--- title: "Installing CTERA Portal Instances" slug: "installing-ctera-portal-instances-36" tags: ["8.2", "Portal"] updated: 2026-06-08T07:51:45Z published: 2026-06-08T07:51:45Z canonical: "kb.ctera.com/installing-ctera-portal-instances-36" --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://kb.ctera.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Installing CTERA Portal Instances A CTERA Portal in AWS is created as an instance in an existing Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Use the following workflow to install CTERA Portal. 1. [Creating a Portal Instance](/v1/docs/installing-ctera-portal-instances-36#creating-a-portal-instance). 2. Optionally, associate your CTERA Portal instance with an Elastic IP Address. See [Optionally Obtaining an Elastic IP Address for the CTERA Portal Instance](/v1/docs/optionally-obtaining-an-elastic-ip-address-for-the-ctera-portal-instance-4). 3. Optionally, [configure a default gateway](/v1/docs/configuring-a-default-gateway-47). 4. For the first server you install, follow the steps in [Configuring the Primary Server](/v1/docs/configuring-the-primary-server-5). 5. 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](/v1/docs/installing-and-configuring-additional-ctera-portal-servers-5). 6. Make sure that you replicate the database, as described in [Configuring the CTERA Portal Database for Backup](/v1/docs/configuring-ctera-portal-database-for-backup-and-restore-1). 7. Backup the server as described in [Backing Up the CTERA Portal Servers and Storage](/v1/docs/backing-up-the-ctera-portal-servers-and-storage-3). ## Creating a Portal Instance **To create the Amazon EC2 CTERA Portal instance:** 1. In the AWS Management Console select **Services**. 2. Under the **Compute** service, select **EC2**. 3. In the navigation pane, click **Images > AMIs**. The **Amazon Machine Images (AMIs)** window is displayed. 4. Select the CTERA Portal image that CTERA shared with you and click **Launch instance from AMI**. The **Launch an instance** window is displayed. 5. Under **Name and tags**, enter a name for the instance. 6. Optionally, click **Add additional tags** to add tags, clicking **Add tags** for each additional tag you want to add. **Note** In multi-instance environments, it is recommended include the name of the CTERA service running on this instance, for example, replication, preview, application. 7. Under **Instance type**, select the required instance type, for example **M6.xlarge** or **M6.2xlarge**. **Note** For information on CTERA's server sizing requirements, contact [CTERA Support](https://www.ctera.com/support/). 8. Under **Key pair (login)**, do one of the following. A private key in *.pem format is downloaded. Be sure to save the private key file in a safe place. You will need to provide the name of your key pair when you launch the instance and the corresponding private key each time you connect to the instance. This is also the key you will use to setup any additional portal servers. **Warning** You **must** have a key pair for the instance. If you launch your instance without a key pair, you will not be able to connect to it. - If you created a key pair, and have the private key file that corresponds to the pair in a safe and accessible place, select the key pair from the drop-down list - If you want to create a new key pair, do the following: 1. Select **Create new key pair**. 2. In the **Key pair name** field, enter a name for the key pair. 3. Choose the `.pem` **Private key file format** option. 4. Click **Create key pair**. 9. Under **Network settings**, click **Edit** 1. Select the **VPC Network** from the drop-down list. 2. Select the **Subnet** from the drop-down list. The subnet can be a private subnet or a public subnet. **Note** You **need** a public subnet if access to the CTERA Portal will not be within the VPC. 3. Under **Firewall (security groups)** choose **Create security group** for a new security group or **Select existing security group** if you already have one defined. For security reasons, it is recommend to create one security group for servers running CTERA's application service or preview service, and a different security group for servers running CTERA's main database. If you chose **Create security group**, click **Add security group rule** to add the following from the **Type** drop-down: **Notes** TCP port 22 for SSH remote connectivity and assistance by CTERA support personnel is added automatically when you select **Create security group**. CTERA Portal instances communicate with each other over TCP port 5432. Allow TCP communication overport 5432 to the CTERA Portal database server. This communication port should be opened only between the CTERA servers. CTERA recommends modifying the allowed source IP addresses for each inbound security rule added. If you chose **Select existing security group**, select the security group from the **Common security groups** drop-down list. - DNS (UDP) - HTTP - Custom TCP and set **Port range** to 389, for Active Directory, if used. - HTTPS - Custom TCP and set **Port range** to 995 10. Under **Configure storage**, click **Advanced** and then click **Add new volume** to add the volume: Another row is displayed in the table. 1. In the **Size (GiB)** field, enter the size of the EBS volume. The size of the volume depends on the server, as specified in [Requirements](/v1/docs/planning-general-and-port-requirements-2#general-requirements). 2. In the **Volume Type** field, select the volume type. The volume type depends on the server, primary database server, secondary, replication server, preview server, application server, with or without the messaging server, as specified in [Requirements](/v1/docs/planning-general-and-port-requirements-2#general-requirements). Where SSD is specified, choose **General purpose SSD (gp3)**, otherwise choose **Magnetic (standard)** from the drop-down list. 3. Record the **Device name**, such as `/dev/sdb` for the volume. 11. Under **Advanced details**, select the **IAM instance profile** created in [Setting CTERA Portal Resource Access in IAM](/v1/docs/creating-the-iam-policy-and-role-for-the-portal-4#setting-ctera-portal-resource-access-in-iam). 12. In the **Summary** section specify the **Number of instances** you want to create using the specification. **Note** For example, the primary, database, server and secondary, replication, server must both have the same configuration and therefore when defining the configuration for the primary, database, server CTERA recommends changiung the **Number of instances** to `2` so that the secondary, replication, server is created at the same time as the primary, database, server with the same configuration. 13. Review the summary and click **Launch instance**. 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. 14. After the instance is successfully launched, click the instance id link in the **Success box**. The **Instances** page is displayed, showing the status of the instance. 15. Wait until the **Status check** has finished and then click the **Instance ID**. Information about the instance is displayed. 16. Note the IP address displayed in either the **Public IPv4 address** field, when public access was required and a subnet accessible publicly was specified, or in the **Private IPv4 addresses** field, when the access is within the VPC. **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](/v1/docs/installing-ctera-portal-instances-36#troubleshooting-the-installation) if the script does not complete successfully. 17. For the primary database server and the secondary, replication database, server, continue with [Create the Archive Storage](/v1/docs/installing-ctera-portal-instances-36#create-the-archive-storage). 18. 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` 19. Upgrade the portal server image and software to include the latest patch releases, as described in [Upgrading the Portal Image and Software](/v1/docs/upgrading-a-ctera-portal-5#upgrading-the-portal-image-and-software). ## Create the Archive Storage you need to create an 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](/v1/docs/using-postgresql-streaming-replication-3) for details about PostgreSQL streaming replication. **To create the archive pool:** 1. Log in to the AWS Management Console and in the EC2 service click **Instances > Instances** in the navigation pane. 2. Note the **Instance ID** of the server you want to add a new volume to. 3. Click **Elastic Block Store > Volumes** in the navigation pane. 4. Click **Create volume**. 5. In the **Volume Type** field, select **Magnetic (standard)** from the drop-down list for the volume type. 6. In the **Size (GiB)** field enter the size of the volume. The size of the volume for the archive pool should be around 2% of the expected global file system size and at least 200GB. 7. In the **Availability Zone** field enter the availability zone specified for the server instance that you want to attach the volume to. 8. Leave the other fields with their default values and click **Create volume**. 9. In the **Volumes** page selet the new volume and click **Actions > Attach volume**. 10. In the **Instance** field select the instance you created in [Creating a Portal instance](/v1/docs/installing-ctera-portal-instances-36#creating-a-portal-instance) and noted at the beginning of this procedure. 11. In the **Device name** field select a device name for the volume, such as `/dev/svdc` 12. Click **Attach volume**. 13. Click **Instances > Instances** in the navigation pane and selct the instance. 14. Click **Connect**. 15. Select the **Session Manager** tab and click **Connect**. 16. Change to the root user by running the following command: `sudo -i` 17. Run the following command to create the archive pool: `portal-storage-util.sh create_db_archive_pool Volume_ID` Where *Volume_ID* is the **Volume ID** of the volume you attached to the server instance, 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`