FlexDeploy System Requirements

Owned by Karl Henselin
Last updated: Mar 21, 2023 by Dan Reynebeau
5 min read

Database Tier Requirements

Supported Platforms

  • Microsoft Windows

  • Unix/Linux (and its variants, such as OEL, RedHat, Solaris, AIX, etc.)

Supported Databases

FlexDeploy requires one of the following databases to be installed and running.

  • PostgreSQL 11, 12, 13, 14

    • Requires a user with CreateDB privileges or superuser privileges. Prior to FlexDeploy 6.0.0.2, superuser was required.

  • Oracle XE, version 18, 19, 21

  • Oracle Standard, version 12.1, 12.2, 18, 19, 21

  • Oracle Enterprise, version 12.1, 12.2, 18, 19, 21

Requirements

  • 4 to 8 GB of RAM for the system.

    • Oracle database - 2GB SGA should be sufficient.

  • 1 or 2 CPU

  • At least 20 GB of available space, may need additional space based on purge criteria and usage.

    • We recommend approximately 125GB total disk space should be sufficient for database tier (On-Premise or Cloud - Virtual or Physical Server). This includes space for Operating System, database software as well.

  • Normal database backup procedures should be followed outside of the FlexDeploy Application. Backing up of this database is not included in FlexDeploy.

Application Tier Requirements

Supported Platforms

  • Unix/Linux (and its variants, such as OEL, RedHat, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX etc.)

  • Microsoft Windows

Supported Application Servers and Requirements

FlexDeploy is a Java web-based application which runs on Tomcat 9.

  • Tomcat 9.0.64 is included with FlexDeploy download media. You do not have to separately install Tomcat because it is included in all downloads.

  • 8GB of RAM

  • 1+ CPU

  • At least 16384 available file descriptors (ulimit).

  • JDK 8 installed

  • Optional - consider Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) unlimited strength policy files to avoid SSH issues when using strong ciphers.

  • You can allocate 4GB space for install of Tomcat with FlexDeploy. This includes space for logs that will be generated during execution of application. See additional disk requirements below.

  • Time series database InfluxDB is installed as part of installation process for Metrics and Insights.

Disk Requirements

We recommend approximately 125GB total disk space should be sufficient for application tier (On-Premise or Cloud - Virtual or Physical Server). This includes space for Operating System, FlexDeploy software as well.

Application Directory

FlexDeploy uses an application directory (aka working directory) for temporary files to be transferred between the server and its endpoints. This directory needs to have at least 15GB of space available on the FlexDeploy Server. This directory also contains the time series data stored by InfluxDB for Metrics and Insights shown in FlexDeploy

  • As this file system contains only temporary files, and plugin files, there is no reason to backup this directory.

  • Availability of space within the server working directory is critical to functioning of the FlexDeploy platform. Therefore, the filesystem should be monitored and space should be allocated as necessary. In addition, it is recommended that this be a separate mount point.

  • Automated purge process for working directory

    • 3 Plugin Jar versions will be kept.

    • Temporary Files (work folder) in this directory which are older than one day will be purged automatically to help effectively manage the size.

  • Plugin Jars are stored in this directory.

Artifact Directory

The FlexDeploy artifact repository is a directory available on the FlexDeploy server where all build artifacts are stored, and later retrieved for the deployments. This directory needs to have at least 10GB of space available on the FlexDeploy Server.

  • Due to the importance of the artifact repository, this file system should be backed up regularly.

  • Availability of space within the Artifact Repository is critical to the creation of new build versions. It is highly recommended to have a file system size monitor in place for this directory, and size should be adjusted based on the number of builds created, and the size of the artifacts produced. In addition, it is recommended that this be a separate mount point.

Source Control Requirements

FlexDeploy provides out of the box integration with the following Source Control Management Systems.

  • Subversion

  • Git

  • Microsoft TFS

  • Perforce

  • CVS

  • PVCS

  • Surround SCM

SCM Client Requirements

To use Git, The Git executable must be installed on the FlexDeploy server & build endpoints, and it must be accessible in its PATH. The Git executable version must be 1.7.9 or higher.

To use PVCS, the pcli executable must be installed on the FlexDeploy server & build endpoints, and it must be accessible in its PATH.

To use Surround, the Surround SCM executable must be installed on the FlexDeploy server & build endpoints, and it must be accessible in its PATH. The Surround SCM version must be 2018.2.0 or higher.

Endpoint Requirements

An Endpoint is a target server where FlexDeploy can perform build or deploy activities. Endpoints are configured within the FlexDeploy UI.

Supported Platforms

  • Unix or Microsoft Windows operating system.

    • Windows Server 2019+ supports native OpenSSH

    • For other Windows servers, Cygwin must be installed along with the openssh package. See the Cygwin Installation Guide for more information.

    • Many Unix/Linux (variants, such as OEL, RedHat, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, ubuntu etc.) are supported

Endpoint Requirements

  • JDK version 1.6 or higher must be installed. Java 7, 8, and 11 is supported for Endpoints. See Plugin Java Requirements for details.

  • Typically FlexDeploy references the actual JAVA_HOME folder, or the java version that is used by the technology that is being deployed (if any)

    • The JDK Home can be a symlink if desired to make Java upgrades easier. A symlink is not required or preferred by FlexDeploy, but works.

      • On Windows, a symlink can be created with the mklink /D <target> <source> command where <target> is set as JDK Home in the endpoint settings of FlexDeploy, and <source> is the actual Java install location.

        • If the Java install path is changed, then use rmdir <target> to delete the symlink. Then recreate the symlink with the new <source> folder.

      • On Unix, a symlink can be created with the  ln -sT <source> <target> command where <target> is set as JDK Home in the endpoint settings of FlexDeploy, and <source> is the actual Java install location.

        • If the Java install path is changed, then use rm <target> to delete the symlink. Then recreate the symlink with the new <source> folder.

  • Some plugins require newer versions of Java. Please see the plugin guides for this information.

  • Disk space on each endpoint of 4GB to be used as temporary working directory. You can start with 1GB space and expand as necessary.

    • There is no need to monitor this file system as FlexDeploy will automatically perform cleanup.

    • Local disk storage is preferable, but a shared file system can be used.

    • As this file system contains only temporary files, there is no reason to backup this directory.

    • Files in the working directory are transient in nature and will be purged by FlexDeploy after one day. The actual size of the directory will depend on the number of projects and deployments, but 1GB is a good starting point.

    • Make sure that there is no scheduled purge job setup on endpoint working directory. FlexDeploy will automatically manage this folder

  • Optionally, rsync can be installed on BOTH, the endpoint and the FlexDeploy host and expect can be installed on the FlexDeploy host if you wish to use the rsync protocol to transfer files instead of using scp. SCP is the default transfer method.

  • SSH connectivity from FlexDeploy application tier using one of the following options

    • User & Password

    • User & Password with sudo

    • SSH key

    • SSH key with passphrase

    • Supported Algorithms for SSH

    • FlexDeploy supports the following ciphers for SSH connections.  FlexDeploy will automatically negotiate this with the SSH server on the endpoint.

Supported web browsers

FlexDeploy supports the following web browsers. We recommend the use of latest updates to browsers.

  • Google Chrome

  • Mozilla Firefox (On Windows 11, please read this article)

  • Apple Safari

  • Microsoft Edge

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