Install a CTERA Portal in Azure Not Using the Azure Marketplace Version

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For general requirements, see Planning, General and Port Requirements for the version.

Specific Requirements

The portal image used to create the CTERA Portal instance is created from an operating system vhd file that is obtained from CTERA support. This file needs to be moved to your Azure portal, using either Azure Storage browser or Azcopy.exe. Azcopy is available for download from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-use-azcopy-v10. The zip file contains the azcopy.exe program.

Create a Portal Image

To copy the vhd file for a portal running on CentOS 9 or the vhd files for a portal running on CentOS 7, available from CTERA support, you can use Azure Storage browser for a graphical user interface (GUI) or AzCopy.exe for a command line option.

To copy the vhd file (CentOS 9) or files (CentOS 7) using Storage browser:

  1. Log in to your Azure portal and access the Storage Accounts service.
    The list of available storage accounts is displayed.
  2. Either create a new storage account or click the storage account to use.
    The storage account details are displayed.
  3. Click Access Keys under Security + Networking in the navigation menu and note the Storage account name and the Key 1 key value.
    Note

    Click Show to display the key.

  4. Click Storage browser in the navigation menu and then click Blob containers and select Add container.
    The New container page is displayed.
  5. Enter a name for the container and click Create.
  6. Click the container.
  7. Upload the vhd file (CentOS 9) or files (CentOS 7) to the container.
  8. Click Shared access signature under Security + Networking in the navigation menu.
    The Shared access signature page is displayed.
  9. Set the permissions and click Generate SAS and connection string.
  10. Copy the connection string URI that is generated and save it.
    The URI includes a shared access key.

To copy the vhd file using AzCopy:

  • Via AzCopy.exe, run the following command from the folder where you saved AzCopy.exe for the vhd file:
    AzCopy.exe cp "<source_uri>" "<destination_uri>"
    source_uri – The source URI location and path of the vhd file obtained from CTERA.
    destination_url – The destination URL.

The vhd file (CentOS 9) is copied to the container. This can take some time.

Creating a Portal Image

  1. Log in to your Azure portal and access the Images service.
    The list of available images is displayed.

  2. Click Create.
    The Create an image page is displayed.
    image.png

  3. Enter the following in the Basics tab.
    Resource group – The resource group to be used. The resource group must use premium storage.
    Name – A name to uniquely identify the virtual machine.
    Region – The region to host the image.
    OS type – Select Linux.
    VM generation – Select Gen 1.

    Note

    You must select Linux and Gen 1.

    Storage blob – Either enter the storage blob URI for the vhd file from CTERA or click Browse.
    The Storage accounts page is displayed.

    1. Select the storage account from the list.
      The Containers page is displayed.
    2. Select the container from the list.
      The container content is displayed.
    3. Select the vhd file received from CTERA and click Select.

    Account type – Select Premium SSD.

  4. Leave the other fields with their defaults and click Review + create.
    The information is checked and if okay, it is validated.

  5. Click Create.
    Deployment starts. Upon completion, a screen similar to the following is displayed.
    image.png

  6. Click Go to resource.
    The image details are displayed.

Install a CTERA Portal Instance

To create a portal instance:

  1. Log in to your Azure portal and access the Images service.
    The list of available images is displayed.
  2. Select the CTERA Portal image created in Creating a Portal Image.
    The image details are displayed.
  3. Click Create VM.
    The Create a virtual machine page is displayed.
    image.png
    Resource group – The resource group to be used. The resource group used to create the image is the default group. The resource group must use premium storage.
    Virtual machine name – A name to uniquely identify the virtual machine.
    Region – The region to host the virtual machine.
    Size – Click See all sizes to display the available VM sizes.
    The Select a VM size page is displayed.
    image.png
  4. Select a VM size that matches your requirements.
    The VM size depends on the type of server you want.
  5. Click Select.

Authentication type – Choose Password.
Username – A name to access the virtual machine. This is an administrator name to access the portal for initial configuration.

Note

Once the virtual machine has been fully configured, CTERA provides a user name and password, but this user name can also be used.

Password – Enter a password to access the instance.
Confirm password – Re-enter the password.
Select inbound rules – Select HTTPS (443) from the drop-down list.
Licensing type – Select Other.
Leave the other values with their defaults.
4. When installing a portal server running on CentOS 9, click the Disks tab or Next: Disks.
image.png

  1. Click Create and attach a new disk.
    image.png
  2. Click Change size.
    The Select a disk size page is displayed.
    image.png
  3. For the Primary and Preview servers, for Storage type, keep Premium SSD (locally-redundant storage). For all other servers, change Storage type to Standard HDD in the drop-down box.
  4. Under Custom disk size (GiB) enter the disk size.
    Prior to going to production, contact CTERA Support to evaluate whether the attached drive's performance meets CTERA's performance requirements.
    The size for the primary server is about 1% of the expected global file system size.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Change Host caching for the disks to Read/write for the added disks.
  8. Click the Networking tab or Next: Networking.
  9. Define network connectivity for the server.
  10. Click Review + create.
  11. Review the virtual machine details and click Create.
    The machine is deployed and started automatically. On the first start up a script is run to create a data pool from the data disk and then to load the portal dockers on to it. Loading the dockers can take a few minutes.
  12. Click Go to resource to display its details.
    The virtual machine includes the OS disk which is used for root, and a data disk.
Note

Note the Public IP address. You access the server using this address. When connecting to the server using SSH for the first time, use the root user and ctera321 password. You are prompted to change the password.

  1. Click Networking under Settings in the navigation menu to add inbound and outbound port rules.
  2. In the Inbound port rules tab, click Add inbound port rule.
    The Add inbound security rule window is displayed.
  3. Click Add inbound port rule to add the inbound port rules, incrementing the Priority for each rule by ‘10‘ and clicking Add after adding each rule. The ports required are listed in Port Tables. For example:
    Service Destination port ranges Protocol Priority Name
    Custom 995 TCP 330 CTTP
    Custom 18682 TCP 350 Preview
  4. Select the Outbound port rules tab and click Add outbound port rule.
    The Add outbound security rule window is displayed.
  5. Add the ports listed in Port Tables for your version.
    Note

    You need to change the Name field, if it was used for the inbound port. For example:

    Service Destination port ranges Protocol Priority Name
    Custom 18682 TCP 110 Preview1
    Custom 123 UDP 130 NTP
    SMTP — — 140 SMTP
  6. Log in as root, using SSH or through the console.
    The default password is ctera321
    You are prompted to change the password on your first login.
  7. For the primary database and secondary, replication, servers continue with Creating the Archive Pool.
  8. Start CTERA Portal services, by running the following command: portal-manage.sh start
Note

Do not start the portal until both the sdconv and envoy dockers have been loaded to the data pool. You can check that these dockers have loaded in /var/log/ctera_firstboot.log or by running docker images

Creating the Archive Pool

You need a data pool on every server and an archive pool on the primary database server, and when PostgreSQL streaming replication is required, also on the secondary, replication, server. See Using PostgreSQL Streaming Replication for your version for details about PostgreSQL streaming replication.

The data pool disk is created automatically when you first start the virtual machine and dockers are loaded on to it. For the primary database and secondary, replication, servers you need to create the archive pool.

Note

For application and preview servers, you do not need to add an archive pool disk. CTERA recommends adding archive storage on both the primary and secondary database servers.

To create the archive pool:

  1. For the primary CTERA Portal database server and the secondary, replication, server, click the VM.
  2. Click Settings > Disks.
  3. Under Data disks click Create and attach a new disk to create the disk for archive storage.
  4. Enter the following for the disk:
    Disk name – A name to identify the archive disk.
    Storage type – Standard HDD
    Size (GiB) – The size for the archive pool.
    Note

    The minimum archive pool should be 200GB but it should be sized around 2% of the expected global file system size.

    Host caching – Read/write
    image.png
  5. Click Apply.
  6. Log in as the root user using SSH.
  7. Run lsblk or fdisk -l to identify the disk to use for the archive pool.
    In the following output from lsblk a 200GB disk was added as the archive disk and it is identified as sdd
    image.png
    Note

    In this example an extra disk, sda, was created by Azure. If a disk is created automatically by Azure it can be ignored.

  8. Run the following command to create the archive pool: portal-storage-util.sh create_db_archive_pool Device
    Where Device is the Device name of the disk to use for the archive pool.

Troubleshooting the Installation

You can check on the progress of the docker loads in one of the following ways to ensure that all the dockers are loaded: The last docker to load is called zookeeper:

  • In /var/log/ctera_firstboot.log
  • By running docker images to check that the docker images are available.
  • By checking if /var/log/ctera_firstboot_completed is present with the date and time when the installation was performed.

If all the dockers do not load you need to run the script /usr/bin/ctera_firstboot.sh