Preparing the virtual machine

When I wrote this post, I included a phrase in the title that I later decided to delete because it made it too long and was a bit shabby. The original title was “How to prepare your development environment (and not die trying)”. Why? Well, simply because I know more than one who has given up on installing their own test server, not because it is difficult, but because it is a bit laborious and in some cases it tends to be a bit lazy.

My goal with this article is to explain – in a summarized way – how to get your own SAP environment where you can test your developments without fear of breaking. I have simplified the installation process, but if you need it, here you can download the SAP official guide.

I will not use third-party servers to carry out tests or example code, even if they are servers whose main objective is that, such as the well-known SAP IDES (Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System) or the more recent S / 4HANA BBP (Business Best Practice) . That is why I have decided to have my own test server to mount some examples and take the screenshots.

Before starting I would like to clarify that at the moment I have no intention of publishing native HANA development topics (understand XSA developments). The initial idea of ​​this blog is to collect some interesting topics that I have come across during the different projects in which I have participated, and that can serve as a reference to other SAP programmers who face similar situations.

Having clarified the above, let’s work.

One of the sites that I consider essential for any SAP developer is the Developer Center (https://developers.sap.com), a portal where you can find countless resources, tutorials, utilities, development tools and most importantly, the largest community of SAP developers. I have always thought that the strangest thing that has happened to me in the SAP world has already happened to someone, and it is not rare enough not to find it in this community (although in reality sometimes you find each answer that instead of help what they do is make you more).

Among the many resources that you will find in this portal are the trial versions of some SAP systems, this will be our starting point.

1. Access the downloadable resources page of the “Develper Center”–https://developers.sap.com/trials-downloads.html

As the most widespread SAP ERP distribution today is still “On Premise” – we will talk about distributions and the SAP S / 4HANA Cloud at some point – we will download the most recent version of SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition.

At the time I have written this blog, the latest version available is 7.52 SP04 and it comes in 11 parts, approximately 15 GB in total, make sure you have space available on your computer and meet these minimum requirements:

• Processor based on x86_64 architecture
• At least 4 GB (8 GB recommended) of RAM and 8 GB of virtual memory (swap space)
• About 100 GB of available space for the virtual machine installation and an additional 2 GB for the SAP GUI
• It is also required that the Operating System (Linux) installed has the language set to en_US.UTF-8

When trying to download any of the parts, it will ask you to register to download. My recommendation is that you create an account as soon as possible, it will ask you to access many of the resources and “Trial” versions of SAP.

2. Download and Install the Latest Version of Oracle VirtualBox

Although I recommend installing on a virtual machine with Oracle VirtualBox in this guide, it can be done in a similar way using VMWare.

3. Download the latest version of the openSUSE Leap distribution (latest 64bit version released)

4. Create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox with the following parameters:

• Name:The one you choose as long as it allows you to identify that it is a SAP Netweaver AS ABAP 7.52 server (in case you later need other virtual machines)
• Type:Linux
• Version:OpenSUSE (64-bit)
• Memory size:4 GB (remember, if it is possible to use 8 Gb better than better)
• File size:100 GB
• Hard Drive File Type:VHD
• Physical hard drive storage:Dynamically booked
• Network adapter type:Personally, I recommend using a network adapter “Bridge adapter” to make it easier to access the server in the virtual machine from our host or from any other machine connected to our network,

5. Power on the newly created virtual machine and continue with the Linux installation from the downloaded file.

During installation it is important to take into account the following points:

• Use English as the installation language
• Preferably select the Server installation role
• Configure the operating system partitions in expert mode so that they look like the following image:

• Define the appropriate time zone (in my case Spain)
• Disable Firewall
• Enable SSH

Once the installation is finished, you must configure the machine to install the SAP server.

6. Configuration of services.

• Network Configuration:We will need at least to modify the configuration of the Host name, so that it is not determined by DHCP and is always the same. For this we will use the YaST2 tool.

In the Linux terminal write:

yast2

Select the System -> Network option and navigate to the Hostname / DNS tab

In that tab, change the Host name to one that does not repeat itself in the local network, and disable the option to assign it by DHCP:

Commit the changes.

• Install the uuidd daemon: Within the same YaST2 tool, access the Software -> Software Management section and search for the phrase uuidd

Install the uuidd daemon and its dependencies:

Start the uuidd service using the statement

sudo service uuidd start

Check the service status with

sudo service uuidd status

• Install the unrar utility to unzip the downloaded files:Repeat the previous process, but looking for the unrar phrase to install this utility.
• Edit the hostname:In the console, execute the following instruction to obtain the IP address:

ip -h addr show

Edit the hosts file to add a record pointing to the previously obtained IP address

sudo nano / etc / hosts

and add the entry:

<IP_address> vhcalnplci.dummy.nodomain vhcalnplci

• Copy SAP installation files to server:Before starting the SAP server installation, you must upload the previously downloaded files to the virtual machine. For this I have used the WinSCP tool
• Download and install the WinSCP tool fromhttps://winscp.net/eng/download.php
• Connect with WinSCP to the previously determined IP address and copy the downloaded files to a folder in the / home / <username> directory

• The next step will be to unzip these files, returning to the Linux server terminal, navigate to the folder where you have uploaded the files and execute the instruction:

sudo unrar x <name_of_first_file>

Once all the files are unzipped, you can start installing the SAP server. But as I have proven in my own flesh how tedious posts can become too long, I have decided that I better separate this process into two parts, this one which is related to the installation and configuration of the virtual machine with the Linux server, and the Part 2 with the SAP server installation and configuration process.

Continue Here:

How to Install SAP Development Environment for Free [Updated 2021] – Part 2