6. SAP Support for Linux
The front end, SAPGUI, has been made available for Linux in RPM form, which should be quite directly usable with several Linux distributions on the IA-32 architecture.
It has been available on the ftp site sapserv4, and likely others in the "sapserv" series, in the directory /general/misc/unsupported/linux.
The results of running it look something like the following...
6.1. Frequently Asked Questions about SAPGUI for Linux
As a result of having written up this web page, I get quite a lot of questions about how to get at SAPGUI. For the most part, answers to such questions tend to be like "No, you can't do that..."
- Where is this sapserv4 server, anyways?
The appropriate server to access will depend on your locale. In North America, it is probably sapserv4, in Foster City, California. In Germany, I'd expect the appropriate place to go is sapserv1, which is probably located in Waldorf, Germany. sapserv2 and sapserv3 presumably provide access in other regions such as Asia, Africa, and such.
Access to the server will go through a private connection; there is no public Internet access to this stuff.
Mind you, SAP is increasingly providing web-based access to their services; it may change...
Every R/3 site must have a connection to one of these servers in order to support connections to OSS. The "proxy servers" that permit access to OSS are the series of sapserv servers; they run ftp to allow customer access to things like Hot Patches and updates to SAPGUI, as well as running SAProuter to route data requests to OSS.
- I'm not a BASIS consultant, and don't know how to get at this stuff.
You doubtless have some around your R/3 site. They should be able to assist, and the directory and server information indicated above should be at least somewhat meaningful to them if they are competent to run the site you're at.
You will need network address information from them in order to connect to servers.
- I'm not a BASIS consultant, and don't know what one is.
SAPGUI is only of value if you have a complete R/3 up and running, which requires that you associated with a customer or consulting partner or some such thing.
If you cannot locate a BASIS consultant, then you're probably not a customer, and are unlikely to be able to find access.
If you're none of those things, then getting a copy of SAPGUI is of utterly no value. See the caution below.
- I'm not a BASIS consultant, customer, or whatever. Where's the FTP site so I can download it and try it out?
As stated earlier, SAPGUI is only of value if you have a complete R/3 working.
The only way to get at SAPGUI is via private network connections that go directly between SAP AG and customer sites. There is no public access.
For more information, see, in particular, OSS Note 132560, released on December 30, 1998, which discusses the issue You would like to have an R/3 under Linux. Note 66971 has some further information about the future directions of SAPGUI.
OSS Note 53459 discusses the SAP programs available for Linux.
OSS Note 132166 apparently discusses an error with X Resources for the Linux version of SAPGUI.
 | SAPGUI is useless to Non-Customers |
|---|---|
If you don't already have access to an R/3 system, then all of this is of utterly no value to you. SAPGUI can be quite accurately likened to a special purpose web browser that must connect to a proprietary application server in order to be of any use. Without the whole set of other R/3 components, having SAPGUI is utterly worthless. |
6.2. R/3 Server on Linux
R/3 is, as of September 1999, available to be run on high-end IA-32 Linux systems, using SAP's SAP DB (formerly known as Adabas-D).
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