Unix-like systems) or add the install directory to your system PATH (Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Environment Variables on Windows).
Windows Installers
To install the agent using a Windows installer, simply run the installer and follow the prompts. When the installer completes the agent will be set up as a Windows service that may be started and stopped using the Start menu shortcuts provided.
Installing From An Archive
Unpacking the Archives
The archives provided all unpack into a directory with the same name as the archive, excepting the extension. You can unpack the archive to a directory of your choice on the host system. To unpack the archives, use your favoured archive unpacking tools. For example:
or:
Environment Variables
For the agent scripts to function regardless of where they are run from, you should set the environment veriable PULSE_HOME to the home directory for your agent install. This is the full path of the pulse-agent-<version> directory created when you unpacked the archive, for example:
The steps required to set environment variables vary from system to system.
Windows Systems
From the Start menu, select: Settings > Control Panel > System. On the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button. This will present you with the environment variables, along with an interface to add new variables. To check the variable has been set, type the following at a command prompt:
Unix Systems
Typically, you set environment variables in the profile for your shell. For example, bash users will have a .bash_profile in their home directory. To set a variable in a bourne-compatible shell, enter the following lines on your profile:
You can check the variable has been set correctly in your shell by typing:
Starting the Agent
Once you have set the PULSE_HOME variable and confirmed it has the correct value, you can start the agent server using the script $PULSE_HOME/bin/pulse with the single argument "start":
Refer to the Server Commands page in the main pulse™ manual for details. The server will start the agent service listening on port 8080 by default (refer to Changing the Agent Port to change this default).
Next Steps
Once the agent service is running, you should add the agent via the master interface, refer to Adding Agents for details.
