IBM JRE or Sun JRE does it matter?

If you are using TEPS Java Webstart client, does it matter which JRE TEPS uses? You should be able to bring up the portal using either one, but in my experience IBM JRE works better for TEPS. With Sun JRE version 1.6.0.11, you may encounter issues with popups. While the situation editor and other tools worked correctly, I had problem with deploying non-OS agents from portal. The popup prompting for agent selection didn't appear at all. I encountered similar issue with the Database agent configuration window. Switching to IBM JRE resolved the issue.

So, how do you switch to IBM JRE? Assuming you're using Windows XP, goto Control Panel->Java->Java Tab->Java Application Runtime Settings -> View. In the list of JREs, disable the Sun JREs and enable only IBM JRE. Can't find IBM JRE? You can add the IBM JRE, by clicking either Find or Add button.

Hope you find it useful.

Enabling the TTAPI feature of the ITCAMfWAS 6.1.0.4 Data Collector on 64-bit Linux

The xLinux 64-bit libttapi.so file for Linux is not included with the ITCAMfWAS 6.1.0.4 data collector, so if you enable the TTAPI you'll get error messages about ttapi not found in java.library.path in your WebSphere SystemOut.log file. You can find this file buried a little deeply in the ITCAM for Transactions 7.1.0.2 Collector Agent installation image, however. It is buried in a file called sdk/examples/linux-64.tar.gz. Untar this file and you'll file lib/libttapi.so and lib/libkbb.so, both of which you'll need to copy to your DC/toolkit/lib/linux-ix64/ directory, then restart WebSphere.

Changing the max connections in FireFox

One of the things that started to annoy me when using FireFox was that it seemed to only allow meI to do 6 downloads from a site at a time. I would click on 6 downloads and they would all start, but when I click the 7th link, it would sit there until one of the previous downloads completed.

So after some digging I found that this is actually quite simple.

1. In the address bar type about:config. This will list all the possible configuration options with FireFox. Be Careful!
2. In the filter type http.max
3. Double click on the network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server. This will display the Enter Integer Value dialog box.
4. Set the value to whatever new value you want.
5. Press OK to set the value

FireFox does not need to be restarted for this value to be set.

I would not set this number too high as it could slow down the overall speed of the download. I set it to 10 as there were 10 files I needed to download and I did not want to wait for one to finish before I started the next. I just wanted to click and walk away and come back in an hour :)

How to find SQL Server Version?

If you need to deploy the SQL Server agents, one of the items prompted for is the SQL Server Version. Most of us know the SQL Server by the year it was released as in SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008, but it is not the version number. (Version 2000 of SQL Server would be a rock-solid SQL Server, wouldn't it? :)).

Here is how to identify the version. Connect to the database server in question using Query Analyzer or SQL Server Management Studio and run the following SQL.

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion')

The above query on SQL 2005 returned 9.00.3042.00 and your result may vary depending on the Service Pack level. Generally speaking, SQL Server 2000 is version 8.x, 2005 is version 9.x and 2008 is version 10.x.

Hope this helps.

Installing TCM 4.3.1 on Red Hat 5 x64

I finally had a chance to try an install on RH 5 x64 since it is now supported in 4.3.1. I have done some installs on Windows and RH 4 i386 and had no issues, but the 64 bit threw a couple problems.

1. The setup_linux_intel.bin file did not handle x64. When you ran the script the message "OS not supported" would be displayed. To correct this problem look for the case statement "case `uname -m` in" under this there is not a check for a return of 64 bit. So I modified the case to look like:

case `uname -m` in
*86) FRESH='setup_linux_intel.bin'
;;
*64) FRESH='setup_linux_intel.bin'
;;
*390*) FRESH='setup_linux_390.bin'
;;
*) echo "OS not supported."
exit 1
;;
esac

Once this was done, the installer would start.

2. With the setup_linux_intel.bin fixed I was now getting the message "The installer is unable to run in graphical mode. Try running the installer with the -console or -silent flag". I made sure I had all the prereqs according to the doc, but still nothing. So after some playing around, I found out that I was missing the libraries libXmu-1.0.2-5.i386.rpm and libXp-1.0.0-8.1.e15.i386.rpm. The 64bit versions were there but not the 32 bit.

Hopefully this saves someone some grief if they need to install on RH5 x64.

Having problems with TEPS JWS Client shortcut?

It happened to me and it could happen to you too! The first time Tivoli Portal Java Web Start Client is launched, it creates a desktop shortcut. When you use the shortcut for subsequent portal use, the TEPS Client "Unable to launch application" error.

The error may happen on systems where IBM Java is not installed as System JVM and the TEPS shortcut points to the javaws.exe under C:\Windows\System32 and NOT the one under C:\Program Files\IBM.

The simplest way to correct the issue is to create a new desktop shortcut manually to point to the javaws.exe under C:\Program Files\IBM\JAVA50\jre\bin. When you do that, Java Webstart will prompt you to select the application every time by bringing up "Application Cache Viewer".

To skip this step, simply copy the command line argument to the javaws.exe from old shortcut to the new shortcut. You can get the argument to javaws.exe by right clicking the old shortcut -> go to Properties->Target.

Hope you find this useful.

Using Custom SQL Queries with MSLs to Get Real-Time Data from Agents

Thanks to Venkat for this tip:

Here is an example SQL statement you can use in a query to pull real-time NT Logical Disk data from all of the agents that have been added to the "MYWIN" Managed System List:

SELECT ORIGINNODE,TIMESTAMP,INSTCNAME,PCUSED FROM KNT.WTLOGCLDSK AT ("HUB_ITMSERVER") WHERE SYSTEM.PARMA("NODELIST", "MYWIN",5 )

In this statement, "HUB_ITMSERVER" is the label (not the hostname) of the TEMS the agents are connected to, "MYWIN" is the MSL name, and the "5" is simply the length of the string "MYWIN".

To find other available table names, the easiest way is to look in the agent application support SQL files on the TEMS.