Automatically installing services and instances

To quickly and automatically add services and instances to your Spotfire implementation whenever you add and trust a new node, you can prepare a node template file that is triggered when a new node manager comes online and is trusted. This method is most appropriate for large and growing Spotfire implementations.

About this task

Note: If you are configuring an automated deployment in a private subnet, you may also want to automatically trust nodes; for details, see Automatically trusting new nodes.

Before you begin

Spotfire Server is up and running.
In the firewall of the computer on which you are installing the node manager, open the ports that will be used for the service instances.
You have deployed client packages to Spotfire Server; for instructions, see Deploying client packages to Spotfire Server.

Procedure

Install and start the node managers but do not trust them. For instructions, see Node manager installation.

Open a text editor, or a more advanced tool capable of detecting syntax problems in JSON text, and create a JSON file that contains the following code:

{
   "services" : [ {
           "capability" : "WEB_PLAYER",
           "deploymentArea" : "Production",
           "configuration" : "Web Player Configuration",
           "customPrefix" : "Prefix",
           "resourcePool" : "Pool A",
           "instances" : 2,
           "port" : 9501
           }
    ],
    "strict" : "false"
}

Edit the default parameters as necessary:


Parameter	Description
capability	The service to install. Current options for Windows node managers are WEB_PLAYER, AUTOMATION_SERVICES, TERR, and PYTHON. For Linux node managers, the TERR service and Spotfire Service for Python are available.
deploymentArea	Name of an existing deployment area.
configuration	Name of an existing configuration (default or otherwise) that is available in the deployment area for the service being deployed. For information on creating new service configurations, see Manually editing the service configuration files.
customName	Name of the new service. If present, this setting overrides any customPrefix setting. This parameter is optional.
customPrefix	Text to add before the name of the service. For example, if the customPrefix value is "Finance Dept.", the new Spotfire Web Player name will be "Finance Dept. Web Player". This parameter is optional.
resourcePool	For Spotfire Web Players, the name of a resource pool that the new instances will join. If the named resource pool does not exist, Spotfire Server creates it. This parameter is optional.
instances	Number of service instances to create. If no number is specified, only the service is created. This parameter is optional.
port	Communications port that the instances should use. This parameter is optional.
strict	Changing this parameter to "true" means that the installation will fail if any of the following parameters are not specified or are incorrect: capability deployment area configuration

Note: The text between the square brackets can be repeated as often as necessary in the file to create the required services and instances.

Name the file default.conf and place it in the following directory: <node manager install directory>/nm/config/
Trust the node manager; for instructions, see Trusting a node.

Results

The services specified in the default.conf file are installed and the service instances start running.

Note: After the file is processed, the file's name changes to default.bak.

What to do next

For information on the remaining setup tasks, see Post-installation steps.