Installing the CMC

This page describes how to install the Caplin Management Console (CMC) using the Caplin Platform Deployment Framework.

Overview

The Caplin Management Console (CMC) is a Java Management Extensions (JMX) client for Liberator, Transformer, and other DataSource components.

The CMC is designed to be deployed to your production Caplin infrastructure and viewed remotely over a forwarded X11 or Microsoft Remote Desktop connection.

Requirements

The CMC 7 has the following requirements:

  • Caplin Deployment Framework 7

  • Java 8

  • Direct network access to the Java RMI ports of each JMX-enabled DataSource component.

    A DataSource component’s RMI ports are configured by the configuration items rmi-registry-port and rmi-client-port.
  • One of the following operating systems:

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with a full GUI or the packages xorg-x11-xauth, libXtst, and libXrender installed.

    • Microsoft Windows Server with a full GUI.

      Microsoft Windows Server is not a supported platform for Liberator and Transformer.

In addition, the JMX interfaces of all monitorable components must be enabled. See Activating a component’s JMX interface.

Deploying the CMC

The CMC kit is supplied in a ZIP file: CaplinManagementConsole-<version>-kit.zip.

It is recommended that you deploy the CMC to a Deployment Framework on which all your DataSource components have been deployed. This allows the Deployment Framework’s mon command to generate CMC connection profiles for all your JMX-enabled components.

To deploy the CMC, follow the steps below:

  1. Copy the ZIP file into the Deployment Framework’s kits directory.

  2. Run the command below to deploy the CMC:

    ./dfw deploy

Configuring the CMC

Follow the steps below:

  1. Deploy all remaining DataSource components to your Deployment Framework

  2. Activate the JMX interfaces of all components you want to monitor in the CMC (see Activating a component’s JMX interface).

  3. Run the Deployment Framework’s mon command to configure the CMC with connection profiles for all your JMX-enabled DataSource components:

    ./dfw mon

If you later add new DataSource components, run the mon command again to regenerate CMC’s configuration file.

Starting the CMC

If the CMC’s host has a GUI and you have local access to it, then run the Deployment Framework’s cmc command to start the CMC:

./dfw cmc

If you don’t have local access to the CMC’s host, follow the instructions in Running the CMC remotely.

The CMC will prompt you for a username and password if your deployment uses KeyMaster authentication.

The opening screen in CMC displays an overview of all DataSource components known to the CMC. In the example below, Liberator and Transformer have not yet been started and they are displayed in red, indicating that there is an issue with the CMC’s connection to these components:

CMC Overview Screen as seen on first startup after installation

After starting Liberator and Transformer, their boxes in the CMC change colour from red to blue, indicating that the CMC has connected to them successfully. In addition, a blue connecting line is added, representing the connection between them:

CMC Overview Screen showing connected Liberator and Transformer

Double-click on a component to view the full management interface for the component. The example below shows the management interface for Liberator:

CMC Detail Screen for Liberator
When the CMC is running you’ll notice that the Deployment Framework takes longer to shut down when you run ./dfw stop. To avoid this delay, before you stop the Deployment Framework, first close the CMC by clicking the close button on its window.

See also: