Deploying Lighthouse VM in a hosted Linux KVM environment

Lighthouse 4 has reached End of Life. This information is for archival purposes only.

Note: These instructions are adapted from the Lighthouse deployment guide.

Opengear's Lighthouse VM virtual central management appliance can be run on a VMware Server or as a guest on a VMware ESX/ESXi Server or under a Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). The host may be a physical machine that you administer, a managed server or a cloud hosting service from a hosting provider.

This FAQ examines Lighthouse VM deployment (or the earlier VCMS virtual appliance deployment) in a hosted KVM environment.

At a minimum the  Lighthouse VM requires resources of at least a 500MHz CPU core, 256MB RAM and 4GB disk space. This is well below the minimum generally provided by a hosted service.

However the appropriate level of reserved virtual server resources will also depend on the number of Opengear appliances and connected managed devices being managed by the Lighthouse VM.

For installations supporting 100 or more Opengear devices the recommended resource is 4 to 8 x 2 GHz CPU cores, 16GB RAM.

In addition, the following virtual devices are required:

• Disk device SATA (VMware) or IDE (Linux KVM)
• E1000 compatible Ethernet NIC, bridged

The Lighthouse VM is released as a firmware upgrade file (*.bin) and a full image (*.gz). The full image is used for the initial deployment. Firmware upgrade files are used thereafter for upgrades.

The full disk image you deploy for Linux KVM is lighthouse-x.y.z-kvm.hdd.gz. You will need to uncompress the full image using gunzip, Winzip or similar before deployment.

The upgrade file you use for Linux KVM is lighthouse-x.y.z-kvm.bin.

You can download images and upgrades from http://www.opengear.com/firmware/. These are fully featured images which can be used freely for evaluation and for non-commercial purposes. License keys for commercial use are provided by your Opengear sales channel.

To install follow the instructions provided by your virtualization management suite to deploy the hdd file as appropriate.

Example: KVM cloud deployment using ElasticHosts

• Browse to http://www.elastichosts.com and create an account at your preferred peer location
  • You may wish to use the 5 day free hosting trial, otherwise add a subscription that meets the reserved resource requirements outlined under System Requirements in this document
  • Ensure you set 'Committed data transfer' to 10 GB or higher and/or have a pre-pay balance to cover monthly data transfer. Data usage by Lighthouse VM will vary with usage patterns, but will generally not be heavy
  • We recommend you purchase a static IP address, otherwise you must also configure CMS to use a dynamic DNS service.
• Upload lighthouse-x.y.z-kvm.hdd as a drive using any of the methods described in http://www.elastichosts.com/cloud-hosting/faq#uploadQ
• If you are deploying from a Linux or POSIX compliant system, we recommend using the drive upload tool script:http://www.elastichosts.com/downloads/elastichosts-upload.sh Your secret API key is available on your Profile page: export EHAUTH="xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
• Your API endpoint URI is the hostname of account's peer location, proceeded by "api.", e.g. for San Antonio Peer 1: export EHURI=https://api.sat-p.elastichosts.com/
• After setting these in your environment, run: ./elastichosts-upload.sh lighthouse-x.y.z-kvm.hdd
• From the Elastic Hosts Control Panel:
  • Select Server in 'Add server or drive'. Enter a Name, e.g. "Lighthouse VM".
  • Select the Type of 'Boot from existing drive'.
  • Select the Drive you uploaded in the previous step, e.g. "lighthouse-x.y.z-kvm.hdd".
  • Click Add.
  • Click Edit on the Server you have just added. Select the static IP address to use if available, and set the VNC password.
  • Click Start.

Deployment is now complete. You can now monitor the Lighthouse VM boot progress using VNC, or proceed to the next step to begin configuration.

During the load process on initial deployment you will be prompted to enter and confirm a new root password.

Once Lighthouse VM has been deployed and the virtual appliance has booted, configuration is performed by browsing to the IP address of the virtual NIC. The virtual NIC obtains an address using DHCP and has a static IP address of 192.168.0.1 The default login is root with the new root password you just set.

You will then arrive at the Welcome to the Opengear Lighthouse VM! screen where you will see the next steps to follow. After completing a step (by following the appropriate link) you can return to the updated configuration steps by clicking on the logo in the top left corner