This blog will help you to run your own SAP NetWeaver 7.51 ABAP instance inside a Docker container. This work was inspired by the Dockerfile created by Gregor Wolf and hosted at bitbucket.
The difference is that in Gregor’s version you download the NW ABAP installation files and when the container is build, you go manually through the installation. My Dockerfile assumes that you have downloaded the NW 7.51 ABAP installation files already and will automate the installation. Once you have downloaded the installation files from SAP you can make them locally available and create new Docker images / containers based on these, without having to download almost 16 GB again. And the installation script will run without prompting for user input.
Another differentiation is that you can “easily” change the Dockerfile to install NetWeaver 7.50 of the developer edition.
Pre-requisites
To be able to run the Dockerfile, you need
- Docker installed
- Downloaded and extracted installation files of SAP NW ABAP Developer Edition
- Internet connection
Installation
1 Get the Dockerfile
From my GitHub repository, you can find a Dockerfile that helps you to create a Docker image and container that will install your downloaded NetWeaver version. All you need is the Dockerfile, so a simple download is sufficient. You can also download the file by cloning the GitHub repository: https://github.com/tobiashofmann/sap-nw-abap-docker
2. Download SAP NetWeaver DE installation files
Download your version of SAP NetWeaver ABAP 7.5x Developer Edition from SAP. The files are compressed (RAR).
- Un-compress them into a folder named NW751. The folder must be at the same location where your Dockerfile is.
- Build the Docker image
Build the Docker image
Command:
docker build -t nwabap .
Sample output
After the build is finished, the last line you should see is
Successfully tagged nwabap:latest
To see the ID and name of the newly created image, run the following command:
docker images
Sample output
The command lists the ID, tag and size of the image. As you can see, it’s a 15 GB Docker image. Using this image, you can start a container and install NW ABAP 7.51 DE inside the container.
Create container from image
You can now create a container from the image. You’ll have to connect to the container and run the installation script run.sh. The file was created during docker build. It will run SAP’s install.sh and fill in the input automatically.
docker run -P -h vhcalnplci --name nwabap751 -it nwabap:latest /bin/bash
This will start the container and log you in. What you’ll get is the bash shell.
bash-4.3#
In case you have Kitematic installed, you can see the running container listed.
The container configuration for the ports is also visible there. The ports are automatically mapped by Docker. The message server port 3200 is accessible through localhost:32771, and the HTTP port 8000 through localhost:32769. This mapping can be changed either inside Kitematic or when the container is started on the command shell.
Run ls to see the content of the current directory. You can see the install.sh file from SAP (feel free to start the installation manually) and the run.sh script that will automate the installation.
Start installation
Run the script run.sh to install SAP NetWeaver ABAP 7.51. The script will enter all information requested by install.sh automatically. The installation will take some time, +/- 20 minutes.
./run.sh
Sample output
[…]
[…]
The installation worked when the script ends and you can see the output:
Installation of NPL successful