Prerequisite
This guide assumes you have a running RHEL server with access to the Red Hat repositories (repos).
Minimum Server Spec
12GB RAM
2 CPU Cores
220GB disk
Repositories
The Red Hat repos are typically made available via two methods:
⦁ an active Red Hat subscription – typically used when RHEL runs on-prem, OR
⦁ Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) – available with cloud providers (e.g. Azure and AWS) to mirror Red Hat-hosted repos and automatically make them available to official RHEL cloud VMs.
Note: VT Writer requires port 443 and port 22.
VT Writer requires 'sudo su' permission to install correctly.
Note: Deployments have been tested on RHEL versions 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.8
Deployments have been tested on VMware ESX Vsphere, Hyper-V, Azure, AWS
Dependencies
VT API and Writer .rpm has some dependencies (httpd, openssl, java, postgres) that are available in the Red Hat repos. For Postgres 10, we require that the Red Hat Software Collections (RHSCL) repository be enabled.
Note: The steps to add the Postgres 10 RHSCL repository may depend on your environment The repository is named differently depending on how you access repos. Below are the common commands to enable the RHSCL repo in different environments:
| Red Hat Subscription (typically on-prem) | sudo subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms |
| AWS | sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhel-server-rhui-rhscl-7-rpms |
| Azure | sudo yum-config-manager --enable rhui-rhel-server-rhui-rhscl-7-rpms |
To verify that the above command worked:
1. run sudo yum repolist
2. look for an entry like “Red Hat … RHSCL” or “Red Hat Software Collections…”
Deploying the VT Writer RPM
The VT Writer and API .rpm's are available to download here:
https://visiblethread.s3.amazonaws.com/public/download/visiblethread-api-0.24-1.x86_64.rpm
https://visiblethread.s3.amazonaws.com/public/download/visiblethread-readability-2.6.1-1.x86_64.rpm
To verify that the download completed successfully you can check the md5 hash :
3deae6de2de4e9376d3955b48f102932 visiblethread-api-0.24-1.x86_64.rpm
ccb897a37953d893bc76ef49cab6979f visiblethread-readability-2.6.1-1.x86_64.rpm
To install run the following commands:
yum install -y visiblethread-api-0.24-1.x86_64.rpm
yum install -y visiblethread-readability-2.6.1-1.x86_64.rpm
After installing these packages your VT Writer server is now ready for use !
Details of how to setup and configure the server can be found here: https://visiblethread.zendesk.com/hc/article_attachments/360084453572/VT_Writer_and_Email_Server_Configuration_Help_v_2.6.1.pdf
Note: In the above document VT Writer is referred to as "VT Readability". This is the official name of the product prior to version 2.6.1