SAPgui for Linux
installation guidelines

A packaged installation for the Linux SAPgui installation is not provided. Linux has many distributions and configurations, and it is up to the local administrator to use these guidelines to install SAPgui in their environment.

To use SAPgui on Linux, you will need:

  • Pentium II or AMD K6/2 400Mhz, 128MB RAM
  • Kerberos client
  • Java (IBM JRE 1.3.1 or Sun JRE 1.4.1)
  • SAPgui 6.20r8

Each of these must be installed and configured appropriately. Later versions may be compatible.

Kerberos client

You may install the Kerberos client tools (kinit, kdestroy, etc.) from a package you have obtained, or compile Kerberos from source. Either way, you will need its shared libraries for SAP operation. If you are compiling from source, you should run configure with the --enable-shared option.

Source and further documentation on Kerberos itself is available from MIT.

The tested version is krb5-1.3.2.

Configuration

Once installed, you will need to place a krb5.conf configuration file appropriate for the Duke environment in /etc.

You may want to run kinit after installation to see if you can obtain a ticket with your NetID.

Java

The Linux client is written in Java, so you will need a JVM installed. If unavailable in your distribution, you may obtain a packaged version from Sun, in RPM or .tar.gz format. J2RE version 1.4.2 was used in our testing.

SAPgui

SAPgui 6.20 is the supported version of the SAP desktop client at Duke.

The SAPgui client for Linux is provided in a Java .jar file. You should download it from the health system's software download site, or click here.

The installer requires X. In an X terminal window, type:

/usr/java/j2re1.4.2_04/bin/java -jar PlatinGUI-Linux-620r8.jar

You should of course use the appropriate path to your java binary.

The installation location defaults to ~/SAPGUI, but you should be able to install and run it from another location if you prefer.

User environment configuration

You need to configure the user's environment with at least one variable and one file.

First, place platin.ini in the user's home directory. This contains SAP connection information.

Next, you should set the SNC_LIB environment variable to the location of the libgssapi_krb5.so library, e.g. in bash

export SNC_LIB='/usr/local/lib/libgssapi_krb5.so'

To run SAPgui, execute SAPGUI/6.20rev8/bin/guilogon. You may wish to alias this or create a desktop icon, depending on your desktop environment.

If guilogon cannot find java, it will complain and you will need to set two additional environment variables, PLATIN_JAVA and PLATIN_JAVA_VER. In bash:

export PLATIN_JAVA='/usr/java/j2re1.4.2_04/bin/java'

export PLATIN_JAVA_VER='1.4.2'

Starting SAPgui

Once installed and configured, all a user should need to do to start SAPgui is:

  1. Run kinit to acquire a kerberos ticket.
  2. Run guilogon to start the SAPgui client.

Other notes

Kerberos commands

Here are some useful Kerberos commands:

  • kinit – acquire a kerberos ticket
  • klist – display your kerberos tickets
  • kdestroy – delete your kerberos tickets

By default, kinit will use the local login name of the user to obtain a kerberos ticket. You may use kinit NetID if the local login name and the NetID differ.

Centralization

The following are some hints if you are trying to centralize the installation on a shared computer:

  • Set the SNC_LIB environment variable (and possibly PLATIN_JAVA and PLATIN_VER) in a file that gets sourced for each user that logs in (e.g. /etc/profile).
  • You may place the platin.ini configuration in another location, and pass the -i switch to guilogon, e.g.

    guilogon -i /path/to/platin.ini

Last modified: Mon Mar 22 13:41:46 EST 2004