Installing CTERA Portal Instances

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Use the following workflow to install CTERA Portal.

  1. Creating a Portal Instance. The image is obtainable from CTERA support.
  2. Configuring Network Settings.
  3. Optionally, configure a default gateway.
  4. Additional Installation Instructions for Customers Without Internet Access.
  5. For the first server you install, follow the steps in Configuring the Primary Server.
  6. For any additional servers beside the primary server, install the server as described below and configure it as an additional server, as described in Installing and Configuring Additional CTERA Portal Servers.
  7. Make sure that you replicate the database, as described in Configuring the CTERA Portal Database for Backup.
  8. Backup the server as described in Backing Up the CTERA Portal Servers and Storage.
Note

You can use block-storage-level snapshots for backup, but snapshots are periodical in nature, configured to run every few hours. Therefore, you cannot recover the metadata to any point-in-time, and can lose a significant amount of data on failure. Also, many storage systems do not support block-level snapshots and replication, or do not do so efficiently.

Creating a Portal Instance

To create a CTERA Portal Server in Hyper-V:

  1. Open the Hyper-V Manager.
  2. Right-click the hypervisor and click New > Virtual Machine.
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    The New Virtual Machine Wizard opens, displaying the Before You Begin window.
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  3. Click Next.
    The Specify Name and Location window is displayed.
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  4. Enter a name for the portal and click Next.
    The Specify Generation window is displayed.
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  5. Select the Generation 1 option and click Next.
    The Assign Memory window is displayed.
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  6. Specify the RAM for the machine. For details, see Requirements.
  7. Make sure Use Dynamic Memory for this virtual machine is unchecked.
  8. Click Next.
    The Configure Networking window is displayed.
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  9. Select the network from the Connection drop-down list and click Next.
    The Connect Virtual Hard Disk window is displayed.
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  10. Select the Use an existing virtual hard disk option and browse to the vhd file from CTERA.
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  11. Click Next.
    The Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard window is displayed.
  12. Click Finish.
  13. Right-click the new virtual machine and click Settings.
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    1. Select Processor in the Hardware list and change the Number of virtual processors value, based on the server requirements. For details, see Requirements.
    2. Click Apply.
    3. Select SCSI Controller in the Hardware list and select Hard Drive and click Add.
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    4. Click New.
      The New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard is displayed.
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    5. Click Next and make sure the VHDX disk format is selected.
    6. Click Next and select the virtual disk type.
      CTERA recommends selecting Fixed size for the primary database server and secondary, replication, server and Dynamically expanding disk type for the other servers.
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    7. Click Next and specify a name and location for the disk.
    8. Click Next and configure the disk.
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    9. Specify the disk size, based on the server requirements. For details, see Requirements.
    10. Click Next and then Finish.
    11. Click Apply and then OK.
  14. Right-click the virtual machine and click Start.
    The virtual machine starts up and on the first start up a script is run to create a data pool from the data disk and then to load portal dockers on to this data pool. Loading the dockers can take a few minutes.
  15. Right-click the virtual machine and click Connect to open the machine console.
  16. Log in as root.
    The default password is ctera321
    You are prompted to change the password on your first login.
    Note

    If the script to create the data pool does not successfully run, it will start on every boot until it completes. The script has a timeout which means it will exit if the data pool is not created within the timeout after boot time. If the data pool is not created, dockers required by the portal are not loaded to the data pool.

    To make sure that the script completed successfully, before continuing, run docker images to check that the docker images are available, including zookeeper, which is the last docker to load to the data pool.

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

    Also, refer to Troubleshooting the Installation if the script does not complete successfully.

  17. For the primary database server and secondary, replication database, server, continue with Create the Archive Storage.
  18. If an IP is not assigned, configure network settings before starting the CTERA Portal services in the next step.
  19. 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

Create the Archive Storage

You need to create the archive pool on the primary database server and when PostgreSQL streaming replication is required, also on the secondary, replication database, server. See Using PostgreSQL Streaming Replication for details about PostgreSQL streaming replication.

To create the archive pool:

  1. For the CTERA Portal primary database server and the secondary, replication database, server, right-click the virtual machine and click Settings and add a disk to use as 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. For more details, see Requirements.

    1. Select SCSI Controller in the Hardware list and select Hard Drive and click Add.
    2. Click New.
      The New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard is displayed.
      image.png
    3. Click Next and make sure the VHDX disk format is selected.
    4. Click Next and select the virtual disk type.
      image.png
      CTERA recommends selecting Fixed size
    5. Click Next and specify a name and location for the disk.
    6. Click Next and configure the disk.
      image.png
    7. Specify the disk size, based on the server requirements. For details, see Requirements.
    8. Click Next and then Finish.
    9. Click Apply and then OK.
  2. Right-click the virtual machine and click Connect to open the machine console.
  3. Log in as root.
  4. Run lsblk or fdisk -l to identify the disks to use for the archive pool.
  5. 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/lib/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

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