Chapter 1. Overview
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 RHEA-2019:3190 introduced RHEL System Roles for SAP to assist with remotely or locally configuring a RHEL system for the installation of SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver software. RHEL System Roles for SAP development is based on the SAP LinuxLab upstream project.
RHEL System Roles is a collection of roles executed by Ansible to assist administrators with RHEL system configuration. These roles are provided in the RHEL AppStream repository. In contrast, RHEL System Roles for SAP is provided in the RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solution subscription provides support for RHEL System Roles for SAP with Ansible Core. However, if you require full support for Ansible Core, a separate subscription is necessary. Additional information is available at Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) System Roles.
The following RHEL System Roles for SAP are fully supported on control nodes running RHEL 8.4 and later:
- sap_general_preconfigure
- sap_netweaver_preconfigure
- sap_hana_preconfigure
- sap_hana_install
The following RHEL System Roles for SAP are supported as Technology Preview on control nodes running RHEL 8.4 and later:
- sap_ha_install_hana_hsr
- sap_ha_pacemaker_cluster
- sap_swpm (*)
The RHEL System Roles for SAP, just like the RHEL System Roles, are installed and run from a central node referred to as the control node (which can be Ansible Automation controller, Red Hat Satellite, or a RHEL 9 or RHEL 8 host). The control node connects to the local host and/or to one or more remote hosts (called managed nodes in the context of Ansible), and performs installation and configuration steps on them. It is recommended that you use the latest major release of RHEL on the control node (RHEL 8) and use the latest version of the roles either from the rhel-system-roles-sap
RPM or from Red Hat Automation Hub. The RHEL System Roles for SAP and Ansible packages do not need to be installed on the systems that are being managed/configured.
This document describes how to install and use RHEL package rhel-system-roles-sap
version 3.3.0 (*) or Automation Hub collection redhat.sap_install
version 1.2.1, which consists of the following roles.
Package rhel-system-roles-sap
version 3.3.0 does not contain the role sap_swpm
. This role is planned to be released in the next version of package rhel-system-roles-sap
.
Purpose
Role Name | Description |
---|---|
sap_general_preconfigure | Perform installation and configuration steps common to SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA |
sap_netweaver_preconfigure | Perform additional installation and configuration steps for SAP NetWeaver |
sap_hana_preconfigure | Perform additional installation and configuration for SAP HANA |
sap_hana_install | Perform a SAP HANA scale-up or scale-out installation |
sap_ha_install_hana_hsr | Set up SAP HANA System Replication on two nodes |
sap_ha_pacemaker_cluster | Install Pacemaker and configure the cluster and SAP cluster resources |
sap_swpm | Install SAP Software via SWPM |
Support Status
Role Name | Support Status | Remote Host Management | Control Node |
---|---|---|---|
sap_general_preconfigure | Fully supported | RHEL 7.6 and later, RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_netweaver_preconfigure | Fully supported | RHEL 7.6 and later, RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_hana_preconfigure | Fully supported | RHEL 7.6 and later, RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_hana_install | Fully supported | RHEL 7.6 and later, RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_ha_install_hana_hsr | Technology Preview | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_ha_pacemaker_cluster | Technology Preview | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
sap_swpm (*) | Technology Preview for certain functionality, unsupported for all other functionality | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 | RHEL 8, RHEL 9 |
* This version of the RHEL System Roles for SAP contains the role
sap_swpm
with a support scope of Technology Preview for the role’s default mode only and only for the following deployment scenarios: S/4HANA 2021 and S/4HANA 2022 single-host installation on x86_64: RHEL 8.4, 8.6, 9.0 and ppc64le: RHEL 8.4 and 8.6.All other functionality of the role
sap_swpm
is not supported.
Platforms
See the table below for the supported hardware/virtualization/cloud platforms of the managed node:
Hardware platform | Bare Metal/Virtualization/ Cloud platform | Support Status |
---|---|---|
x86_64 | bare metal, Red Hat Virtualization/libvirt, VMware ESX, Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Providers | supported as per Support Status in the previous table |
ppc64le | PowerVM LPARs | supported as per Support Status in the previous table |
s390x | zVM guest | fully supported: sap_general_preconfigure, sap_netweaver_preconfigure |
Directories
Installation Method | Roles; Documentation |
---|---|
RHEL package rhel-system-roles-sap |
|
Automation Hub collection redhat.sap_install |
|
- The roles are designed to be used right after the initial installation of a managed node. If you want to run these roles against an SAP or other production system, run them in assertion mode first so you can detect which settings deviate from SAP’s recommendations as per applicable SAP notes. When run in normal mode, the roles will enforce the SAP recommended configuration on the managed node(s). Unusual system configuration settings might in rare cases still lead to unintended changes by the role. Before using the roles in normal mode on production systems, it is strongly recommended to backup the system and test the roles on a test and QA system first.
-
Before applying the roles on a managed node, verify that the RHEL release on the managed node is supported by the SAP software version that you are planning to install. The role
sap_hana_preconfigure
will fail if a RHEL minor version is used for which no SAP HANA validation exists (can be overridden).