Chapter 10. Installing and running the headless Decision Manager controller

You can configure Decision Server to run in managed or unmanaged mode. If Decision Server is unmanaged, you must manually create and maintain KIE containers (deployment units). If Decision Server is managed, the Decision Manager controller manages the Decision Server configuration and you interact with the Decision Manager controller to create and maintain KIE containers.

Business Central has an embedded Decision Manager controller. If you install Business Central, use the Execution Server page to create and maintain KIE containers. If you want to automate Decision Server management without Business Central, you can use the headless Decision Manager controller.

10.1. Installing the headless Decision Manager controller

You can install the headless Decision Manager controller and use the REST API or the Decision Server Java Client API to interact with it.

Prerequisites

  • A backed-up Red Hat JBoss EAP installation version 7.2 is available. The base directory of the Red Hat JBoss EAP installation is referred to as EAP_HOME.
  • Sufficient user permissions to complete the installation are granted.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the Software Downloads page in the Red Hat Customer Portal (login required), and select the product and version from the drop-down options:

    • Product: Decision Manager
    • Version: 7.6
  2. Download Red Hat Decision Manager 7.6.0 Add Ons (the rhdm-7.6.0-add-ons.zip file).
  3. Unzip the rhdm-7.6.0-add-ons.zip file. The rhdm-7.6.0-controller-ee7.zip file is in the unzipped directory.
  4. Extract the rhdm-7.6.0-controller-ee7 archive to a temporary directory. In the following examples this directory is called TEMP_DIR.

  5. Copy the TEMP_DIR/rhdm-7.6.0-controller-ee7/controller.war directory to EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/.

    Warning

    Ensure that the names of the headless Decision Manager controller deployments you copy do not conflict with your existing deployments in the Red Hat JBoss EAP instance.

  6. Copy the contents of the TEMP_DIR/rhdm-7.6.0-controller-ee7/SecurityPolicy/ directory to EAP_HOME/bin. When asked to overwrite files, select Yes.
  7. In the EAP_HOME/standalone/deployments/ directory, create an empty file named controller.war.dodeploy. This file ensures that the headless Decision Manager controller is automatically deployed when the server starts.

10.1.1. Creating a headless Decision Manager controller user

Before you can use the headless Decision Manager controller, you must create a user that has the kie-server role.

Prerequisites

  • The headless Decision Manager controller is installed in the base directory of the Red Hat JBoss EAP installation (EAP_HOME).

Procedure

  1. In a terminal application, navigate to the EAP_HOME/bin directory.

  2. Enter the following command and replace <USER_NAME> and <PASSWORD> with the user name and password of your choice. 

    $ ./add-user.sh -a --user <username> --password <password> --role kie-server
    Note

    Make sure that the specified user name is not the same as an existing user, role, or group. For example, do not create a user with the user name admin.

    The password must have at least eight characters and must contain at least one number and one non-alphanumeric character, but not & (ampersand).

  3. Make a note of your user name and password.

10.1.2. Configuring Decision Server and the headless Decision Manager controller

If Decision Server will be managed by the headless Decision Manager controller, you must edit the standalone-full.xml file in Decision Server installation and the standalone.xml file in the headless Decision Manager controller installation, as described in this section.

Prerequisites

  • Decision Server is installed in the base directory of the Red Hat JBoss EAP installation (EAP_HOME) as described in Chapter 5, Installing Red Hat Decision Manager from ZIP files section.

  • The headless Decision Manager controller is installed in an EAP_HOME.

    Note

    You should install Decision Server and the headless Decision Manager controller on different servers in production environments. However, if you install Decision Server and the headless Decision Manager controller on the same server, for example in a development environment, make these changes in the shared standalone-full.xml file.

  • On Decision Server nodes, a user with the kie-server role exists.

  • On the server nodes, a user with the kie-server role exists.

    For more information, see Section 5.3, “Creating users”.

Procedure

  1. In the EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone-full.xml file, add the following properties to the <system-properties> section and replace <USERNAME> and <USER_PWD> with the credentials of a user with the kie-server role: 

       <property name="org.kie.server.user" value="<USERNAME>"/>
   <property name="org.kie.server.pwd" value="<USER_PWD>"/>

  2. In the Decision Server EAP_HOME/standalone/configuration/standalone-full.xml file, add the following properties to the <system-properties> section: 

      <property name="org.kie.server.controller.user" value="<CONTROLLER_USER>"/>
  <property name="org.kie.server.controller.pwd" value="<CONTROLLER_PWD>"/>
  <property name="org.kie.server.id" value="<KIE_SERVER_ID>"/>
  <property name="org.kie.server.location" value="http://<HOST>:<PORT>/kie-server/services/rest/server"/>
  <property name="org.kie.server.controller" value="<CONTROLLER_URL>"/>

  3. In this file, replace the following values:

    • Replace <CONTROLLER_USER> and <CONTROLLER_PWD> with the credentials of a user with the kie-server role.
    • Replace <KIE_SERVER_ID> with the ID or name of the Decision Server installation, for example, rhdm-7.6.0-decision_server-1.
    • Replace <HOST> with the ID or name of the Decision Server host, for example, localhost or 192.7.8.9.

    • Replace <PORT> with the port of the Decision Server host, for example, 8080.

      Note

      The org.kie.server.location property specifies the location of Decision Server.

    • Replace <CONTROLLER_URL> with the URL of the headless Decision Manager controller.
  4. Decision Server connects to this URL during startup.

10.2. Running the headless Decision Manager controller

After you have installed the headless Decision Manager controller on Red Hat JBoss EAP, use this procedure to run the headless Decision Manager controller.

Prerequisites

  • The headless Decision Manager controller is installed and configured in the base directory of the Red Hat JBoss EAP installation (EAP_HOME).

Procedure

  1. In a terminal application, navigate to EAP_HOME/bin.

  2. If you installed the headless Decision Manager controller on the same Red Hat JBoss EAP instance as the Red Hat JBoss EAP instance where you installed the Decision Server, enter one of the following commands:

    • On Linux or UNIX-based systems: 

      $ ./standalone.sh -c standalone-full.xml

    • On Windows: 

      standalone.bat -c standalone-full.xml

  3. If you installed the headless Decision Manager controller on a separate Red Hat JBoss EAP instance from the Red Hat JBoss EAP instance where you installed the Decision Server, you can start the headless Decision Manager controller with the standalone.sh script:

    Note

    In this case, ensure that you made all required configuration changes to the standalone.xml file.

    • On Linux or UNIX-based systems: 

      $ ./standalone.sh

    • On Windows: 

      standalone.bat

  4. To verify that the headless Decision Manager controller is working on Red Hat JBoss EAP, enter the following command where <CONTROLLER> and <CONTROLLER_PWD> is the user name and password combination that you created in Section 10.1.1, “Creating a headless Decision Manager controller user”. The output of this command provides information about the Decision Server instance. 

    curl -X GET "http://<HOST>:<PORT>/controller/rest/controller/management/servers" -H  "accept: application/xml" -u '<CONTROLLER>:<CONTROLLER_PWD>'
Note

Alternatively, you can use the Decision Server Java API Client to access the headless Decision Manager controller.