2.1. Installing xGT¶

Running xGT on-premises can eliminate the need to move sensitive data off-premises (e.g., into a cloud repository) and, depending on the server configuration, can speed up the ingest of large volumes of data.

2.1.1. Supported Environments¶

The Trovares xGT server runs on an x86-64 platform running enterprise Linux distributions. The reference implementation is RHEL 7.6 distrubuted via an RPM. For information about running xGT on other Linux distributions contact gettingstarted@trovares.com.

Required RHEL 7.6 Packages¶
Package Name	Minimum Version
bzip2-libs	1.0.6
libcurl	7.29.0
log4cxx	0.10.0
numactl	2.0.12
openssl-libs	1.0.2k
zlib	1.2.7

Note that the required packages will be installed as dependencies when installing the xGT distribution. However, for those sites without direct internet access, pre-installing these packages is required.

2.1.1.1. Python Environment¶

For every platform on which the xGT client will be run, a Python environment must be set up. Trovares supports using Python 3.5+. Python 2 is not supported.

In addition to the OS packages (e.g., python and python-pip 1), several Python packages are required:

Required Python Packages¶
Pip Package Name	Minimum Version
grpcio	1.20.0
jupyter
pandas	0.24.2
protobuf	3.12.0

Pip by default will install the most current version. Required packages can be installed along with xGT like so:

$ pip install grpcio jupyter pandas protobuf xgt

If planning to use the xGT client in a Python environment using either forked processes or Python multiprocessing, install grpcio version 1.30.0 instead of the latest version like so:

$ pip install grpcio==1.30.0

More information on setting up an xGT client environment is available here: Installing the xGT Client.

2.1.1.2. Assistance¶

To acquire a license for Trovares xGT or for questions about configuring Trovares xGT, contact gettingstarted@trovares.com.

2.1.2. Licensing¶

The server component of xGT, called the xgtd process, is distributed as an encrypted executable licensed on a specific server. The server is required to connect to a license manager in order to run. This license manager can be either on the same machine or a separate machine.

Detailed information about licensing is provided in xGT License Management System.

The following steps are required to get xGT installed on your server.

Step 1: Install the license manager and get the MAC addresses of the intended license platform Download the RPM provided as link by Trovares (typically provided by email).

Then install it:

sudo yum install xgt-license-manager-X.Y.Z-1.x86_64.rpm
/opt/xgtd/bin/lmxendutil -hostid

A sample output from such a run:

/opt/xgtd/bin/lmxendutil -hostid
LM-X End-user Utility v5.0
Copyright (C) 2002-2021 X-Formation. All rights reserved.

ETHERNET: ens3
HostID: 000C2BC32G83

ETHERNET: ens4
HostID: 0A42F8D4C3F0

HOSTNAME: wyvern
HostID: wyvern

USERNAME: jacob
HostID: jacob

IPADDRESS: 192.128.121.148
HostID: 192.128.121.148

IPADDRESS: 192.138.111.*
HostID: 192.138.111.*

IPADDRESS: 192.118.*.*
HostID: 192.118.*.*

It may also help to capture the following information, but this is optional:

$ free -h
$ lscpu

Capture the entire output and send that to gettingstarted@trovares.com.

Step 2: Run the license manager

Trovares creates a license specific for the server your license manager is running on. You will receive a license from us.

When you receive the license, put it in /etc/xgtd/licenses/ on the license manager machine. It should be named xgtd.lic.

To start the license manager:
```
$ systemctl start lmx
```
To verify the license server is working check the logs:
```
$ less /var/log/xgtd/lmx.log
```
You should see something like the following in the log:
```
[2021-03-18 16:26:42] Serving following features:
[2021-03-18 16:26:42] xgtd (v1.6) (16 license(s)) license type: exclusive
```
If no log files are available, you can check the status with systemctl status lmx or journalctl -u lmx.
Step 3: Download and install the electronic distribution

Download the RPM provided as link by Trovares (typically provided by email).
```
sudo yum install xgt-server-X.Y.Z-1.x86_64.rpm
```
Of course, the name of your distribution may be different than the one shown here.

If the license manager is on a different machine, you will need to modify the configuration to use that machine. See Configuring the xGT Server.

Step 4: Run the xgtd server

To start xgtd:

$ systemctl start xgtd

To check the status of xgtd:

$ systemctl status xgtd

Note that if the installation has been successful, you should see something like this:

$ systemctl status xgtd
● xgtd.service - xgtd
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/xgtd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-11-06 19:05:40 UTC; 2s ago
 Main PID: 9060 (xgtdBinary)
   CGroup: /system.slice/xgtd.service
           ├─9060 /opt/xgtd/bin/xgtd -c /etc/xgtd/xgtd.conf -p 4367
           └─9061 /opt/xgtd/bin/xgtd -c /etc/xgtd/xgtd.conf -p 4367

Nov 06 19:05:40 xgtd-server-host systemd[1]: Started xgtd.

To stop xgtd:

$ systemctl stop xgtd

Note that it may be necessary to prepend sudo to these commands in your environment.

If the systemctl start xgtd command has been performed followed by a systemctl status xgtd, and the report says that the xgtd process has failed, it may be helpful to look in /var/log/xgtd/ for logging and auditing output or use journalctl -u xgtd.

For licensing error messages check LM-X Error Messages.

Footnotes

1: RHEL 7.6 does not provide python-pip by default. It can be installed via the EPEL repository.