Understanding Linux software requirements

To ensure correct operation, InfoPrint Manager requires that certain components of the Linux operating system be installed on your system. It is up to you to install the base level of these components from your Linux operating system before starting the installation process (see RICOH InfoPrint Manager for Linux: Getting Started for more information about using the InfoPrint Manager Installer).

The InfoPrint Manager Installer installs all the required dependencies (rpm packages) automatically. Make sure that dnf (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or zypper (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) can access the operating system repository before starting the InfoPrint Manager installation.

InfoPrint Manager for Linux is a 64-bit application that an authorized user can run only on 64-bit (x86_64) operating systems. For more information, see the "Verifying Linux rpm packages" section.

InfoPrint Manager for Linux needs to be installed using the root user, but during the installation process you have the possibility to configure the product to run as a non-root authorized user. You can still use root if you want to. If you are running InfoPrint Manager with a user other than root, make sure that all custom paths needed by the product have read and write permissions for that specific user. Also, the user you are running InfoPrint Manager with, might need specific access to resources. For more information, see the “Determining ulimit segment settings” section within the RICOH InfoPrint Manager for AIX and Linux: Configuring and Tuning Guide.

The default user is ipm1, which is created by the installer automatically. Custom users can be used when the primary group for that user is sys group.

Note: InfoPrint Manager installs the version of Java that it requires, and that Java can be used only by InfoPrint Manager. Any Java update is done by the InfoPrint Manager Installer.

    Important:
  1. If the user validation fails, user does not exist or primary group is not sys, the installation does not continue. The user can be either a local or a remote user. For remote user, the system administration must assure that the user has sys group as primary group. The shell for the custom user must be bash (/bin/bash or /usr/bin/bash).

  2. InfoPrint Manager for Linux uses the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), which needs to be installed and running on your Linux server. Most of the Linux printer drivers (PPDs) might require to be configured with the "foomatic-rip" backend filter script of Foomatic. Check your PPD prolog section for Foomatic requirements.

  3. The default shell for InfoPrint Manager for Linux is bash. Do not use Kornshell 93 with InfoPrint Manager for Linux.
  4. InfoPrint Manager for Linux supports only LVM (Logical Volume Management) disk partitioning, which provides a number of advantages over the standard partitioning scheme.
  5. If the user already exists, no other changes should be made to the group.
  6. If the user does not exist, and there is no group specified by the person installing (i.e. ipm1), check if the sys group exists and create it if it does not exist. When you create the sys group, specify -r (system group).
  7. If the user does not exist, and the group is specified (i.e. ipm1:ipm1group), check if the ipm1group exists and create it if it does not exist without specifying system group. Then, create the user using the ipm1group group.

  8. OpenJDK, used by InfoPrint Manager for Linux as a fully open Java implementation, does not use GTK2 as a default look and feel. For this reason, there are some visible differences between OpenJDK using GTK3 and other Java providers.

    InfoPrint Manager for Linux displays the Java desktop applications (InfoPrint Manager Administration and Operation GUI, InfoPrint Manager Management Interface, License Key Management Application, and Notification Client) using Metal look and feel. If the Java applications do not look readable, you might consider changing the Metal Java look and feel.

    To do this, set the environment variable JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS to the desired Java look and feel and start the Java application again.

    Example: JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS='-Dswing.defaultlaf= com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel'

    Note: Changing the Java look and feel using the JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS environment variable might result in unexpected behavior of the Java applications.

  9. To start or stop any InfoPrint Manager service using command line or InfoPrint Manager Management Interface under Gnome, enable lingering for the root user and the user running InfoPrint Manager.

    As root user, run the following commands to enable lingering:

    • loginctl enable-linger root
    • loginctl enable-linger $IPM_USER

In this section:

  1. Server software prerequisites
  2. Verifying Linux rpm packages
  3. Internet protocol prerequisites
  4. AFP Download Plus prerequisites
  5. Client software prerequisites
  6. Supported virtualized system
  7. High Availability
Parent topic: Verifying prerequisites