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Installation

Tractor was meant to be installed on a RHEL based Linux distribution like CentOS which is commonly used in VFX studios. But this guide include instructions to install it on a Debian based machine.

Install RPM packages​

The package that you get from the download page is a .rpm package which you can only install on RHEL distros. However if you plan to install it on a Debian based machine, the setup is a little bit different.

To convert a .rpm to a .deb package, use Alien:

$ sudo apt install alien

# Convert to .deb with scripts (-c option)
$ sudo alien -d -c Tractor-2.4_2091325-linuxRHEL6_gcc44icc150.x86_64.rpm

# Installs the generated deb package using low level dpkg
$ sudo dpkg -i tractor_2.42091325-1_amd64.deb
info

Repeat this process for the Pixar License server (License Utilities) to install the license. (for example PixarLicense-LA-24.0_2172149-linuxRHEL7_gcc63icc190.x86_64.rpm)

License server​

To install the license server, do the following (after installing the package):

$ cd /opt/pixar/PixarLicense-LA-24.0
$ sudo ./linux_installService.sh
caution

You must have a pixar.license file in the /opt/pixar directory for the install to work.

Setup systemd service files​

Now the issue is that the systemd services are not installed and configured. It allows the service to start/restart at boot time. See Pixar's documentation about setting up the services.

The systemd service files are located in /opt/pixar/Tractor-2.4/lib/SystemServices. Copy those files in the right folder and start the services:

# Copy service file in systemd directory
$ sudo cp /opt/pixar/Tractor-2.4/lib/SystemServices/systemd /etc/systemd/system
$ sudo systemctl start tractor-engine.service

# Checks if it's running
$ sudo systemctl status tractor-engine.service
note

You can change the line Environment="OPTIONS=--debug --log /home/td/tractor/engine.log" in tractor-engine.service to add a custom log location.

DNS setup​

There must be an entry in the DNS server of tractor and tractor-engine pointing to the server. It allows future blades and services to connect to the engine.

To verify if it works, you can use nslookup:

$ nslookup tractor
Server:         172.16.69.160
Address:        172.16.69.160#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   tractor.artfx.fr
Address: 192.168.2.120

Connect to the dashboard interface​

If everything works as expected, you can go to http://tractor on a browser to inspect the Tractor interface.

Congratulations! Tractor is running fine 🚜🚜