Installing/Upgrading the RA Web Service REST Agent in an Existing AE System

This topic describes how to install the RA Web Service REST Agent in an existing Automation Engine system.

This topic provides information on the following:

Installing the Agent

To deploy a Rapid Automation agent solution successfully , you have to carry out the following two steps:

Install the RA Core agent in Automic Automation.
Load the RA solution into the AE database.

For more information, see Installing the Agent for Rapid Automation in the Automic Automation documentation at docs.automic.com.

Note: This step updates the software version displayed on the Administration Perspective. However, the Agent only uses the new solution version after it has been restarted, as stated below.
(Optional) Copy the required jar files from the system/classes directory (for example, /u01/<agent>/system/classes) to the bin/lib directory of the RA Core. You need these files to be able to use the Cancel Job function.
If you have copied the jar files, after copying them you must restart the agent. The log file contains the list of all loaded libraries.

Important! Some RA solutions might have additional Java requirements, might require additional installation steps (such as setting environment variables) or might offer different options for starting the Agent. Since this information is solution-specific, it is documented in the respective RA solution documentation.

Depending on the Automation Engine version that you want to use with your RA solution, you have different options:

Automation Engine v12.3.x

You can install the RA Core agent manually and use it with your Automic Automation system.
You can use the AE.DB Load utility to load the RA solution.

Automation Engine v21.0.x

You can install the RA Core agent manually and use it either in your Automic Automation on-premises system or in an Automic Automation Kubernetes Edition environment.
You can use the AE.DB Load utility or the system/ra-solutions/ endpoint of the AE REST API to load the RA solution.

Automation Engine v21.0.4 and higher

You can install the RA Core agent manually or in a container. In both cases you can use it either in your Automic Automation on-premises system or use is in an Automic Automation Kubernetes Edition environment.
You can use the AE.DB Load utility or the system/ra-solutions/ endpoint of the AE REST API to load the RA solution.

Important! Make sure you access the requirements and instructions for the RA Core agent installation for your Automation Engine version in the Automic Automation documentation at docs.automic.com.

Using the krb.ini (.conf) File for Kerberos Authentication

All Kerberos settings other than User and Password are set in the krb.ini (.conf) file. The Agent itself does not read this file directly, it uses the Kerberos classes of the JRE.

The algorithm to locate the krb5.conf file is the following:

If the system property java.security.krb5.conf is set, its value is assumed to specify the path and file name.
If that system property value is not set, the configuration file is looked for in the directory:

<java-home>\lib\security (Windows)
<java-home>/lib/security (Solaris and Linux)

Here <java-home> refers to the directory where the JRE is installed. For example, if you have J2SE 5.0 installed on Solaris in a directory named /j2sdk1.5, the directory in which the configuration file is looked for is:

/j2sdk1.5/jre/lib/security

If the file is still not found, then an attempt is made to locate it as follows:

/etc/krb5/krb5.conf (Solaris)
c:\winnt\krb5.ini (Windows)
/etc/krb5.conf (Linux)

If the file is still not found, and the configuration information being searched for is not the default realm and KDC, then implementation-specific defaults are used. If, on the other hand, the configuration information being searched for is the default realm and KDC because they weren't specified in system properties, and the krb5.conf file is not found either, an exception is thrown.