Installing SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition 7.52 (Trial) on Google Cloud Platform

Published in

Google Cloud - Community

8 min readJul 10, 2023

ABAPers who want to explore ABAP or evaluate tools need access to an SAP system. SAP has offered a trial version of the “SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition 7.52 SP04” since 2018.

Installing the trial SAP system for the first time can be challenging, but it is worth it in the end. You will have a system that you can use to improve your ABAP skills and also evaluate any related toolsets or products.

To install it, you will need to use Oracle Virtual Box or VMware Workstation Player on your laptop, and then install the SAP AS on top of it. You can read more about the installation process in this concise guide.

People who have tried it before have certainly faced challenges at first, but they were able to overcome them by working through the troubleshooting steps.

Following is the hardware requirement as specified by the installation guide.

x86_64 Processor based hardware
Required: at least 4 GB RAM plus about 8 GB swap space;
Recommended: at least 8 GB RAM plus about 8 GB swap space;
About 100 GB free disk space for server installation
About 2 GB free disk space for client installation

Most people would find it difficult to meet the hardware requirements for installing ABAP AS. For example, I solved the space constraint by purchasing an external SSD drive and installing the SAP server on it.

But as an alternative, I also wanted to try setting up the trial version on Google Cloud Platform, which would have the advantage of not having to worry about space and performance constraints on my laptop. This article is my attempt to simplify the steps of installing the trial ABAP AS on Google Cloud Platform. Even if you are new to Google Cloud Platform, you should be able to follow the article step by step and setup the SAP server.

The steps below also address the issues that we are likely to encounter, so be patient and persevere, as the end result will be worth it.

⭐️Please note that this is not a guide of running SAP on Google Cloud, for that please visit the solutions page where you will find all the required details.

Before proceeding ahead please note the following important points which will be used as part of the installation commands:

The instance name should always be vhcalnplci.
It is on purpose that we will be using a deprecated version of Ubuntu (ubuntu-1604-xenial-v20210928) as SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition 7.52 does not support the latest versions due to kernel dependency.
During installation you will be asked for a password. Please ensure that it is exactly 8 characters (1 capital letter + small letters + at least 1 number + 1 special chars) and don’t start with a special character ($%&). E.g.: Test123*
Finally, yes it will take 4–5 hours for the SAP installation to complete. So grab some snacks and get started.

Preparing the Virtual Machine for SAP Installation

Download all the installation files for SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP Developer Edition 7.52 SP04 from this page and save it in your local system.
Create a 90-Day Free Trial account for Google Cloud Platform.
Create a new Google cloud project abap-sdk-poc and execute all the below installation steps in this project.
Create a Cloud bucket with the name sap-netweaver-752-nnn and upload the installation files to the bucket by drag and drop. (Replace nnn in bucket name with some unique identifier)

**Bucket name**: sap-netweaver-752-**nnn**

Click Activate Cloud Shell at the top of the Google Cloud console to Open Cloud Shell. We will use the Cloud Shell to run all our commands.

Activate Cloud Shell

Run the below commands to authenticate for your account and set the default project to abap-sdk-poc . I am using the default zone as us-west4-b. If needed, please change the zone in the below command based on your preference.

gcloud auth login
gcloud config set project abap-sdk-poc
gcloud config set compute/zone us-west4-b
PROJECT_NUMBER=$(gcloud projects describe abap-sdk-poc \
--format="value(projectNumber)")

Create a firewall rule sapmachine

gcloud compute firewall-rules create sapmachine \
--direction=INGRESS --priority=1000 --network=default --action=ALLOW \
--rules=tcp:4000,tcp:8000,tcp:44300,tcp:3300,tcp:3200 \
--source-ranges=0.0.0.0/0 --target-tags=sapmachine

Create a VM instance using the below command.

Note: We will be using an older compatible image of Ubuntu (1604) as SAP does not support the latest versions. For service account we will use the default compute engine service account.

gcloud compute instances create vhcalnplci --machine-type=e2-standard-2 \
--network-interface=network-tier=PREMIUM,stack-type=IPV4_ONLY,subnet=default \
--maintenance-policy=MIGRATE --provisioning-model=STANDARD \
--service-account=$PROJECT_NUMBER-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com \
--scopes=https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform --tags=sapmachine \
--create-disk=auto-delete=yes,boot=yes,device-name=vhcalnplci,image=projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/images/ubuntu-1604-xenial-v20210928,mode=rw,size=100,type=projects/abap-sdk-poc/zones/us-west4-b/diskTypes/pd-balanced \
--no-shielded-secure-boot --shielded-vtpm --shielded-integrity-monitoring \
--labels=goog-ec-src=vm_add-gcloud --reservation-affinity=any

SSH to the VM using the below command

gcloud compute ssh "vhcalnplci"

As next step we will update the host file

Retrieve the internal IP address of the system using the below command (Change the location in the below command if you are not using us-west4-b)

gcloud config set compute/zone us-west4-b
gcloud compute instances describe vhcalnplci \
  --format='get(networkInterfaces[0].networkIP)'

sudo nano /etc/hosts

You should already see an entry in the host file similar to below added by Google.

<Internal IP> vhcalnplci1.us-west4-b.c.abap-sdk-poc.internal vhcalnplci1  # Added by Google

Replace with the following line and save. Yes! We are repeating the instance name multiple times. This is as required by the SAP installer (Reference). Don’t forget to replace the location in case you are not using us-west4-b .

<internal IP> vhcalnplci vhcalnplci.dummy.nodomain vhcalnplci.us-west4-b.c.abap-sdk-poc.internal vhcalnplci

Start with SAP NetWeaver Developer 7.52 Trial installation

Before proceeding with SAP installation, we will set up the OS with some prerequisites. Run the following commands one by one to set up the required software components.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt install gcc make perl
sudo apt install csh
sudo apt search libaio
sudo apt install libaio1
sudo apt install uuid
sudo systemctl start uuidd
sudo mkdir /sapsetup
cd /sapsetup/

Download the installation files from the cloud storage bucket to sapsetup folder.

sudo gsutil cp gs://sap-netweaver-752-nnn/* /sapsetup/

Run the below commands to unrar the first installation file (TD752SP04part01.rar) which will also unrar all the other installation files. Extracting the files will take around 5–10 mins.

sudo apt-get install unrar
sudo unrar x TD752SP04part01.rar
sudo unrar x License.rar

We will copy license file to the same folder with install.sh and start with the installation.
⭐️Important: At this step you will be asked for a password(s). Please ensure that it is exactly 8 characters(1 capital letter + small letters + at least 1 number + 1 special chars) and don’t start with a special character ($%&) .E.g.: Test123*

sudo cp License/SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive/SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic .
sudo -s
chmod 777 install.sh
./install.sh

⭐️ DON’T PANIC: The installation will fail in around 30 minutes, because of a known issue with an outdated license. You should get the following error.

a /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW73/SBC/STANDARD/sapinst_loginquirer.log
a /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW73/SBC/STANDARD/start_dir.cd
a /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW73/SBC/STANDARD/stepKeydbClient.dmp
a /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW73/SBC/STANDARD/summary.html
a /tmp/sapinst_instdir/NW73/SBC/STANDARD/syslib_priv.log
################################################
Abort execution because of 
Step returns modlib.jslib.caughtException
################################################

The resolution for this error is identified in this discussion thread. The license file which was bundled in the installation RAR is old and no more applicable.
Copy the new license file and restart the installation.

sudo cp License/SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive/SYBASE_ASE_TestDrive.lic /sybase/NPL/SYSAM-2_0/licenses/
./install.sh

Hit enter to continue. And grab some 🍹 juice and snacks while you wait for it to complete (Estimated to take 2 hours)
After around a couple of hours you should see the following sweet success message. Please pat yourself for persevering and Congratulations!

starting database NPL ...
Log file: /sybase/NPL/startdb.log
parse level 0: identified message 'Database 'master' is now online.'
parse level 1: identified message 'Database 'tempdb' is now online.'
parse level 2: identified message 'Database 'sybsystemprocs' is now online.'
parse level 3: identified message 'Recovery complete.'
Recovery Complete
startdb completed successfully
Starting Startup Agent sapstartsrv
OK
Instance Service on host vhcalnplci started
-------------------------------------------
starting SAP Instance ASCS01
Startup-Log is written to /home/npladm/startsap_ASCS01.log
-------------------------------------------
/usr/sap/NPL/ASCS01/exe/sapcontrol -prot NI_HTTP -nr 01 -function Start
Instance on host vhcalnplci started
Starting Startup Agent sapstartsrv
OK
Instance Service on host vhcalnplci started
-------------------------------------------
starting SAP Instance D00
Startup-Log is written to /home/npladm/startsap_D00.log
-------------------------------------------
/usr/sap/NPL/D00/exe/sapcontrol -prot NI_HTTP -nr 00 -function Start
Instance on host vhcalnplci started
Installation of NPL successful

You can now connect to the SAP system. If SAP GUI is already installed on your laptop, connect to SAP using the VM external IP address as the Application Server IP.
You can also install Eclipse based ABAP Development Tool by following this link and connect to the system using eclipse.
If you are on Mac then you can also install the SAP GUI for Java available in this link.
Run the below command to get the External IP Address of the VM.

gcloud compute instances describe vhcalnplci  \
--format='get(networkInterfaces[0].accessConfigs[0].natIP)'

The guide has the list of pre created SAP users for client 001 which are as below.

Get the Developer License

You would need the hardware key which you get from login to SAP with user SAP* and going to TCode slicense.

Visit the minisap page for generating the trial developer license using the hardware key. Select the option `NPL — SAP NetWeaver 7.x (Sybase ASE)` and fill in the details.

The license file will be mailed to your ID. Use the transaction slicenseand click on Install button to upload the license file. Once uploaded you can login with user DEVELOPER and start writing your ABAP programs.

Clean Up

For clean up use the below commands to delete the VM and the firewall rules

gcloud compute instances delete vhcalnplci
gcloud compute firewall-rules delete sapmachine

Delete the project abap-sdk-pocusing Manage Resources.

Conclusion

You now have access to a local system for evaluating the ABAP language, Fiori, and related tools. You also received your first introduction to Google Cloud Platform. The trial account will allow you to learn about the platform’s services for a 90-day period.

Call for action

Now that you have an SAP system to work with, you may want to evaluate the ABAP SDK for Google Cloud and build some interesting SAP products using Google Services.

The ABAP SDK for Google Cloud enables integration with the REST based APIs published by Google. Do check out the What’s new section for more details.

Thank you and Happy learning!