InstallAnywhere Installation Issues and Solutions

Phase I, 2004 Lessons Learned:

There were several problems regarding the downloading and installation of APT this year. Firewalls were another complicating issue, but they are not being covered in this document. Downloading problems refer to users not being able to completely download the installation file from the APT server. Installation errors refer to many nebulous issues which are compounded by the variability of system configurations. There were far fewer installation issues this year according to Karla Peterson's yearly statistics:

21 Submitting (34 last year)
8 Installing (30 last year)
63 Writing Proposal (110 last year)

Download Problems

1 User had problems downloading because of antivirus software
The settings on some current antivirus software can inhibit the proper downloading of any executable file. Users can try to adjust their settings or ask that the file be made available in an anonymous ftp area.

Unexplained file corruption can happen anytime over a network transfer.
Users should attempt to re-download the installation file to see if that clears up any errors. If unsuccessful, users can ask that the file be made available in an anonymous ftp area.

Non-fatal and erronious check disk space errors can occur from the downloading applet.
The problem has been reported to zeroG. It seems that the applet makes possibly necessary assumptions about the user's ftp client. Even with the error the download and installation complete successfully.

Installation Errors

Assumptions:
1. Download errors have been ruled out (see above).
2. Problem can be recreated on-demand by user.
3. Problem could not be recreated in our test center.
4. LAX_DEBUG has been obtained. To set up the debug, please refer here.

1 Sys admin could not install APT on linux cluster because of an obscure Install Anywhere bug
The zeroG bug report is here with a few possible solutions.

1 Sys admin could not install in /user/local on linux cluster (unresolved, he worked around)
1 User could not install on linux for undiagnosable reason
Here are the few things we tried when desperate:

Have user run the installer as root if possible.
Have user reassign IATEMPDIR to something other than /tmp.
Have user force the installer to use an existing VM.

Installation hanging in Windows
zeroG addresses this problem here.

Additional Help

ZeroG's most common installation issues and questions about InstallAnywhere: http://gamma.zerog.com/devnet_l/uT.jsp?page=kb/mainKB.jsp

Or, to ask for support from the zeroG developers: http://www.zerog.com/support_02.html