We've been busy on this for more than a week but we finally got it running, an fully automated installation of Rational Application Developer, including the IBM Installation Manager and the WebSphere Application Server. We have some general tips and I'll post our configuration files and installation commands in this article.

The most important thing before you start is to make sure you have all the desired software you want installed located on your local network including patches, fixes etc. We first tried to create an automatic installation including an update from the internet. It did work, partly, but took more than two hours, and we have quite a big internet pipe here. Then we downloaded fixes for our current versions and included the local repositories in the setup. That didn't work, but we never found out why. Then we decided to download the software releases we actually need so we didn't need any updates. That turned out to be the way to go, after we had the entire repository of needed software downloaded (we're talking over 10 GB of software here) the installations ran without any big problems.

So, these are the download urls:
WebSphere:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/rationalsdp/v75/was61/61027/zips/ RAD:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/rationalsdp/v75/rad/754/zips/

We used this command to create the needed recordfile:

INSTALL.exe -record <name recordfile>

We used this command to install IBM Installation Manager:

S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP\InstallerImage_win32\install.exe --launcher.ini S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP\InstallerImage_win32\launcher.ini

And this was the configuration file launcher.ini:

-accessRights
admin
-vm
jre_5.0.3.sr8a_20080811b\jre\bin\java.exe
-silent
-nosplash
--launcher.suppressErrors
-showVerboseProgress
-input
@osgi.install.area\recordfile.installmanager
-vmargs
-Xquickstart
-Xgcpolicy:gencon

And this was the configuration file recordfile.installmanager:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agent-input acceptLicense='true'>
<server>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP\InstallerImage_win32'/>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP'/>
</server>
<profile kind='self' installLocation='C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse' id='IBM Installation Manager'>
<data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse'/>
<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='ja,es,ru,en,fr,zh_TW,pl,el,de,cs,zh_HK,lt,ko,hu,pt_BR,tr,it,da,zh,sl'/>
</profile>
<install modify='false'>
<offering profile='IBM Installation Manager' version='1.3.2000.20090917_2216' features='agent_core,agent_jre' id='com.ibm.cic.agent'/>
</install>
<preference value='C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\IBM\Installation Manager' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache'/>
<preference value='30' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout'/>
<preference value='30' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout'/>
<preference value='0' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount'/>
<preference value='true' name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication'/>
<preference value='true' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts'/>
<preference value='false' name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates'/>
</agent-input>

Note: When you open Installation Manager after the installation and try to update/modify/install something you'll receive a warning that the repository location 'S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP\InstallerImage_win32' is not connected. The details tell you it's for some specific version which you already have installed. We tried to remove the repository but Installation Manager wouldn't install anymore after that, so remove the repository after the installation and you'll be fine.

We used this command to create the needed recordfile:

IBMIM.exe -record <name recordfile>

We used this command to install RAD and WAS:

C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\IBMIM.exe --launcher.ini "C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\radlauncher.ini"

And this was the configuration file radlauncher.ini:

-accessRights
admin
-vm
C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\jre_5.0.3.sr8a_20080811b\jre\bin\j9vm\jvm.dll
-silent
-nosplash
--launcher.suppressErrors
-showVerboseProgress
-input
C:\Program Files\IBM\Installation Manager\eclipse\recordfile.rad75
-vmargs
-Xquickstart
-Xgcpolicy:gencon

And this was the configuration file recordfile.rad75:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agent-input acceptLicense='true'>
<server>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\WAS61\disk1'/>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\RAD_SETUP'/>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\RAD\disk1'/>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5\PEK\RAD75lic.jar'/>
<repository location='S:\RAD_7_5_4\RAD\disk1'/>
<repository location='S:\WAS_61_27\WAS61\disk1'/>
</server>
<profile installLocation='C:\IBM\SDP75' id='IBM Software Delivery Platform'>
<data key='eclipseLocation' value='C:\IBM\SDP75'/>
<data key='cic.selector.nl' value='en'/>
<data key='user.help.option' value='remote'/>
<data key='user.help.url' value=''/>
<data key='user.was.v61.createProfile' value='false'/>
<data key='user.was.v61.profileName' value='was61profile1'/>
<data key='user.was.v61.profilePath' value='C:\IBM\SDP75\runtimes\base_v61\profiles\was61profile1'/>
<data key='user.was.v61.profileType' value=''/>
<data key='user.was.v61.enableSecurity' value='true'/>
<data key='user.was.v61.username' value=''/>
<data key='user.was.v61.password' value=''/>
</profile>
<install modify='false'>
<offering profile='IBM Software Delivery Platform' version='1.0.4.20090916_2200' features='com.ibm.rad.was.v61_ute,com.ibm.rad.was.v61.featurepack' id='com.ibm.rational.was.v61.extension'/>
<offering profile='IBM Software Delivery Platform' version='7.5.4.20090916_1552' features='com.ibm.rad.sdpcore,com.ibm.rad.jre,com.ibm.rad.product,com.ibm.rad.webtools_core,com.ibm.rad.birt,com.ibm.rad.pde,com.ibm.rad.data_tools,com.ibm.rad.tptp,com.ibm.rad.crystal_tools,com.ibm.rad.jee5.deploy,com.ibm.rad.jee5.creation,com.ibm.rad.was61_devtools,com.ibm.rad.was70_devtools,com.ibm.rad.viz_editors,com.ibm.rad.code_review,com.ibm.rad.llcc,com.ibm.rad.clearcase' id='com.ibm.rational.application.developer.v75'/>
<offering version='1.0.0' features='main' id='com.ibm.rad.v75.pek'/>
</install>
<preference value='C:\Program Files\IBM\SDPShared' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.eclipseCache'/>
<preference value='true' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.proxyEnabled'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.proxyUseSocks'/>
<preference value='proxy' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.proxyHost'/>
<preference value='3128' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.proxyPort'/>
<preference value='30' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.connectTimeout'/>
<preference value='30' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.readTimeout'/>
<preference value='0' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.downloadAutoRetryCount'/>
<preference value='true' name='offering.service.repositories.areUsed'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.ssl.nonsecureMode'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.http.disablePreemptiveAuthentication'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.preserveDownloadedArtifacts'/>
<preference value='false' name='PassportAdvantageIsEnabled'/>
<preference value='false' name='com.ibm.cic.common.core.preferences.searchForUpdates'/>
</agent-input>

As you can see, the rad installation is started from the local machine and the config files also should be located on the local machine. We used ZENworks to copy the files to the local machine.

Because the installation takes a long time (almost an hour) we decided to issue a warning before and after the installation so users know they have to wait until a message tells them everything is installed.