Guided Exercise: Setting up SAP S/4

In this exercise, you access and use the lab environment, and install a standalone SAP S/4HANA on a NetWeaver server.

NOTE: You can skip this installation and continue with the more complex distributed setup, if you want.

Outcomes

You write a playbook that installs SAP S/4HANA.

As the student user on the workstation machine, use the lab command to prepare your system for this exercise.

This command ensures that the environment is configured correctly for creating your Ansible Playbooks in the future.

[student@workstation ~]$ lab start sap-s4-install

This process might take some time.

Change to the ansible-files directory in your home directory:
```
[student@workstation ~]$ cd ~/ansible-files
```

Add the following content to the group_vars/s4hanas file:

## BEGIN SAP S/4 install parameters
# sap_swpm
#----------
# Product ID for New Installation
# This is S4HANA 2021 Foundation
sap_swpm_product_catalog_id: "NW_ABAP_OneHost:S4HANA2021.FNDN.HDB.ABAP"

# Do not touch /etc/hosts -> it's already OK
sap_swpm_update_etchosts: false

# Software
sap_swpm_software_path: "/sap-software/S4HANA2021.FNDN"
sap_swpm_sapcar_path: "{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"
sap_swpm_swpm_path: "{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"

# NW Passwords
sap_swpm_master_password: "R3dh4t$123"
sap_swpm_ddic_000_password: "{{ sap_swpm_master_password }}"
# HDB Passwords
sap_swpm_db_system_password: "{{ sap_swpm_master_password }}"
sap_swpm_db_systemdb_password: "{{ sap_swpm_master_password }}"
sap_swpm_db_schema_abap_password: "{{ sap_swpm_master_password }}"
sap_swpm_db_sidadm_password: "{{ sap_swpm_master_password }}"

# NW Instance Parameters
sap_swpm_sid: RHE
sap_swpm_pas_instance_nr: "01"
sap_swpm_ascs_instance_nr: "02"
sap_swpm_ascs_instance_hostname: "{{ ansible_hostname }}"
sap_swpm_fqdn: "{{ ansible_domain }}"

# HDB Instance Parameters
# For dual host installation, change the db_host to appropriate value
sap_swpm_db_host: "hana10"
sap_swpm_db_sid: RHE
sap_swpm_db_instance_nr: "00"
## END SAP S/4 install parameters

With this configuration, you achieve the following outcomes:

You install S4HANA 2021 Foundation in this exercise, because it loads only approximately 16 GB into the HANA database, instead of approximately 80 GB for the full ERP system. The Foundation has only the basic routines, without application software.
You must define the path where the software is located.
Set the passwords identically for everything. In production, you would use a vault file or Ansible Automation Platform credential.
Define the SID and the instance numbers of the primary application server (PAS) and the central services (ASCS).
Note that SAP uses the term “FQDN” for the (fully qualified) domain only.
Define the connection to the database.

Create the install-s4.yml playbook, to install SAP HANA on the servers:

---
- name: Install S4
  hosts: nodea.lab.example.com
  become: true

  tasks:
    - name: ensure software mountpoint exists
      file:
          path: "{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"
          state: directory
          mode: '0755'

    - name: Ensure SAP software directory is mounted
      mount:
        src: "utility:{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"
        path: "{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"
        opts: rw
        boot: no
        fstype: nfs
        state: mounted

    - name: execute the SWPM Installation
      include_role:
        name: community.sap_install.sap_swpm

    - name: Ensure SAP software directory is unmounted
      mount:
        path: "{{ sap_swpm_software_path }}"
        state: unmounted

Execute the install-s4.yml playbook:

[student@workstation ansible-files]$ ansible-playbook install-s4.yml -v -K
BECOME password: student
...output omitted...

The deployment of S/4HANA Foundation might take approximately 30 minutes. After the installation starts, you see the following message:

TASK [community.sap_install.sap_swpm : SAP SWPM - Wait for sapinst process to exit, poll every 60 seconds] **************************************************
FAILED - RETRYING: [nodea.lab.example.com]: SAP SWPM - Wait for sapinst process to exit, poll every 60 seconds (1000 retries left).
FAILED - RETRYING: [nodea.lab.example.com]: SAP SWPM - Wait for sapinst process to exit, poll every 60 seconds (999 retries left).

These messages occur because the installation is started asynchronously, and Ansible probes and waits until the installation is successful. It is useful to display the installation log on the managed node to during this output.

To display the installation log run the following commands:

[student@workstation ansible-files]$ ssh nodea
[student@nodea ~]$ sudo -i
[root@nodea ~]# tail -f \
 > $(cat /tmp/sapinst_instdir/.lastInstallationLocation)/sapinst.log

Verify that SAP S/4 is running:

[student@workstation ~]$ ssh nodea
[student@nodea ~]$ sudo su - rheadm
[sudo] password for student: student
Last login: Di Sep  6 11:38:52 EDT 2022 on pts/0
nodea:rheadm 5> R3trans -d rheadm
This is R3trans version 6.26 (release 785 - 25.11.21 - 11:06:00 including rjh702 ).
unicode enabled version
R3trans finished (0000).

If the return value is 0, then everything is fine.