Tips & tricks for an optimized HANA 2.0, express edition installation on an Intel 6th generation NUC
To start with, I install VMware ESXi on my Intel NUC6i5SYK (which is not much larger than a Rasperry Pi with an USB WiFi Dongle attached to it):
For this I fit a Crucial 32GB (16GBx2) DDR4 2133 MT/s (PC4-17000) SODIMM 260-Pin Memory Kit and a Samsung 500GB 850 EVO M.2 SSD.
Next I could just deploy the HANA 2.0, express edition Server + applications virtual machine, but that is a 12 GB download and does not allow a fully qualified host name for the XS advanced applications.
Therefore, I am using an alternative approach, similar to Upgrade your HANA, express edition to HANA 2, and start with installing the HANA, express edition Server only virtual machine. For this I use the VMware OVF Tool:
And follow the progress in my VMware ESXi Embedded Host Client:
Since this is a small virtual machine, the deployment does not take long, and to prepare for the subsequent Server + applications installation, I increase the memory and add a second drive onto which I will mount the data volumes later:
I then start the virtual machine, secure the installation, and connect to it with HANA Studio to stop the database for uninstallation:
Uninstalling the HANA, express edition is straight forward and does not take long:
Before I restart the system, I change the hostname to a fully qualified one, that I had previously reserved with Dyn to avoid having to edit any hosts files and especially to set a signed certificate for my XSA applications later as well:
After a restart, I sFTP the two HANA 2.0, express edition binary installer files for the Server only Installer and the Applications to the /tmp folder of my virtual machine (do NOT use a folder under /root since the installation would fail reproducibly due to an authorization issue!):
Next, I extract both archives:
And start the installation:
As a result, I got a fully working HANA 2.0, express edition Server + applications system that I can connect to with the XS Advanced Command-Line Client and set a signed SSL certificate (please check SAP Note 2243019 – Providing SSL certificates for domains defined in SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model to ensure that your key and certificate are in the required format – if they were not, this is a guide How to convert a certificate into the appropriate format):
If you were interested in the details of this step, please check out my respective blog Providing OpenSSL certificates for domains defined in HANA XSA.
Since I have to restart my system for these changes to take effect anyway, I use this opportunity to mount the data volumes to the second virtual disk I had created earlier.
First I check, to which device my new virtual disk has been mapped to:
Then I create a primary partition:
And format it with xfs:
As a result, I can mount my device and move the data volumes onto it (please remember to sudo each command ;):
To automatically mount the device after a restart, I add a respective configuration line to /etc/fstab:
After a restart I am rewarded with a nice disk layout:
And a secure login to my XSA applications without the need for any hosts file modifications:
Hello Frank,
Well documented article - especially with screen - most likely a first in terms new hana users for experimenting with hana infrastructure requirements.
However, most of the blogs (including yours) refers to a SAP Note ####### and not accessible for P-users. Is there any plans for SAP (as a whole) to allow blog folks (like you) to provide access to P-users those notes. This is a catch 22 - I know. Just reaching out to get some details.
As said before, very well documented for the process.
Thanks
Sivakumar
Hi Frank, I followed your steps until "Uninstalling the HANA, express edition is straight forward and does not take long:" .
To uninstall my HXE2.0 SPS01 I found this link:
https://www.sap.com/developer/how-tos/2016/12/hxe-ua-uninstalling.html
and hence I followed the step-1:
uninstall.I could not perform
because I received the error "sudo: unknown uid 1001: who are you?"
Now, after I restarted the VM I can no longer login anymore!
hxehost login: hxeadm with my password or original password "HXEHana1" always return "Login incorrect".
Did you encounter this during your deinstallation?
Thanks for a reply.
Sunny
Hello Sunaryo,
I am afraid you missed an important step from a previous blog that I linked to above:
Upgrade your HANA, express edition to HANA 2
You have to create yourself a temporary user to perform the uninstallation because user hxeadm will be deleted in the process and therefore resulting in the issues you encounter.
Best regards
Frank
Hi Frank, thanks for your important hint, though one step forward..one step backward
How and what authorization did you give user “frank”?
“hxe2sunny is not in the sudoers file”
It seems that only root can perform visudo to give permission ALL to user “hxe2sunny” but
what is the password for root?
Hey Frank - another strategy you could use (I used it to set up a few systems for Sapphire) is to use the OVFTool included with VMware to import the OVA into ESXI. The benefit in doing this is that it uses the tested and validated VM setup.
I could run multiple HXE based VMs this way - I kept all of the hostnames the same - I only run one VM at a time.
Found that importing through the GUI had some issues - there are documented bugs with VMware and large OVAs.
Hello Frank, could you please let me know how do you enabled root user & login to root in the SLES 12 OS comes with HANA express edition 2.0?
Hello Kalyan,
It is not possible to login as root. You have to use the sudo command instead.
Best regards
Frank
becoming root in bash / sh works just fine.