Domino install challenges on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Daniel Nashed  6 November 2021 05:00:44

There has not been any testing on my side for the start script on Ubuntu so far.
But now that Ubuntu meets the basic requirements for Domino support, I took a quick look.

There has been a live console issue, which I fixed in 3.6.1 today (already in the develop branch of the Domino Docker Community project).

But it turned out that also the Domino install script has an issue on Ubuntu, because the default shell is dash instead of bash.
Here are the technical details and a workaround.

-- Daniel


The Domino install script uses #!/bin/sh for the shell.
This resolves bash on most environments. But on Ubuntu by default it uses "dash", because it is faster.

Some operations don't work in dash and you see the following type of error when installing on Ubuntu:

./install
./install: 44: [: /local/software/linux64/tools/-E: unexpected operator
./install: 51: [: /local/software/linux64/tools/-e: unexpected operator
./install: 57: [: /local/software/linux64/tools/-e: unexpected operator
./install: 1: .: Illegal option -e


Workaround

1. The easy way would be to specify bash explicitly in the first line of the script: #!/bin/bash.

2. Another way would be to change the default shell on Ubuntu from dash to bash.

dpkg-reconfigure dash

The system shell is the default command interpreter for shell scripts.
Using dash as the system shell will improve the system's overall performance. It does not alter the shell presented to interactive users.
Use dash as the default system shell (/bin/sh)?


3. You could also replace the link on your own:

Old: /bin/sh -> /bin/dash
New: /bin/sh -> /bin/bash

Commands to replace the link:

cd /bin
ln -sf bash sh

---------------

Side note:

Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS already uses a 5.x kernel

Once you have a workaround from above in place, you can start the installer to notice two warning messages.

The Ubuntu LTS version changed to a 5.x kernel, which has not been tested by HCL.
Most other platforms are still on a 4.x kernel. But other platforms like PhotonOS also made the move.
CentOS/RHEL will switch to the 5.x kernel with the upcoming RHEL 9 release (beta just started).


Sample Domino installer output:

WARNING: Running Domino with a kernel at version 5 has NOT been tested by HCL!
WARNING: The operating system Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS has NOT been tested by HCL!


I am not a big fan of Ubuntu for Domino. But the platform also has some advantages.
The build-in ZFS support is very helpful for me.

I looked into a Docker installation and also k3s works well out of the box.

But keep in mind that even running inside a container, the kernel used is the kernel of the host system.
So even on Docker the newer 5.x kernel isn't officially supported.
This might change once RHEL 9.0 is released.

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