Installing SAP HANA, express edition with Docker

To log into your Docker account, run:

sudo docker login

Follow the prompts and provide your Docker ID and password.

Test your Docker installation by running the “Hello World” container application. Run the following command from your Docker-enabled command prompt:

sudo docker run --name helloWorld alpine echo hello

If successful, the following should display:

Unable to find image 'alpine:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from library/alpine
88286f41530e: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:<log_number>
Status: Downloaded newer image for alpine:latest
hello

If hello is printed, you have successfully pulled the container image alpine (a demo Linux distribution), and ran the instance of the container helloWorld, and ran the command echo with an input parameter of hello.

If you did not get this output, the Docker installation has not been completed or the Docker daemon can not connect to the internet. Review the process and check the Docker Documentation for more information in troubleshooting your Docker installation.

Remove the alpine image with the following command:

sudo docker image rm alpine -f

Go to the Docker Store.

Click on the search bar and search for “SAP HANA”.

Choose SAP HANA, express edition (database services).

Click on the Setup Instructions button.

Copy the Docker pull address. Here is an example:

sudo docker pull store/saplabs/hanaexpress:2.00.054.00.20210603.1

Open your Docker-enabled command line and use the Docker pull address to download the image.

This loads the SAP HANA, express edition image. To ensure that the image was loaded successfully, run:

sudo docker images

The SAP HANA, express edition image will be listed as hanaexpress.

Note:
You may have to log into your Docker account to pull the image. From your Docker-enabled command line, run docker login and follow the prompts to enter your Docker ID and password. Once you have logged in, try the pull command again.

Before you can start the container, ensure that the following parameters are set in your host’s /etc/sysctl.conf file. The host can be a virtual machine, physical machine, or a cloud instance.

fs.file-max=20000000
fs.aio-max-nr=262144
vm.memory_failure_early_kill=1
vm.max_map_count=135217728
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range=40000 60999

To edit the sysctl.conf file, use the vi command to open the file and press i to switch to interactive mode. Edit the file as necessary, hit the esc key, and type and enter :wq! to write and save the changes.

Create a directory for the SAP HANA, express edition container and grant it the proper permissions.

mkdir -p /data/<directory_name>
chown <hxeadm userID or name>:<sapsys groupID or name> /data/<directory_name>

For example:

mkdir -p /data/mydirectory
chown 12000:79 /data/mydirectory

The name of this directory does not need to match the name you give to your SAP HANA, express edition container.

To make your system more secure, you specify your own password before you create your container. This is done by creating a json file as opposed to having a default password. The file can be stored locally or on another system accessible by URL. If the file is to be stored locally, store it in the /data/ directory you created earlier.

Create the json file:

vi <file_name>.json

Press i to start editing and use one of the following formats to create the file:

{
"master_password" : "<password>"
}

or:

{
"system_user_password" : "<password>",
"default_tenant_system_user_password" : "<second_password>"
}

Here is an example:

{
"master_password" : "HXEHana1"
}

Press esc and then enter wq! to write and save the file.

This file serves as the master password for your SAP HANA, express edition users. The password must comply with these rules:

• At least 8 characters
• At least 1 uppercase letter
• At least 1 lowercase letter
• At least 1 number
• Can contain special characters, but not ` (backtick), $ (dollar sign), \ (backslash), ' (single quote), or " (double quotation marks).
• Cannot contain dictionary words
• Cannot contain simplistic or systemic values, like strings in ascending or descending numerical or alphabetical order

You must then add permissions for this file to be readable by the hxeadm user in the container. Change permissions with:

sudo chmod 600 /data/<directory_name>/<file_name>.json
sudo chown 12000:79 /data/<directory_name>/<file_name>.json

Be sure to do this with each json file you use for your Docker containers.

Make a note of the path to the json file. You will need this to load the SAP HANA, express edition container.

Use the SAP HANA, express edition image to create a container.

sudo docker run -p 39013:39013 -p 39017:39017 -p 39041-39045:39041-39045 -p 1128-1129:1128-1129 -p 59013-59014:59013-59014 -v /data/<directory_name>:/hana/mounts \
--ulimit nofile=1048576:1048576 \
--sysctl kernel.shmmax=1073741824 \
--sysctl net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range='40000 60999' \
--sysctl kernel.shmmni=524288 \
--sysctl kernel.shmall=8388608 \
--name <container_name> \
store/saplabs/hanaexpress:2.00.054.00.20210603.1 \
--passwords-url <file://<path_to_json_file> OR http/https://<url_to_json_file>> \
--agree-to-sap-license

For information on the TCP/IP port ranges, see TCP/IP Ports of All SAP Products. Filter the list by “SAP Cloud Platform”.

Example:

sudo docker run -p 39013:39013 -p 39017:39017 -p 39041-39045:39041-39045 -p 1128-1129:1128-1129 -p 59013-59014:59013-59014 -v /data/express_edition:/hana/mounts \
--ulimit nofile=1048576:1048576 \
--sysctl kernel.shmmax=1073741824 \
--sysctl net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range='40000 60999' \
--sysctl kernel.shmmni=524288 \
--sysctl kernel.shmall=8388608 \
--name express_edition \
store/saplabs/hanaexpress:2.00.054.00.20210603.1 \
--passwords-url file:///hana/password.json \
--agree-to-sap-license

This example creates the SAP HANA, express edition container with the name express_edition. This process will take several minutes. The prompt will read Startup finished once the container has been successfully running. This container starts in detached mode so you will need to open another command prompt to continue.

Note:
If you placed the password file in /data/<directory_name>/<file_name>.json, substitute file://<path_to_json_file> with file:///hana/mounts/<file_name>.json.

Check if the password file /hana/mounts/<file_name>.json was deleted after the SAP HANA, express edition container starts. If not, you can manually delete it. If the JSON file you are using is an http or https URL, you can leave out the -v option.

Still having problems? Check that the string containing the mount is an absolute path.

Note:
For Linux kernel versions earlier than 4, omit the net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range option.

Note:
If the Docker container fails to create an SAP HANA instance, you will need to remove the Docker container to try again. Run docker rm <container_name> to remove the container. Additionally, you will need to delete the files created in the /data/directory_name/ directory.

To start your SAP HANA, express edition container, run the following command:

sudo docker exec -it <container_name> bash

Example:

sudo docker exec -it express_edition bash

When you are logged into the SAP HANA, express edition container, you can test your installation by entering the following:

whoami

You should be logged in as hxeadm, the default SAP HANA, express edition user.

You can also enter the following:

HDB info

And you should see the following services running:

• hdbnameserver
• hdbcompileserver
• hdbdiserver
• hdbwebdispatcher

You can log into the system database with the following command:

hdbsql -i 90 -d <system_database> -u SYSTEM -p <password>

You can log into your tenant database with the following command:

hdbsql -i 90 -d <tenant_database> -u SYSTEM -p <password>

JDBC

To log into your system database via JDBC, use the following command:

jdbc:sap://<ip_address>:39017/?databaseName=<database_name>

To log into your tenant database via JDBC, use the following command:

jdbc:sap://<ip_address>:39041/?databaseName=<tenant_name>

For detailed information on the connection properties you can specify when connecting using JDBC, see JDBC Connection Properties in the SAP HANA Client Interface Programming Reference.

Note: Are you trying to connect to SAP HANA, express edition on Docker from an application or command line on the host OS? You will need to make the IP of the container on the internal container network visible to the host.

Example: Docker Machine on Windows - In this example, 192.168.99.100 is the external docker-machine vm and hxehost is the container host name:

ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('global.ini', 'system') SET ('public_hostname_resolution', 'use_default_route') = 'name' WITH RECONFIGURE;
ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('global.ini', 'system') SET ('public_hostname_resolution', 'map_hxehost') = '192.168.99.100' WITH RECONFIGURE;

Example: Docker Machine on Mac - In this example, localhost is the Docker daemon running on the Mac, and hxehost is the container host name:

ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('global.ini', 'system') SET ('public_hostname_resolution', 'use_default_route') = 'name' WITH RECONFIGURE;
ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('global.ini', 'system') SET ('public_hostname_resolution', 'map_hxehost') = 'localhost' WITH RECONFIGURE;

You will need to repeat the previous steps of creating a directory and JSON password for each additional SAP HANA, express edition container you wish to create.

sudo docker run -p 10013:39013 -p 10017:39017 -p 10041-10045:39041-39045 -p 10028-10029:1128-1129 -p 19013-19014:59013-59014 -v /data/<additional_directory_name>:/hana/mounts \
--ulimit nofile=1048576:1048576 \
--sysctl kernel.shmmax=1073741824 \
--sysctl net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range='40000 60999' \
--sysctl kernel.shmmni=524288 \
--sysctl kernel.shmall=8388608 \
--name <additional_container_name> \
store/saplabs/hanaexpress:2.00.054.00.20210603.1 \
--passwords-url <file://<path_to_json_file> OR http/https://<url_to_json_file>>
--agree-to-sap-license

This process will take several minutes. The prompt will read Startup finished once the container has been successfully running. This container starts in detached mode so you will need to open another command prompt to continue.

Set the root password and login.

docker exec -it -u root <container_name> bash

passswd

Check the update utility. It can be found in the <sid>adm/bin directory. Use HXECheckUpdate_linux.bin. Run this to check for, and download, the latest files. Follow the prompts to download the new files. By default, they will be downloaded to /usr/sap/<sid>/home/Downloads. The downloaded file will be hxe.tgz.

Extract the contents of the packages.

Example:

tar -zxf <downloaded_path>/hxe.tgz
tar -zxf <downloaded_path>/hxexsa.tgz

Navigate to the directory where you extracted the packages:

cd <extract_path>/HANA_EXPRESS_20/

Note:
If the update you are applying includes the Applications package, increase your allocated memory by 3GB and run ./hxe_gc.sh. Follow the prompts and then continue with the procedure.

As the root user, run the upgrade script to update the server:

sudo ./hxe_upgrade.sh

Follow the prompts to complete the server update.