Thursday, September 20, 2018

miniSAP - SAP NetWeaver 7.52 SPS1, installation

After release of “miniSAP - SAP NetWeaver 7.51 SPS2” which occurred last year on SAP TechEd 2017 this year the SAP is coming with newer version of ABAP stack which is SAP NetWeaver 7.52 SPS1. It looks like that the SAP is starting a good practice releasing the newest versions of their ABAP servers for developers. This is something that many people are very welcoming including myself. Even in the age of cloud computing the cloud is not solution for everyone (speaking here about cost of running SAP in cloud providers from independed SAP developer perspective or even student).

This year I choose OS openSUSE Leap 15.0 (released on 2018-08-21) is higher OS version as openSUSE Leap 42.3 (released in 2017) for the miniSAP NW752SP01.

As usual installation files can be downloaded from SAP Store. You either look it up directly at https://store.sap.com or go to https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#abap and find a link to the SAP Store there. Alternatively you can go via https://www.sap.com/developer/trials-downloads.html or to save all the hassle go directly to the page with the files. If you have a troubles with downloading the file like I had (see here) getting an error “You are not authorized to download this file” try to delete cookies or use different web browser.

Again within this release an installation procedure is very well described in blog by Julie Plummer that can be found at SAP AS ABAP 751 SP02 Developer Edition to Download. Therefore, I’m not going to describe the installation step by step. I just focus on one issue that I faced. 

In particular, it was related to license file of ASE database. In case your install fails with error like below: 

ERROR      2018-09-15 18:37:19.273 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) [CInstallerCallBackImpl.cpp:259] id=ind-rel.ind-os.ind-db.assertionFailed errno=CJS-00030 CInstallerCallBackImpl::abortInstallation()
Assertion failed: Unable to verify database access for login SAPSR3. Refer to trace file sapinst_dev.log for further information

ERROR      2018-09-15 18:37:19.274 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) [iaxxbjsmod.cpp:83] id=modlib.jslib.caughtException errno=MUT-03025
Caught ESAPinstException in module call: Assertion failed: Unable to verify database access for login SAPSR3. Refer to trace file sapinst_dev.log for further information..

ERROR      2018-09-15 18:37:19.537 (root/sapinst) (startInstallation) 
[CSiStepExecute.cpp:1102] id=controller.stepExecuted errno=FCO-00011 CSiStepExecute::execute()
The step syb_step_login_check with step key |offlineadjustment_dialogs|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0|offlineadjustment_db_post|ind|ind|ind|ind|db_post|0|syb_rename_db_post_dia|ind|ind|ind|ind|syb|0|NW_SYB_DB_REN|ind|ind|ind|ind|syb2|0|syb_step_login_check was executed with status ERROR (Last error reported by the step: Assertion failed: Unable to verify database access for login SAPSR3. Refer to trace file sapinst_dev.log for further information). 

You need to download correct ASE license file (SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic) from location location and put it to folder /sybase/NPL/SYSAM02_0/licenses. Do not forget to set proper owner of the file (chown sybnpl SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic) and group (chgrp sapsys SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic). The correct license file is valid till March 31st 2020. 

Afterwards restart the installation. Once it is successfully over you shall get a message like this:



Enjoy the newest version of the miniSAP!

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miniSAP - SAP NetWeaver 7.51 SPS2, installation

Well; a term miniSAP is not used any more. Nowadays they just call it "SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Editon" but for me it always will be the miniSAP as it reminds me my SAP early days back in begging’s of 2000’s when I started my SAP career.

After some time when old good versions of miniSAP weren’t available and as all software is moving to cloud there is a brand new version of SAP NetWeaver software - SAP NetWeaver 7.51 SPS2 as of SAP TechEd 2017. First of all, here’s what needs to be downloaded:

1. miniSAP NW 7.51 SPS2 installation files, a link to store.sap.com where installation file can be downloaded from is located at https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/#abap. (edit: physical files for download removed from this site but there a links SAP Store where you can download it). There are 10 files about if size 1,4GB each in RAR files.

2. linux OS, several distributions are available, I chose SUSE Leap for SAP installations, at the time of my installation (fall 2017) the version 42.3 available here: https://software.opensuse.org/distributions/leap

3. virtualization tool, e.g. VM Ware Player or VirtualBox I chose the latter one.

Once all the software is downloaded extract all 10 RAR files into folder. You will need approximately 14.3GB to store downloaded files. After the extraction it will have approximately 26GB including OS linux - openSUSE Leap 42.3. Start your virtualization tool and load image of linux OS. Then start the virtual machine and install the linux OS by choosing Installation on 1st screen. Rest of the OS install is very well described in article Linux for newbies or follow guide here, download info here, FAQs here, another Newbies Guide here and openSAP guide here. All the OS install shall not take more than 20 min at least that was a case on my intel i7 /32 GB memory based machine.

By starting up installation script (install.sh) first a license needs to be accepted (by typing ‘yes’) and then it asks to provide OS user password. Afterwards the installation starts to process files:




If you do not reserve enough space the installation may end up like below one J normally for installation there should be approx. 100GB of hard drive space available.



In case there is enough space the installation normally continues by extracting the files.
Password should follow rules: at least seven chars, big letter, small letter, digits, no special chars.
Below are errors I faced during the install:
1. Error: ‘unable to determine parameter DNS domain name’
Check whether host name and full host name with domain name is fulfilling requirements. Go with the name:   vhcalnplci vhcalnplci.dummy.nodomain





2. Error: ‘unable to verify database access for login SAPSR3’






And during the install change the file that is there in folder /sybase/NPL/SYSAM-2_0/licenses/SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic with the downloaded file. This step is quite a tricky one. I had to make several attempts before I finally succeeded. Issue is that you do know exactly when you shall change the file and that was the biggest challenge. Also you need to be a bit skilled in linux command file as you need to set proper owner of the file (command chown).and group of the file (command chgrp).


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