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Initial Linux Installation

Before you start

Goal

  • Install Altair SLC Hub using the RPM package.
  • Verify that the installation completed successfully.

Prerequisites

  • Read the Planning section.
  • Administration privileges for the host.
  • Permission to run installation commands with sudo.
  • Access to the RPM files.
  • Access to the required OpenSSL library packages for the chosen RPM.

Note

This page covers installation of the Altair SLC Hub software only. The system is not yet usable after this step.

Install

Note

These steps are for a fresh installation only. If you are upgrading an existing Altair SLC Hub server, see the upgrade guide.

Altair SLC Hub is delivered as two RPM packages: one for the Altair SLC Hub server and one for worker machines.

In production, it is recommended that the server and workers are installed on separate machines to prevent worker workloads from affecting the Altair SLC Hub control plane. However, the server can be configured to act as a worker machine if required.

Get the Install Files

Download the RPMs from the World Programming (an Altair Company) Customer Support download site.

There are two versions of the Altair SLC Hub server RPM: slchub and slchub-openssl1. - For most installations, the slchub RPM is recommended. This requires the OpenSSL 3 libraries to be installed. - On RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 this can be installed from the default package repository. - On RHEL 8 distributions, this requires the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository to be enabled.

This can be done with the following command:

sudo dnf install -y epel-release
If setting up the EPEL repository is not desired, then the slchub-openssl1 RPM can be installed instead. This requires the OpenSSL 1 libraries, which are available from the default package repository in RHEL 8.

The server file will be of the form slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm or slchub-openssl1_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm. Select the relevant RPM, then download and copy it to a suitable directory on the target machine. The rest of this guide assumes the slchub RPM is used. Substitute slchub-openssl1 as appropriate if that RPM is used.

Install the Software

Having placed the install file on the target machine install the slchub package using DNF, for example:

sudo dnf install -y slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm

The dnf command will give feedback on the installation, concluding with a Complete! message and a summary of packages that have been installed.

Note

Altair SLC Hub is installed in /opt/altair/slchub.

Having placed the install file on the target machine, the first step is to install the dependencies required by the slchub package using DNF. The dependencies and the packages that provide them can be listed with the following command:

sudo dnf deplist slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm

Make sure all the dependencies required are installed.

Command to install all dependencies For convenience, the following command will attempt to install all the dependencies for you:

sudo dnf deplist slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm \
    | awk '! /slchub/ && ! /coreutils/ && /provider:.*x86_64/ {print $2}' \
    | sort -u | xargs sudo dnf install -y

When installing the Altair SLC Hub RPM you have the option to set the location that it is installed, and separately control the location of the var directory.

Installing the Altair SLC Hub to a different directory can be done using the RPM command by specifying the --relocate option, for example:

sudo rpm -i slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm --relocate /opt/altair/slchub=<install location>

To change the var directory location can be done relocating it, for example: 

sudo rpm -i slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm --relocate /opt/altair/slchub/var=<var location>

This can be combined to relocate both to different locations: 

sudo rpm -i slchub_<version>-1_x86_64.rpm --relocate /opt/altair/slchub=<install location> --relocate /opt/altair/slchub/var=<var location>

Verify the Installation

To confirm that the installation completed successfully, run:

hubctl

You should see help information for the hubctl command. This confirms that the Altair SLC Hub software has been installed and that hubctl is available. Most configuration actions are performed using the hubctl command. This is installed into the /usr/bin directory by the Altair SLC Hub installation. The hubctl command should work without needing to use sudo.

About hubctl

hubctl is the command-line tool used to configure and manage Altair SLC Hub. To use hubctl, your user must be added to the slchub group. For more information, see Configuration.

Directory Layout

Altair SLC Hub is installed in /opt/altair/slchub. The installation creates various directories that will be of interest after installation.

Directory Default Location Description
Installation root /opt/altair/slchub The root installation directory. This will be referred to as the installation root elsewhere in the documentation.
[etc directory] /opt/altair/slchub/etc Location of configuration files. The etc directory will always be located under the installation root. This directory will be referred to as the [etc directory] directory elsewhere in the documentation.
[var directory] /opt/altair/slchub/var Location of data files and log files. The var directory will be located under the installation root unless its location was changed during installation. This directory will be referred to as the [var directory] elsewhere in the documentation.

Next Steps Required

The software is now installed, but the system is not yet usable. You must complete the following configuration steps in order:

Complete the following steps:

  1. Configure licensing
  2. Generate TLS certificates
  3. Configure ingress (external HTTPS)
  4. Run bootstrap (initializes Altair SLC Hub and internal HTTPS)
  5. Start services
  6. Create an admin user

See the Install Guide for the complete installation flow.