SAP SDK
The CMS SAP integrations — RFC/BAPI and IDoc — depend on the SAP NetWeaver RFC SDK, a native library distributed by SAP.
It does not ship with CMS: SAP licenses it under contract, so each installation uses the SDK downloaded by the customer with their own S-user. An administrator installs it on the SAP SDK tab, under Settings › Parameters — no server access, nothing to rebuild.
While the SDK is not installed
- CMS works normally — only the SAP integrations depend on it.
- Under External Connections, the SAP RFC and SAP IDoc types appear in the list disabled, with the reason and a shortcut to the installation screen.
- SAP connections that already existed stay visible and editable, with a warning. They are not hidden: in an installation restored onto another server, integrations vanishing from the screen would be worse than seeing them flagged.
Installing
Download the SDK from the SAP Support Portal
Software Downloads → SAP NW RFC SDK 7.50 → Linux on x86_64 variant. The file comes as a
.zip (from 7.50 onwards it is no longer .SAR, so SAPCAR is not needed).
The Windows package has an almost identical name — one digit changes at the end
(nwrfc750P_19-70002752.zip is Linux; ...-70002755.zip is Windows). The CMS connectors run in
Linux containers; if the wrong package is uploaded, CMS recognises it and says exactly that.
Upload it on the tab
Settings › Parameters › SAP SDK tab → Choose file → Upload and install. Upload the .zip
exactly as downloaded, without extracting it.
Wait for the connectors to restart
CMS validates the package, writes the files and restarts both SAP connectors — a native library is
only loaded when the process starts. Within seconds the tab shows SDK installed with the
version read from the binary itself (e.g. 7.50 PL18) and both connectors marked as loaded.
What the validation rejects
| Situation | What CMS answers |
|---|---|
Windows package (contains sapnwrfc.dll) | Identifies the package and asks for the Linux on x86_64 variant |
| AIX, IBM i or HP-UX variant | Warns that the binary is not a Linux (ELF) library |
| SDK for another architecture (ARM64, PowerPC…) | States which architecture the package is for and which one was expected |
Zip without lib/libsapnwrfc.so or without the headers | Warns that it is not a complete SAP NW RFC SDK |
| Zip with an unsafe file path | Rejects the whole package |
Nothing is deleted before the new package is complete on disk: if validation fails, the previous installation stays in place.
Where the SDK lives
A single folder, mounted into the containers at /usr/local/sap/nwrfcsdk — the path node-rfc
looks for. On the server, the folder is set by SAP_SDK_PATH (default ./data/nwrfcsdk). cms-api
mounts it read-write, since it receives the upload; both connectors mount it read-only.
Updating and removing
Uploading a new package replaces the previous one — that is how a newer patch level is applied. Remove deletes the library from the server: the connectors fall back to simulated mode and SAP connections stay unavailable until a new upload. Both actions are recorded in the audit log, with user, date and the uploaded file.
Configuration export
The export records metadata only in the manifest — whether that installation had the SDK and which version. The binary never goes into an exported file: it is tens of megabytes of SAP-licensed material, which must not travel between installations.
When importing onto a server without the SDK, the configuration is applied normally and the result carries a warning that SAP connections will only work after the installation.