Installation

pkgask fails when trying to install Splunk on Solaris

Jaci
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

I would like to know how to automate the package to install across a few hundred servers.

I can install the pkg manually/interactively w/o a problem. I tried the pkgask to no avail [~] # pkgask -r rsp -d splunk-4.1.2-79191-solaris-8-sparc.pkg

The following packages are available:
1 splunk Splunk
(sparc) 4.1.2

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]: all

Processing package instance <splunk> from </root/splunk-4.1.2-79191-solaris-8-sparc.pkg>

Splunk(sparc) 4.1.2
Splunk Inc.
Please specify base installation directory, or leave blank for /opt:
/opt
/var/tmp//installV4aiNm/checkinstallX4aiNm: /root/rsp: cannot create
pkgask: ERROR: request script did not complete successfully

Processing of request script failed.
No changes were made to the system.

The file system is not full. Any ideas on this?

Tags (2)
1 Solution

Mick
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

'Cannot create' suggests a permissions issue, but not having much expertise with pkgask, that's just a guess.

A lot of Customers have had success with Puppet to roll Splunk out to a high number of servers, and our in-house PS guys can probably offer advice on any other tools they have used.

This is really where your local System Administrator should be brought into the conversation, because if you don't have a process or tool already in place to do something like this, then it's the best time to choose/create one.

This won't be just a one-time activity, as updates and new releases will be coming out continuously and when you're dealing with hundreds of servers, you need to track and maintain the details of what bits are being installed on each server.

View solution in original post

chicodeme
Communicator

Just for completeness I'm adding what splunk support came back to me with..

"Hi Chico,

Some digging around with the Dev team has turned up that there is supposed to be a 'silent' option on the .pkg installation package but it looks like there is currently a bug in there that's preventing it from working correctly.

The target time-frame for this to be fixed is our next major release, 4.2, which is still some ways out" - Mick | Support Manager

0 Karma

chicodeme
Communicator

I'm running as root and I am the sysadmin. We script the rollouts for solaris. We use RHN for rpm's..

How does splunk support automating the install of Solaris is the real question that I am looking for an answer to.

Same problems here but looks like he got pkgask to work: http://www.splunk.com/support/forum:SplunkAdministration/3854

0 Karma

chicodeme
Communicator

Everything is completely automated for rhel & aix. Solaris I am using the tar package unfortunately.

"..by design, the pkg installation requires interaction" - thats not by design. that is a bug.

The docs are wrong and non-interactive does not work.
http://www.splunk.com/base/Documentation/4.1.2/Installation/InstallonSolaris

0 Karma

chicodeme
Communicator

I don't need large scale install support. I need a single .pkg file that splunk created to install in a non-interactive way on a single solaris 10 server. I don't understand how that is not what splunk should support.

Splunk's core competency is around indexing and searching data, but not around having the infrastructure in place to use or install their core competency. I am not drinking that cool aid.

I did not want to use the tarball but it looks like that is my only option to date.

0 Karma

Mick
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

'Cannot create' suggests a permissions issue, but not having much expertise with pkgask, that's just a guess.

A lot of Customers have had success with Puppet to roll Splunk out to a high number of servers, and our in-house PS guys can probably offer advice on any other tools they have used.

This is really where your local System Administrator should be brought into the conversation, because if you don't have a process or tool already in place to do something like this, then it's the best time to choose/create one.

This won't be just a one-time activity, as updates and new releases will be coming out continuously and when you're dealing with hundreds of servers, you need to track and maintain the details of what bits are being installed on each server.

Mick
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

A non-interactive installation could be achieved by just using the tar-ball, but I assume you have already discounted that option from some reason seeing that you're so far down this route. The straight answer is that by design, the pkg installation requires interaction. We don't have any other native install packages for Solaris. What I gathering here is that you need help scoping out your overall deployment plan, do you want to arrange a call with PR on this

0 Karma

Mick
Splunk Employee
Splunk Employee

Splunk doesn't support automating the installation across hundreds of machines. Our core competency centers around indexing and searching data, not large-scale installations. We are investigating if it's feasible to add support for something like this but thats at the early stages.

As I said, our we do have Professional Services guys who go on-site to help Customers with this, so they may have some tips for you, but we really do rely on local expertise and processes/tools in this situation

0 Karma
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