Categories: GETTING STARTED

Quick setup

The goal of this short guide is to get a Step cluster running quickly. In the next pages of the introductory guide, you can then learn to create and deploy your first distributed automation scripts (called “Keywords”) on this freshly created cluster.

Step SaaS and Step on-prem

Step is available in different versions as described in Step pricing. Since we already prepared everything for you in the full-serviced SaaS solution, the easiest way to start using Step is to follow the Getting started with Step SaaS. If you however want to host your own instance of Step, follow the Getting started with Step on-prem.

Getting started with Step SaaS

To start using Step SaaS, sign up on the Step portal:

  • Enter your details and click Register. Use your full name in the Organization field if you do not represent an organization.
  • Click Create a Cluster
  • Add your credit card details. You will only be charged once all promotional credits have been used.

Set up your Cluster in the Step portal:

  • Enter the name of the Cluster
  • Click on the New Plugin (+) button if you want to add a plugin
  • Click on the New Agent (+) button if you want to add agents. Choose the desired pool of agents and adjust the number of agents by dragging the agent number button.
  • Click Create Cluster

Start your Step instance:

  • Copy your credentials from the Step portal
  • Click Open in Step to open your Cluster in the Step instance
  • Log in to your Step instance with the credentials from the Step portal
  • Save your credentials. They will only be available on the Step portal for the duration of your session.

To further use Step, we encourage you to explore our tutorials or refer to the Step user guide for detailed instructions.

Getting started with Step on-prem

Download Step on-prem

Step needs at least the following three components to operate: a MongoDB instance, a controller instance (orchestrator) and an agent (worker). In this Quick Setup, both the controller and agent will require a Java 11 Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK).

Install Step on-prem

  • Unzip both Step archives. There should be a controller folder and an agent folder.
  • If you’ve downloaded a JDK in a zip format, unzip it somewhere in the folder of your choice. If you’ve downloaded the exe version, run through the wizard using the default settings. Set the path to the JDK’s home into the start scripts of the controller (step-controller-x.y.z/bin/startController.bat) and agent (step-agent-x.y.z/bin/startAgent.bat). Both have JAVA_PATH variable which can be set according to the example commented in the script file itself.
  • Run through the default steps of MongoDB’s installation wizard, using the default port (27001).
  • For more details regarding installation and configuration see: Database installation, Controller installation, Agent installation

Run Step on-prem

  • Start a basic MongoDB instance from the controller’s folder by using our convenience script (step-controller-x.y.z/bin/startMongo.bat)
  • Make sure that no existing program is already running on ports 8080 and 8081 which will be respectively used by Step for web traffic and grid communication.
  • Start the controller script (startController.bat), check the console’s output, make sure it ends up in RUNNING state and that no fatal error or exception occurred. You should be seeing something like this:
Started o.e.j.s.ServletContextHandler@c6bf8d9{/rest,null,AVAILABLE}
Started o.e.j.s.h.ContextHandler@44392e64{/,null,AVAILABLE}
Started o.e.j.s.ServletContextHandler@e18d2a2{/files,null,AVAILABLE}
Started ServerConnector@7aedcf87{HTTP/1.1,[http/1.1]}{0.0.0.0:8080}
Started @55602ms
  • Start the agent script. If started successfully, the agent will just print out a couple of warnings and outputs, such as follows:
WARNING: The following warnings have been detected: HINT: A HTTP GET method, public void step.grid.agent.AgentServices.reserveToken(java.lang.String) throws step.grid.agent.tokenpool.AgentTokenPool$InvalidTokenIdException, returns a void type. It can be intentional and perfectly fine, but it is a little uncommon that GET method returns always "204 No Content".
HINT: A HTTP GET method, public void step.grid.agent.AgentServices.releaseToken(java.lang.String) throws step.grid.agent.tokenpool.AgentTokenPool$InvalidTokenIdException, returns a void type. It can be intentional and perfectly fine, but it is a little uncommon that GET method returns always "204 No Content".

Validating your setup

Step’s web application should now be running at the following address http://localhost:8080. You can log in immediately as an admin using the following default credentials:

user: admin
password: init

If you can log into the application, your installation is most likely successfully. Let’s just make sure that your agent has registered successfully against the controller by taking a look at the Grid’s current state. Just click on the Grid tab in the upper menu. It should take you to a page listing the currently connected agents, which looks like this:

The entry at the bottom displays a http url, and a green monitoring bar (in the example with the number 10) indicating that your agent has successfully connected and is ready to receive a workload.