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Quick start on Linux

The KX Platform package bundle provide a simple and rapid installation process to get up and running a basic development environment within minutes utilizing the full power of the Enterprise KX Platform framework. This guide aims to highlight how to start from the single package tgz; install it and be up and running with all the features of the Platform available immediately. This is the simplest way to have a Platform up and running, however the Platform offers significant customization and configuration at installation time; including specific package installation, port configuration and clustered installs. For information on these options please refer to the deployment documentation available along with the Platform bundle.

Prerequisites

This guide covers the installation of the KX Platform on a Linux server.

Alternatively Quick Start Windows

Supported OSs

  • Red Hat 6.5
  • Red Hat 7
  • Red Hat 8
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Required binaries

As part of a server config there are a number of binaries which need to be present. In the vast majority of installs these will already be available. If not, the installer will exit giving you the opportunity to install the relevant package. Information on the specific package is detailed in the deploy documentation, can be easily found via an Internet search

package     associated binaries
---------------------------------------------------------------------
bash        bash
bzip2       bzip2
coreutils   basename, cat, cp, date, echo, head, id, mkdir, mv, 
            printf, readlink, rm, rmdir, sort, tail, touch, tr, uname
gawk        awk
glibc       ldconfig
grep        grep
gzip        gzip, gunzip
lsof        lsof
net-tools   domainname, hostname, ifconfig
procps      ps
rsync       rsync
sed         sec
tar         tar
unzip       unzip
util-linux  taskset
which       which

Required third-party software

  • Java Runtime 1.8
  • OpenSSL

Required software and licenses

  • The KX Platform tgz bundle
  • A suitable KX Core license
  • A KX Platform license

Packages and licenses

Packages and licenses are available to clients. Please contact sales@kx.com for details on how to retrieve these or if you would like to become a client, availability of a demo or trial.

Running the installation

To run installation, untar the package and run the install script.

tar -zxf PlatformKx-4.6.0-Linux.tgz
cd PlatformKx-4.6.0-Linux
./install.sh

This will kick off installation. By default there will be a few basic details to give the installer.

Platform install directory

Platform install directory defaults to $HOME/kxinstall. Can be any valid directory.

Install type

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 [1] Single
 [2] Control
 [3] Web Server
 [4] Daemon
 [5] Control + Web Server
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Select Node Type [1-5]: 1

Type of installation. Offers the user the ability to install different configuration or node type. We shall select a basic single-node install.

Kdb+ basic config

Configuring Single Node Deploy:
 Please enter free port to be used by Control [2001] :
 Using port [2001] for Control
 Number of [Licensed KDB+] [CPU cores] [Max: 10] : 10

By default KX Control will require a free port to run on. The default is 2001; any free port is acceptable. The user will also be prompted for how many cores to be made available to the environment.

Web tier config

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 [1] HTTP
 [2] HTTPS
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Select App Server Deploy Type [1-2] : 1
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 App Server HTTP port [8080] :

HTTP and HTTPS deployments available at deployment time. If using HTTPS, certificates will be required. Also necessary to provide an available port from which the KX Platform to be available through.

KX Stream config

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Please enter starting value for deploy port range [3000] :
 Using starting port [3000]
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Encryption
  Deploy with TLS/SSL Encryption Enabled [no] :
KX Platform requires a number of kdb+ processes for normal operation; query management, routing, service discovery. There are also a variety of frameworks available with KX Stream. We need to provide a start port for these processes to be allocated a free port

Licensing

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Please enter location of a kx license file (k4.lic) [dir] : /home/kxuser/deploys
Provide the location of the available licenses.

Running deploy

At this point the installation will be running through all the steps necessary to deploy the KX Platform. In addition it will run a number of deployment checks & analysis of logs for issues before running the default workflows defined under the installation directory ${DELTA_HOME}/delta-bin/config/startup_workflows.txt.

+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Running Deploy
 Installing [12] Packages
 [*************]
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 [Mon Nov 19 14:38:30 UTC 2018]
Installation complete.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
...
...
 Control:
   [http://<host>:8080/control]
 Dashboards:
   [http://<host>:8080/dashboards/]
 Analyst:
   [http://<host>:8080/analyst]
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Finished.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
 Running Post Startup Script [checkEnv.sh]
Install Directory [-i] set to [/home/kxuser/kxinstall]
============================================================
==                 checkEnv.sh [2.0]                     ==
============================================================
...
...
Write Summary File [platform-info/asic01/summary.txt]
+----------------------------------------------------------+
+----------------------------------------------------------+
Finished [checkEnv.sh].
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

Congratulations, you’re ready to start building applications on top of the KX Enterprise Platform. Build a data warehouse is a tutorial on how to build a powerful, scalable tick-capture application using the KX Platform.

Start-up failure

If the deploy fails to start up, the log files of the processes need to be checked to find and understand where the error is coming from.

failure log file location
Control delta-data/DeltaControlData/logdir/DeltaControl.log
Daemon delta-data/DeltaControlData/logdir/DeltaControlDaemon.log
AppServer delta-bin/software/Tomcat_9_0_37/latest/logs/delta.log
Tomcat delta-bin/software/Tomcat_9_0_37/latest/logs/catalina.out

Possible kdb+ errors during start-up

Error Explanation
host The hostname reported by the OS does not match the hostname or hostname-pattern in the license. If you see 55.255.255.255 in the kdb+ banner, the machine almost certainly cannot resolve its hostname to an IP address, which will cause a host error
k4.lic k4.lic file not found, check contents of environment variables QHOME and QLIC
exp License expiry date is prior to system date CPU
cpu The license is for fewer CPUs than available
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