Contents
Important information for software upgrades:
- Upgrading to this Charon-PAR from an older version requires a license update. Please contact your VAR or Stromasys representative to plan the update.
- Charon-PAR version 3.0 and higher is incompatible with licenses of earlier versions. Earlier product versions are incompatible with licenses for Charon-PAR 3.0 and higher. Charon-PAR/PA3 licenses for version 3.0 are not backward compatible for emulators running with version 2.x.
Please note: The Charon-PAR version 3.0 and higher emulator kits contain the haspvlib library and the hasp_srm_view and hasp_update utilities. This means that there may be installation conflicts with other Charon emulator products on the same host systems. Such conflicts can be overcome either by not installing the conflicting modules of the other products (if possible), or by forcing the installation of the Charon-PAR kit. Please refer to the documentation of your host system (man rpm) in such cases and ensure that this will not negatively influence any other installed products. If you use the --force option for an installation, please uninstall older packages of the same product before.
Charon-PAR Software Packages Overview
Charon-PAR is provided as a set of RPM-packages.
The following table lists the required installation packages (the placeholder <version> denotes the version of the package, for example, 3.0.3):
| Package | Description |
|---|---|
| Sentinel runtime environment. Required for licensing the Charon-PAR software. | |
aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm | 32-bit package for CentOS/RHEL 7.x; requires the 32-bit glibc package. |
aksusbd-8.13-1.x86_64.rpm | 64-bit package for RHEL 7.7 and higher; RHEL 8; CentOS 8. (see also https://docs.sentinel.thalesgroup.com/ldk/LDKdocs/rte/linux-rh-suse-centos.html) |
| Charon-PAR emulator | |
charon-par-<version>.el7.x86_64.rpm | Charon-PAR emulator executable, template configuration files for the different supported hardware models, PuTTY configurations, etc. for Linux 7.x systems. |
charon-par-<version>.el8.x86_64.rpm | Charon-PAR emulator executable, template configuration files for the different supported hardware models, PuTTY configurations, etc. for Linux 8.x systems. |
| Charon-PAR utilities | |
charon-mtd-<version>.el7.x86_64.rpm | Charon-PAR tape utility for CentOS/RHEL 7.x |
charon-mtd-<version>.el8.x86_64.rpm | Charon-PAR tape utility for CentOS/RHEL 8.x |
xhpterm-free-<version>.el7.x86_64.rpm | Terminal emulation for block mode applications (CentOS/RHEL 7.x) |
xhpterm-free-<version>.el7.x86_64.rpm | Terminal emulation for block mode applications (CentOS/RHEL 8.x) |
Obtaining the Charon-PAR software:
The software can be downloaded from the Stromasys fileserver. If required, please contact your Stromasys representative or your VAR partner. They will provide the download information or the software packages to you.
Additional requirements for a successful installation:
- The packages above have installation dependencies that are normally satisfied automatically from the standard software repositories when installing packages with yum or dnf. If the standard repositories are not available, please refer to How to install the glibc.i686 package without an Internet connection. The document explains - among other points - how to create a local repository.
- Additional packages may be required to be installed on the host operating system. They will be discussed in the sections where they are relevant.
- If additionally required packages are not available in the standard repositories of the host operating system, additional repositories can be installed using, for example, the EPEL repository (more information: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL).
Additional requirements for initial emulator setup:
- For the installation of a Charon-PAR/PA3 emulated system, a preinstalled MPE/iX 7.5 disk image (mpe75a.dsk.bz2) is required. This will be provided by Stromasys.
- For the installation of a Charon-PAR/PA9 emulated system, a HP-UX ISO is required.
Installation Command Overview
The following table provides an overview of the installation commands for the supported host operating systems. For details, please refer to the relevant man-pages on Linux. The table only lists command-line installation options for Linux. There are also graphical installation tools. To describe all of them is outside the scope of this document.
| Installation Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Package manager (uses repositories, takes care of dependencies, etc.) |
On Linux 8.x, replace yum with dnf. if a filename is specified, locally stored RPM packages can be installed. |
| Command to install individual local packages. | # rpm -i </path/to/package> |
Sentinel Runtime Installation
Important points:
- The aksusbd package version 7.63 requires the 32-bit glibc-library. On supported Linux distributions, this library is available through the standard repositories. The relevant package is glibc.i686 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS.
- Normally, the aksusbd package installation with yum or dnf installs the 32-bit glibc and other dependency automatically (provided package repositories are available). Red Hat Enterprise must be registered to access the Red Hat repositories, or the installation CD must be mounted. Should the Charon host system not have access to the Internet, please refer to How to install the glibc.i686 package without an Internet connection for further information.
- When installing the aksusbd package version 8.13 in some CentOS 7.x environments it was observed that the aksusbd service did not start automatically after a new installation or an upgrade. The following error was displayed during the installation: Failed to restart aksusbd.service: Access denied. If this happens, uninstall the aksusbd package and reboot the system. After rebooting the system, re-install the package. The cause of this sporadic problem has not yet been identified.
The aksusbd package installs the programs aksusbd and hasplmd in /usr/sbin.
The example below shows the installation of the aksusbd package with automatic installation of the 32-bit glibc library and its dependencies:
# yum install aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm Loaded plugins: fastestmirror Examining aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm: aksusbd-7.63-1.i386 Marking aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm to be installed Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package aksusbd.i386 0:7.63-1 will be installed --> Processing Dependency: libc.so.6 for package: aksusbd-7.63-1.i386 Determining fastest mirrors * base: mirror.checkdomain.de * extras: linux.darkpenguin.net * updates: linux.darkpenguin.net base | 3.6 kB 00:00 extras | 2.9 kB 00:00 updates | 2.9 kB 00:00 (1/2): extras/7/x86_64/primary_db | 165 kB 00:00 (2/2): updates/7/x86_64/primary_db | 7.6 MB 00:01 <lines removed> Dependencies Resolved ================================================================================ Package Arch Version Repository Size ================================================================================ Installing: aksusbd i386 7.63-1 /aksusbd-7.63-1.i386 2.7 M Installing for dependencies: glibc i686 2.17-292.el7 base 4.3 M nss-softokn-freebl i686 3.44.0-8.el7_7 updates 214 k Updating for dependencies: nss-softokn-freebl x86_64 3.44.0-8.el7_7 updates 224 k Transaction Summary ================================================================================ Install 1 Package (+2 Dependent packages) Upgrade ( 1 Dependent package) Total size: 7.4 M Total download size: 4.7 M Is this ok [y/d/N]: y Downloading packages: Delta RPMs disabled because /usr/bin/applydeltarpm not installed. (1/3): nss-softokn-freebl-3.44.0-8.el7_7.i686.rpm | 214 kB 00:00 (2/3): nss-softokn-freebl-3.44.0-8.el7_7.x86_64.rpm | 224 kB 00:00 (3/3): glibc-2.17-292.el7.i686.rpm | 4.3 MB 00:00 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 5.7 MB/s | 4.7 MB 00:00 Running transaction check Running transaction test Transaction test succeeded Running transaction Installing : nss-softokn-freebl-3.44.0-8.el7_7.i686 1/5 Installing : glibc-2.17-292.el7.i686 2/5 Updating : nss-softokn-freebl-3.44.0-8.el7_7.x86_64 3/5 Installing : aksusbd-7.63-1.i386 4/5 Starting aksusbd (via systemctl): [ OK ] <lines removed> Installed: aksusbd.i386 0:7.63-1 Dependency Installed: glibc.i686 0:2.17-292.el7 nss-softokn-freebl.i686 0:3.44.0-8.el7_7 Dependency Updated: nss-softokn-freebl.x86_64 0:3.44.0-8.el7_7 Complete!
Installing the Charon-PAR Software
To install the Charon-PAR packages perform the following steps:
| Step | Command | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Log in as the privileged user on the system ("root"). | |
| 2 | Go to the directory in which the rpm packages were stored. | # |
| 3 | Install the Charon-PAR emulator and utilities packages. | #
|
The following shows a sample installation of the Charon-PAR emulator package on CentOS 8:
# dnf install charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64.rpm Last metadata expiration check: 1:27:20 ago on Wed 29 Jul 2020 07:39:18 PM CEST. Dependencies resolved. ================================================================================ Package Arch Version Repository Size ================================================================================ Installing: charon-par x86_64 3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8 @commandline 6.0 M Transaction Summary ================================================================================ Install 1 Package Total size: 6.0 M Installed size: 32 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: Running transaction check Transaction check succeeded. Running transaction test Transaction test succeeded. Running transaction Preparing : 1/1 Running scriptlet: charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64 1/1 Installing : charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64 1/1 Running scriptlet: charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64 1/1 Verifying : charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64 1/1 Installed products updated. Installed: charon-par-3.0.0-21400.ed1d4d8.el8.x86_64 Complete!
Location of Charon-PAR Files
Charon-PAR is installed under /opt/charon.
- /opt/charon/bin: executable of emulator and utilities
- /opt/charon/cfg: template configuration files for emulated systems and PuTTY session definitions (to connect to the emulated console).
- /opt/charon/doc: license agreement and Release Notes (WHATSNEW file)
To add the installation path to your PATH variable, become the root user and create the file /etc/profile.d/charon.sh with the following content:
PATH=$PATH:/opt/charon/bin; export PATH
The updated PATH variable will become active after the next login. You can also execute this command directly: # . /etc/profile.d/charon.sh
Post-Installation Tasks
Installing PuTTY
A recommended post-installation task is the installation of PuTTY to connect to the emulated console. The associated package is part of the EPEL repository.
PuTTY installation steps CentOS/Red Hat:
| Step | Command | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Log in as the privileged user on the system ("root"). | |
| 2 | If the additional repository has not yet been installed, install it. The rpm package to install the EPEL repository is included in the extras repository of Red Hat and CentOS. | # Up-to-date information can be found on the following page: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL |
| 3 | Install PuTTY. | # yum install putty |
| 4 | If you used PuTTY before, you will have a .putty or .config/putty directory under your home directory already. If the PuTTY configuration directory does not already exist, create the .config/putty directory in the home directory of the root user. | Start PuTTY: Select and load the default settings. Click on Save. Exit PuTTY. |
| 5 | Copy the Charon-PAR profiles to the PuTTY sessions directory of the root user (depending on where you stored you session data). |
or
|
Please note: in some versions of CentOS/RHEL 8 PuTTY was not included in the EPEL repository. In such cases, the version from RHEL/CentOS 7 could be used.
Installing the Linux Toolkit
This is not a mandatory, but a recommended step.
The Linux Toolkit support the management of emulator related tasks, such as
- License Management
- Starting and stopping the emulator
- Log file monitoring
- Alert management
- Information collection to facilitate product suppprt
Stromasys will provide you with a download link for the Linux Toolkit.
Please refer to Charon-PAR Linux Toolkit for further information.