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<chapter xml:id='chap-before-you-install'

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<title>Before You Install OpenDJ Software</title>

<para>This chapter covers requirements to consider before you run OpenDJ,

especially before you run OpenDJ in your production environment.</para>

<para>If you have a special request to support a combination not listed here,

contact ForgeRock at <link xlink:href='mailto:info@forgerock.com'

>info@forgerock.com</link>.</para>

<section xml:id="prerequisites-java">

<title>Java Environment</title>

<indexterm>

<primary>Java</primary>

<secondary>Requirements</secondary>

</indexterm>

<para>OpenDJ software consists of pure Java applications. OpenDJ servers

and clients therefore should run on any system with full Java support.

OpenDJ is tested on a variety of operating systems, including Solaris

SPARC and x86, various Linux distributions, Microsoft Windows,

and Apple Mac OS X.</para>

<para>OpenDJ software requires Java 6 or 7, specifically at least the Java

Standard Edition runtime environment. ForgeRock has tested most with Oracle

Java Platform, Standard Edition.</para>

<para>ForgeRock recommends that you keep your Java installation up to date

with the latest security fixes.</para>

<para>To build applications with the OpenDJ LDAP SDK, you need the

corresponding Java SDK.</para>

</section>

<xinclude:include href="/shared/sec-prerequisites-file-descriptors.xml" />

<section xml:id="prerequisites-operating-systems">

<title>Operating System</title>

<indexterm>

<primary>Operating systems</primary>

<secondary>Requirements</secondary>

</indexterm>

<para>OpenDJ software depends on the Java environment more than it depends

on the underlying operating system. That said, OpenDJ

<?eval ${docTargetVersion}?> has been validated on the following operating

systems.</para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>Apple Mac OS X 10.7, 10.8</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>Linux 2.6 and later</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>Oracle Solaris 11 x86</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

<xinclude:include href="/shared/para-write-barriers.xml" />

</section>

<section xml:id="prerequisites-virtualization">

<title>Virtualization</title>

<indexterm>

<primary>Virtualization</primary>

<secondary>Requirements</secondary>

</indexterm>

<para>ForgeRock has tested OpenDJ software on systems running atop VMware

vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 5.1.</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="prerequisites-application-servers">

<title>Application Servers</title>

<indexterm>

<primary>Application servers</primary>

<secondary>Requirements</secondary>

</indexterm>

<para>OpenDJ directory server runs as a standalone Java service, and

does not depend on an application server.</para>

<para>OpenDJ DSML gateway has been validated on Apache Tomcat 6 and 7.</para>

<para>OpenDJ REST LDAP gateway has been validated on Apache Tomcat 6 and

Jetty 8.</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="prerequisites-fqdn">

<title>FQDNs For Replication</title>

<indexterm><primary>Fully qualified domain name requirements</primary></indexterm>

<para>OpenDJ replication requires that you use fully qualified domain names,

such as <literal>opendj.example.com</literal>.</para>

<para>Although you can use host names like <literal>my-laptop.local</literal>

for evaluation, in production and even in your lab, you must either ensure

DNS is set up correctly to provide fully qualified domain names, or set up

<filename>/etc/hosts</filename> (or

<filename>C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts</filename>) to provide

fully qualified domain names.</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="prerequisites-hardware">

<title>Hardware</title>

<para>Thanks to the underlying Java platform, OpenDJ software runs well

on a variety of processor architectures. Many directory service

deployments meet their service-level agreements without the very latest

or very fastest hardware.</para>

<indexterm><primary>Memory requirements</primary></indexterm>

<para>For a server evaluation installation, you need 256 MB memory (32-bit)

or 1 GB memory (64-bit) available to OpenDJ, with 100 MB free disk space for

the software and a small set of sample data. For installation in production,

read the rest of this section. You need at least 2 GB memory for OpenDJ and

4 times the disk space needed to house initial production data in LDIF

format.<footnote>

<para>OpenDJ stores data in Berkeley DB Java Edition, which is implemented

as a rolling log. Berkeley DB appends updates to the end of the last log

file, and marks old pages as deleted. Berkeley DB cleaner threads monitor

the log file occupancy ratio, moving the data to get rid of old log files.

Yet, with the default occupancy ratio of 50%, log files are cleaned only

when they have less than 50% valid pages. As a result, the database can

reach twice its initial size in the worst case.</para>

<para>Furthermore, when you import data from LDIF, OpenDJ stores not only

the data, but also builds indexes for many of the attributes, resulting in

some growth. Replication historical data and other operational attributes

can also take up space.</para>

<para>Finally, it makes sense to leave space for growth in the database size

as you modify and add entries over time.</para></footnote>

To get a more accurate estimate of the disk space needed, import a known

fraction of the initial LDIF with OpenDJ configured as for production, run

tests based on the estimated rates of change and growth in directory data,

and then use the actual space used in the test environment to estimate how

much disk space you need in production.</para>

<para>OpenDJ directory servers almost always benefit from having enough

system memory to cache all directory database files used. The reason

is that reading from and writing to memory is typically much faster

than reading from and writing to disk storage. For small data sets,

you might not need extra memory. For large directories with millions of

user directory entries, the system might not have enough slots to house

sufficient memory to cache everything. To improve performance in such

cases, one approach is to add solid state drives as an intermediate

cache between memory and disk storage.</para>

<para>Processor architectures that provide fast single thread execution

tend to help OpenDJ software deliver the lowest response times. For top end

performance in terms both of sub-millisecond response times and also

of throughput ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands

of operations per second, the latest x86/x64 architecture chips tend to

perform better than others tested. Chip multi-threading (CMT) processors

can do very well on directory servers providing pure search throughput,

even though response times can be higher. Yet, CMT processors can be slow

to absorb hundreds or thousands of write operations per second. Their

slower threads get blocked waiting on resources, and thus are not optimal

for topologies with high write throughput requirements.</para>

<indexterm><primary>Network requirements</primary></indexterm>

<para>On systems with fast processors and enough memory to cache directory

data completely, the network can become a bottleneck. Even if a single

1 Gbit Ethernet interface offers plenty of bandwidth to handle your

average traffic load, it can be too small for peak traffic loads.

Furthermore, you might choose to use separate interfaces for

administrative traffic and application traffic. To estimate what network

hardware you need, calculate the size of the data you return to

applications during peak load. For example, if you expect to have a

peak load of 100,000 searches per second, each returning a full 8 KB

entry, you need a network that can handle 800 MB/sec (3.2 Gbit/sec)

throughput, not counting any other operations such as writes that

result in replication traffic.</para>

<indexterm><primary>Storage requirements</primary></indexterm>

<para>The storage hardware you choose must allow you to house not only

directory data including historical data for replication, but also

logs. If you choose to retain access logs for auditing purposes on a

heavily used directory, dedicate storage for the log archives as well.

Furthermore, your storage must also keep pace with the write

throughput. Write throughput can arise from modify, modify DN, add,

and delete operations, but it can also result from bind operations.

Such is the case when the last successful bind is recorded, and when

account lockout is configured, for example. In a replicated topology,

not only does a directory service write entries to disk when they are

changed, but a directory service also writes changelog data and

historical information in order to resolve potential replication

conflicts. You base your network throughput needs on peak loads. Also

base your storage throughput needs on peak loads.</para>

<note>

<para>OpenDJ servers do not currently support network file systems such

as NFS for database storage. Provide sufficient disk space on local storage

such as internal disk or an attached disk array.</para>

</note>

</section>

</chapter>