Using the RPM Installer

Downloading the installer

The RPM installer for Visual COBOL is distributed as a .bin file and is available from your Electronic Product Delivery email.

To download and extract the file:

1. Use the links in your Electronic Product Delivery email to download the filename.bin file that includes the RPM installer.
2. Execute the .bin file from a terminal.
3. Accept the terms of the End User License Agreement to extract the filename.rpm file on your machine.

Standard RPM installation

To install Visual COBOL:

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the location of the .rpm file.
2. Execute the following command with superuser permissions:

   rpm -i filename.rpm

   This installs the product to the following default location - /opt/microfocus/VisualCOBOL.

Alternatively, you can start the filename.rpm file from the file manager program available on your operating system:

1. Open the file manager program and navigate to the location of the filename.rpm file.
2. Start the file.

   This installs the product and any missing prerequisites.

Installing using the yum utility

The yum repository must be configured before you start a yum installation. See your yum documentation for instructions. This is not necessary if you have a subscription to an RPM Web site.

To install from a CD or using an ISO image:

1. Mount the CD or mount the ISO on a virtual machine CD drive using a DevLab machine administration Web page.
2. Execute the following command to create a repository configuration file:

   vi /etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-dvd.repo

3. Add the following code to the repository configuration file:

   [dvd]
   name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation DVD
   baseurl=file:///media/RHEL_6.1_DVD
   enabled=1
   gpgcheck=0

4. Execute the following command to start the installation:

   yum install [filename.rpm]

5. Follow the instructions on the screen to install the package and any missing software prerequisites from the ISO image.

Installing using the YaST2 utility

To install using YaST2:

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the location of the .rpm file.
2. Execute the following command:

   yast2 -i filename.rpm

3. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

   If there is any missing prerequisite software, YaST prompts for the CD Media that includes the installation files.

Installing using the zypper utility

To installing using zypper:

1. Ensure the SUSE OS CD Media is mounted on your machine.
2. Execute the following from a terminal to see the repositories that are available on your machine:

   zypper repos

   The output is similar to the following:

   # | Alias        | Name         | Enabled | Refresh
   --+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+---------+--------
   1 |  SLES12-12-0 |  SLES12-12-0 | Yes     | No

   Where the number 1 repository is the SUSE OS CD Media.

3. Execute the following command to select the OS CD Media as the repository to run:

   zypper repos 1

4. Execute the following command to install the product and its dependencies:

   zypper install [filename.rpm]

5. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

Installing a Micro Focus product as an upgrade

When installing an upgrade or a HotFix release of a Micro Focus product, execute the following command with superuser permissions to upgrade the existing installation:

rpm -U filename.rpm

This upgrades the existing installation of your product in /opt/microfocus/VisualCOBOL.

The installed product that you want to upgrade might contain non-default configuration settings. In such cases, when you are installing an upgrade, the RPM installer creates copies of the existing configuration files with an extension filename.rpmsave before installing the configuration files from the newer product version.

To check whether the installer has created copies of any of the older configuration files, execute the following command after you install the product:

find /opt/microfocus/VisualCOBOL -name *.rpmsave -print

Installing without root user permissions

By default, you must run the RPM installer with superuser permissions so that it has write access to the RPM installation database.

In order to perform a non-root installation, you need to create and use a local user RPM installation database which does not require superuser permissions.

To install into a non-root location, execute the following commands:

cd $HOME
mkdir -p $HOME/rpmdb
rpm --initdb --dbpath $HOME/rpmdb
rpm --root $HOME --dbpath $HOME/rpmdb --relocate /usr=$HOME \ --nodeps -i --nodeps --prefix=$HOME/VisualCOBOL filename.rpm

Installing the product into a non-default location

To install the product into a non-default location, execute the following command with superuser permissions:

rpm -i --prefix=[FullPath] filename.rpm

Where FullPath is the directory on your machine where you want to install the product.

Viewing the log files

During the installation, the RPM installer creates a log file in /opt/microfocus/logs. The log file contains all of the information that was displayed on the terminal screen during the installation as well as some additional information about the product configuration.