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Runtime dependencies

In order to successfully install, configure, and deploy Swarm, the following dependencies are required:

• A Supported operating system platforms
• An Apache web server with mod_rewrite and mod_php5

• A supported version of PHP with the following extensions:

  • iconv
  • JSON
  • Session
  • P4PHP
  • one of APC or Zend OPCache (for optimal performance)
  • php-mbstring (for multi-byte character strings)

  In addition, Swarm greatly benefits from the following optional extensions:

  • Imagick (used for viewing non-web safe images)
  • php-xml (for RSS feeds)

• A supported Helix Versioning Engine deployment, and the ability to connect to it from the system hosting Swarm.

  Note

  "Helix server deployment" can refer to a running p4d or a proxy, replica, edge server, or commit server.

• curl or wget (for Swarm worker operation)
• A supported version of perl (to integrate with Helix Versioning Engine triggers)
• That Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux), if installed, is configured

Optional dependencies:

• LibreOffice (for viewing office-type documents)
• zip, the command-line archiving tool (for downloading archives of files/folders

Supported operating system platforms

Because Swarm includes binary versions of P4PHP (the Perforce extension for PHP), we support Swarm on the following operating systems:

• Linux 2.6+ Intel (x86, x86_64) with glibc 2.3.3+
• Mac OS X 10.6+ (x86_64)

You may be able to get Swarm running on another platform if you build P4PHP yourself and satisfy the other runtime dependencies. Instructions on how to obtain and build P4PHP from source can be found here.

Apache web server

Swarm requires Apache HTTP Server 2.2 or newer:

• https://httpd.apache.org

Swarm also requires the following Apache modules:

• mod_php5 for interacting with PHP (usually installed with PHP)

• mod_rewrite URL rewriting engine

  https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_rewrite.html

PHP

Swarm requires PHP 5.3.3+, 5.4.x, 5.5.x, 5.6.x, or 7.0:

• https://secure.php.net

Swarm requires the following PHP extensions:

• iconv (character encoding converter)
  https://secure.php.net/iconv

  This is typically enabled by default with most PHP distributions

• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
  https://secure.php.net/json

  This is typically enabled by default with most PHP distributions, although recent distributions are making this optional

• Session (session handling)

  This is typically enabled by default with most PHP distributions

• P4PHP (the Perforce PHP Extension)

  Included with the Swarm package. See the install directions.

• php-xml (DOM API for XML manipulation)

  Included with PHP on many operating systems, but must be manually installed on CentOS/RHEL. When not installed, the Swarm RSS feed does not work.

• php-mbstring (multi-byte character strings)

  Included with PHP on many operating systems, but must be manually installed on CentOS/RHEL. When not installed, Swarm's RSS feed does not work.

Swarm greatly benefits from the following PHP extensions:

• One of (but not both):

• • APC (the Alternative PHP Cache)
    https://secure.php.net/apc

    Installation instructions for APC.

  • Zend OPCache
    https://secure.php.net/opcache

    Installation instructions for Zend OPCache.

• Imagick (integrates ImageMagick into PHP)
  https://secure.php.net/imagick

  Installation instructions for Imagick.

Helix server requirements

Swarm works with any supported version of the Helix Versioning Engine. The versions supported in this release of Swarm include the following versions:

• 2015.2
• 2016.1
• 2016.2
• 2017.1
• 2017.2

Swarm performs best with the Helix Versioning Engine version 2016.2 or newer.

• https://www.perforce.com/downloads/helix-versioning-engine-p4d

Swarm requires a user with at least admin privileges in the Helix Versioning Engine. This can be an existing user, or a new user created specifically to support Swarm.

For more information about how to set up a Helix Versioning Engine, see Helix Versioning Engine Administrator Guide: Fundamentals.

Trigger dependencies

The Swarm triggers, which are installed on the Helix server in a later step, require perl 5.08+:
https://www.perl.org/get.html

On the Windows platform, we have tested Swarm against Strawberry Perl. There are two Perl modules that are also required which may not be part of a minimal Perl installation.

• HTTP::Tiny is required to make calls to the Swarm server. If this is not present, then the trigger will attempt to use the command line curl program. This module is standard on Strawberry Perl on Windows, and available as a package with the version of Perl provided on CentOS 7, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04.

• IO::Socket::SSL is required if the Swarm server is configured to use SSL and HTTP::Tiny is present. This is provided as standard by Strawberry Perl, and available on Linux.

  Warning

  If the HTTP::Tiny module is not available, for example on CentOS 6, then the triggers require the use of curl. This must be installed for the triggers to function. On CentOS 6 this can be done using the yum package installer using yum install curl if it isn't already installed.

Worker dependencies

The recurring task to invoke Swarm workers, installed in a later step, requires either of:

• curl
  https://curl.haxx.se/download.html

  Note

  For Windows, curl.exe depends on MSVCR100.dll. You can get a copy by installing the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Package, available for:

  • 32-bit systems: https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555
  • 64-bit systems: https://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=14632

  If you install Swarm with HTTPS, curl.exe requires recent CA certificates (or HTTPS connections silently fail). You can get a copy of the cacert.pem from:

  https://curl.haxx.se/docs/caextract.html

  Once downloaded, copy cacert.pem to the same folder where you installed curl.exe, and rename it to curl-ca-bundle.crt.

  Warning

  If curl (or curl.exe on Windows) cannot execute as expected, trigger execution may block or fail. For example, if MSVCR100.dll is missing from a Windows system, invoking curl.exe causes a dialog to appear.

  Prior to configuring the triggers, verify that curl executes. On Linux systems, run:

   $ curl -h

  On Windows systems, run:

  C:\> curl.exe -h

  The start of the output should be similar to:

  Usage: curl [options...] <url>
  Options: (H) means HTTP/HTTPS only, (F) means FTP only
       --anyauth       Pick "any" authentication method (H)
   -a, --append        Append to target file when uploading (F/SFTP)
       --cacert FILE   CA certificate to verify peer against (SSL)
       --capath DIR    CA directory to verify peer against (SSL)
  ...[truncated for brevity]...

  For a more thorough test that actually fetches content over a network, try the following test:

  • For Linux systems, run:

    $ curl https://www.perforce.com/

  • For Windows systems, run:

     C:\> curl.exe https://www.perforce.com/

  The output should look like HTML.

• wget
  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget
  http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm (for Windows)

  Note

  If you are using Powershell on Windows systems, be aware that Powershell includes aliases for curl and wget that call the Powershell command Invoke-WebRequest instead of curl.exe or wget.exe. Invoke-WebRequest has different command-line options than either curl or wget, which can be confusing.

  If you want to remove the built-in aliases for curl and wget from Powershell, follow these steps:

  1. Create a Powershell profile (only if you have not already done so):

      PS C:\> New-Item $profile -force -itemtype file

  2. Edit your profile:

      PS C:\> notepad $profile

  3. Add the following line to your profile:

     remove-item alias:curl
     remove-item alias:wget

  4. Save the profile and close notepad.

  5. Reload your profile:

      PS C:\> . $profile

Supported web browsers

The following browsers are supported for use with Swarm:

• Apple Safari, latest stable version
• Google Chrome, latest stable version
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 10+
• Mozilla Firefox, latest stable version

Other web browsers might also work, including prior, development or beta builds of the above web browsers, but are not officially supported.

Swarm requires that JavaScript and cookies are enabled in the web browser.

Optional dependencies

Swarm can display previews of office-type documents when LibreOffice is installed. Installation is not required, but when LibreOffice is installed Swarm automatically detects its presence.

For more information, see LibreOffice.

To use the Download .zip feature (see Downloading files as ZIP archive), Swarm requires that the zip command-line tool be available.

For more information, see Archives configuration.

Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux)

Swarm supports SELinux on CentOS 7. SELinux is an advanced access control mechanism that improves security for Linux distributions.

SELinux operates in one of three modes:

• enforcing: this mode blocks and logs any actions that do not match the defined security policy. This is the default mode for SELinux on CentOS 7.
• permissive: this mode logs actions that do not match the defined security policy but these actions are not blocked.
• disabled: in this mode SELinux is off, actions are not blocked and are not logged.

See SELinux on CentOS 7 configuration for details.

If you see a Swarm configuration error similar to the error shown below, SELinux has not been correctly configured for Swarm. Check you have configured SELinux on CentOS 7 correctly.

Choose installation approach

Once you are aware of Swarm dependencies and can satisfy them, you have the following choices for installing Swarm. Choose one approach:

• Use the Swarm packages (RPM or Debian):

  1. Follow the steps provided in Swarm packages.
  2. Configure Swarm. Skip to the Helix Core configuration for Swarm.

• Use the Swarm OVA (Open Virtualization Appliance):

  1. Follow the steps provided in OVA configuration.
  2. Configure Swarm. Skip to the Helix Core configuration for Swarm.

• Use the Swarm source distribution archive:

  • Follow steps provided in the Initial manual installation and subsequent sections.

If you have not already done so, download Swarm.