Surgient Install 54

Surgient

Installation and Configuration Guide Version 5.4

This document and the software described in this document constitute confidential information of Surgient, Inc. and its licensors, and are furnished under a license from Surgient, Inc. This document and the software may be used and copied only as permitted by such license. The software is also protected by U.S. Patents 6,880,002 and 6,990,666 and is subject to other pending patents. Copyrights

Copyright © 2002-2008 Surgient, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This software includes the following third-party software: Outlook Bar, version 0.9.3.0. Copyright © Tim Dawson. properJavaRDP Copyright © 2003 Propero Ltd. www.propero.net . Licensed under GNU General Public License. The license and the source code are included on the Surgient software media. Software developed by the Apache Software Foundation ( www.apache.org www.apache.org). ). Copyright © 2001-2004 The Apache Software Foundation. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0, a copy of which is included on the Surgient software media. TightVNC Java Viewer version 1.2.9. Copyright © 2001 - 2003 HorizonLive.com, Inc. Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003 Constantin Kaplinsky. Copyright © 1999 AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. Licensed under GNU General Public License. The license and the source code are included on the Surgient software media. ViewerX VNC ActivX Control version 2.5.71.1. Copyright © 2003-2005 SmartCode Solutions. All Rights Reserved. Perl Kit, Version 5.8 Copyright 1989-1999, Larry Wall, licensed under GNU Library GPL 2.0 or Perl Artistic License. Software developed by the Mono project (www.mono-project.com). Runtime libraries licensed under GNU Library GPL 2.0. Class libraries licensed under MIT X11. The license and the source code are included with the Surgient software. TightVNC 1.2.9 for Windows. Copyright © 1999 AT&T Laboratories Cambridge. Copyright © 2000 Tridia Corp. Copyright © 2002 RealVNC Ltd. Copyright © 2000 - 2003 Constantin Kaplinsky. Copyright © 2001 - 2003 HorizonLive.com, Inc. All rights reserved. Licensed under GNU General Public License. The license and the source code are included with the Surgient software. Trademarks

Surgient, the Surgient logo, Surgient VCS, Virtualization Control Server, VDMS, VTMS and VQMS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Surgient, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Microsoft, Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. All other products or services mentioned in this document are tradem arks or registered trademarks tradem arks of their respective com panies. Disclaimers

This document is furnished “AS IS.” Surgient, Inc. disclaims all warranties regarding the contents of this document, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose. This document may contain technical or other inaccuracies inaccuracies or typographical errors. Surgient, Inc. reserves the right to revise the information in this document at any time without notice. Surgient, Inc.  8303 N. MoPac Expy., Suite C-300



Austin, Texas 78759

Contents Target Audience ....................................................................................... ......................................................................................................... .................. iv About This Book Book ......................................................................................................... ......................................................................................................... iv Surgient Documentation Documentation .............................................................................................. .............................................................................................. v Typeface Conventions ...................................................... ............................................................................................... ......................................... vi Acronyms and Abbreviations ................................................ ..................................................................................... ..................................... vi Surgient Contact Information Information ......................................................... ....................................................................................viii ...........................viii

1 Before Before You Start ........... ................ ........... ........... .......... .......... ........... ........... ........... ........... .......... .......... .......... .......... ........ ...1 1 Surgient Components and Solutions ........................................................................... ........................................................................... 2 Determining the Scope of Your Installation Installation ................................................. ................................................................. ................ 4 System Requirements Requirements ................................................................................................. 7 Additional Considerations Considerations ................................................. ......................................................................................... ........................................ 11 Network Communication ...........................................................................................15 Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service Service ................................................ ................................................18 18 Pre-installation Checklists .................................................. ......................................................................................... ....................................... 19

2 Product Product Installati Installation on .......... ............... ........... ........... ........... ............ ........... ........... ........... .......... .......... .......... .......... ....... 23 Installing the VCS and Management Console Console ............................................ .......................................................... .............. 25 Installing the Management Console Console on a Separate Server ....................................... 37 Installing Surgient Applications .................................................................................43 Installing Surgient Agents .............................................. ......................................................................................... ...........................................49 49 Installing the VQMS CLI Server ...................................................... ................................................................................ .......................... 59 Next Steps Steps and Getting Getting Started ...................................................... ................................................................................ .......................... 63

3 Verifying Verifying the Installatio Installation n .......... ............... ........... ........... ........... ........... .......... ........... ........... ........... ............ ........ ..65 65 Quick Start Using the Surgient Sample Image Image ..........................................................66 .......................................................... 66 Workflow Summary ...................................................................................................67 Copy the Sample Sample Image into the Library Location Location ................................................... ..................................................... 67 Launch the Surgient Management Management Console .............................................................. 68 Add a Library Location Location ............................................................. .............................................................................................. ................................. 69 Create Network Resources and Add to Default Resource Resource Pool ................................ 70 Assign the Host to the Default Pool ...................................................... .......................................................................... .................... 74 Creating a Server Configuration ................................................................................ ................................................................................ 76 Creating an Application Configuration ....................................................................... ....................................................................... 78 Deploying a Sample Configuration ............................................................................ ............................................................................ 79 Connecting to to the Deployed Deployed Configuration Configuration ........................................... ............................................................... .................... 80 Launching the Application ......................................................................................... 80

Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

ii

Congratulations ......................................................................................................... 82

4 Remote Access.................................................................................. 83 Universal Remote Access ......................................................................................... 84 Classroom Readiness Test ....................................................................................... 93 User Readiness Test .............................................................................................. 105

5 Advanced Installation and Administration ................................... 107 Moving an Existing Library Location ....................................................................... 108 Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode ..............................................................110 Using a VMFS-based (SAN) Library Location ......................................................... 118 Using NFS Servers ................................................................................................. 121 Installing the Add-In for HP Quality Center ............................................................. 124 Installing the Command Line Interface (CLI) .......................................................... 124 Editing Advanced Configuration Settings ................................................................ 129

6 Troubleshooting the Installation.................................................... 131 General Troubleshooting First Steps ...................................................................... 132 New Host Does Not Appear in Management Console ............................................ 132 Error While Adding Host to Pool ............................................................................. 133 .NET Framework Installed Before Microsoft IIS ......................................................134 Installation Error Messages .................................................................................... 135

A Pre-Install Worksheet...................................................................... 137 B Installing the VCS on Multiple Servers.......................................... 139

iii

Surgient Installation and Configura-

Preface The Surgient Installation Guide provides information to assist you with the process of installing and configuring a Surgient environment. After you complete an installation, see the Management Console online Help for information on using the Surgient Management Console to create and populate necessary objects.

Target Audience The target audience for this book is the individual responsible for installing Surgient applications and performing the initial configuration required to begin using Surgient solutions on a day-to-day basis. Typically, these users are system administrators.

About This Book This book provides the information you need to install and configure Surgient components during the initial deployment of a Surgient environment. It is not intended to provide a complete description of the features and capabilities of the Surgient platform or Surgient Management Console. The Surgient Installation Guide consists of the following sections: 

Chapter 1, “Before You Start,” on page 1 provides an introduction to the various Surgient components as well as to the physical and logical architecture of a Surgient environment. It also describes installation scenarios that can help you decide how to set up your network.



Chapter 2, “Product Installation,” on page 23 describes the steps for installing Surgient components.


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Chapter 3, “Verifying the Installation,” on page 65 provides the Getting Started steps for configuring your environment, creating a sample application configuration, and deploying the sample configuration.

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Chapter 4, “Remote Access,” on page 83 addresses issues associated with enabling communication across a firewall.

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Chapter 5, “Advanced Installation and Administration,” on page 107 provides information about advanced options such as using a VMFS volume on a SAN (storage area network).

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Appendix A, “Pre-Install Worksheet,” on page 137 features a worksheet designed to expedite the installation process. Appendix B, “Installing the VCS on Multiple Servers,” on page 1 39 provides instructions for distributing the VCS components.

For your convenience, an index is located after the appendixes.

Surgient Documentation The following documentation is available in support of version 5.4:

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Surgient Remote Access Testing Guide provides information to assist in running the user readiness test (URT) and the classroom readiness test (CRT). URT enables virtual lab participants to verify, in advance, that the computer and the location from which it is tested both support a successful lab experience. CRT measures the connectivity and performance characteristics of a physical classroom where hands-on training is scheduled to occur.

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Release notes for the Management Console and VQMS, VDMS, and VTMS. The release notes contain the most current information about the products and should be used in conjunction with other Surgient documents. You should read these release notes before you begin installing the Surgient products.


Typeface Conventions

P r e f a c e

The following typeface conventions are used in this book:

Component

Convention

Window and dialog names

Title caps, default font

Emphasis

Italic

File or directory names

Courier

Examples, including code

Courier

UI commands within a procedure when a specific action is taken

Bold

New terms

Bold italic

Typed user input

Bold Courier

Variables

Acronyms and Abbreviations The following acronyms and abbreviations are used in this book:

Acronym or Abbreviation

Definition

API

Application Programming Interface

CD-ROM

Compact Disc Read Only Memory

CPU

Central Processing Unit

DNS

Domain Name System

GB

Gigabyte

GUI

Graphical User Interface

GUID

Globally Unique Identifier

HBA

Host Bus Adapter

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

ICA

Independent Computing Architecture


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vii

Definition

ICMP

Internet Control Message Protocol

IDE

Integrated Drive Electronics

IIS

Internet Information Service

IP

Internet Protocol

LLP

Local Listening Proxy

MAC

Media Access Control

MDAC

Microsoft Data Access Components

MB

Megabytes

NAIL

Network Abstraction and Isolation Layer

NAT

Network Address Translation

NFS

Network File System

NIC

Network Interface Card

OS

Operating System

PSA

Path Signature Analysis

RAM

Random Access Memory

RDP

Remote Desktop Protocol

SCSI

Small Computer System Interface

SE

Sales Engineer

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SQL

Structured Query Language

SSL

Secure Socket Layer

SSPI

(Microsoft) Security Support Provider Interface

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

UI

User Interface

UNC

Universal Naming Convention

URA

Universal Remote Access

URL

Uniform Resource Locator



Definition

VCS

(Surgient) Virtualization Control Server

VDMS

(Surgient) Virtual Demo Management System

VM

Virtual Machine

VNC

Virtual Network Control

VQMS

(Surgient) Virtual QA/Test Management System

VR

Virtual Resource

VTMS

(Surgient) Virtual Training Management System

WebDAV

Web based Distributed Authoring and Versioning

P r e f a c e

Surgient Contact Information For further information regarding Surgient offerings, phone 1-888-240-6997, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit our Web site at www.surgient.com. To contact Surgient Support, use the Surgient Online Support Web page available on our Web site. Send an e-mail message to [email protected] to request a user account and instructions for accessing Surgient Online Support.


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ix


Before You Start

1

This chapter discusses the system requirements and other objectives and conditions that must be considered while planning an installation. The following sections address these issues and provide instructions for ensuring that you are fully prepared to complete a Surgient installation. 

“Surgient Components and Solutions” on page 2

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“Determining the Scope of Your Installation” on page 4

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“System Requirements” on page 7

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“Additional Considerations” on page 11

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“Network Communication” on page 15

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“Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service” on page 18

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“Pre-installation Checklists” on page 19


1

Surgient Components and Solutions The following components are essential to the Surgient environment: 

Surgient Virtualization Control Server (VCS) – Typically installed on a single virtual machine (VM) or physical server. Depending on the size of the deployment, however, the VCS can be distributed across multiple VMs or physical servers.

The Surgient VCS consists of the following pieces, which provide the capabilities required by all Surgient applications:

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

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Core services – Provide a platform of services and capabilities that enable the Surgient applications to create and manage virtual resources. Key services include the control service and the Surgient engine.

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Component services – Host the reservation service, deployment service, and other Surgient services.

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Agent message forwarder – Functions as the mailbox for the Surgient VCS.



Agent message processor – Parses agent documents.

Surgient Management Console – Functions as the administrator’s interface to the Surgient platform. Through this console, the administrator can perform the tasks that are necessary to define and maintain the Surgient environment, including the creation and maintenance of users, organizations, virtual resources, and software images.

Surgient applications – Allow customers to take full advantage of the Surgient platform and services. The following applications are available from Surgient: 

2

Surgient Virtual Demo Lab Management System (VDMS) – Provides software-demonstration capabilities that result in the faster and more reliable presentation of a product to potential customers. These enhancements, in turn, generate additional leads and shorten sales cycles.






Surgient Virtual QA/Test Lab Management System (VQMS) – Automates test lab environments for software organizations. Surgient VQMS orchestrates the allocation, scheduling, provisioning, configuration, and tearing down of software test environments for developers and quality assurance (QA) engineers. By providing self-service capabilities to groups and individuals who desire access to automated test lab environments, VQMS enables software organizations to increase repeatability in the test process while optimizing test lab resources, reducing development and test cycles, increasing the productivity of developers and QA engineers, and eliminating errors. Surgient Virtual Training Lab Management System (VTMS) – Enables training organizations to reduce delivery costs, shorten cycles, and increase reach by delivering live, hands-on, technical software training to anyone, anytime, anywhere. When using VTMS, customers, partners, and employees experience the full benefits of interacting with real training labs as part of instructor-led and self-paced courses.

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System library – Contains a collection of such system resources as base images, ISO images, and snapshots. The system library also includes the templates directory and snapshots directory in which the various files are stored. The file-storage device that you use as the system library must have enough capacity to store many large files.

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Surgient operations database – Houses the configuration and state information for all of the physical and virtual resources. Created on an existing structured query language (SQL) server, the database also stores information about users, their roles and privileges, and their authentication policies.

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Surgient reporting database – Serves as a repository for historical data. Logically distinct from the Surgient operations database, the reporting database can be installed either as an independent database on the same server as the operations database or on a different server altogether.

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Surgient application server – The physical server or VM on which Surgient applications, including VDMS, VQMS, and VTMS, are installed. End users and application administrators access these applications through a Web browser.

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Surgient file cache – Contains copies of images from the system library and allows multiple VMs to share the same image. When an image


3

1

B e f o r e Y o u S t a r t

changes in the system library, the updated image is sent to the file cache upon the next deployment of the application configuration. Multiple caches are supported, with each cache consisting of one or more cache locations. 

Surgient agents – Facilitate communication with the VCS. Surgient agents are installed on any system that hosts a system library location, file cache location, or virtualization resources. They regularly poll the server on which they are installed for performance and health statistics, executing any commands needed to manage the physical and virtual resources.

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Virtual machine host server – The physical device on which VMs are created.

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Optional: VQMS command-line interface (CLI) server – Allows Surgient VQMS users to issue commands and run scripts by way of a CLI environment, provided they are also using the appropriate command-line client.

Determining the Scope of Your Installation Because the Surgient platform is highly scalable, the Surgient components and products can be installed on a single server or distributed across multiple servers as you see fit. If you are installing a Surgient solution within the confines of a relatively small environment, for example, you can install the complete VCS on the same server that hosts your databases and system library. On the other hand, if your installation is slated for a larger environment, installing some of the VCS components on one server and the remaining components on a second server can help you maximize the efficiency of your solution. Databases, applications, and the system library can also be set up on separate servers as needed. The following criteria can be useful when determining which approach to use: 

4

The number of virtual labs to be deployed and serviced. A virtual lab is a live software environment deployed on demand for demonstration, testing, or training purposes. Users of Surgient VDMS, VQMS, and VTMS can access virtual labs for software demonstrations and


evaluations, software testing, and hands-on software training, respectively.

1



The diversity of your lab images, including the number of different images, the size and content of each image, and their hosting requirements.



Your reporting needs, as determined by the amount and type of data you expect to save, as well as the number of reports you expect to generate.


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Installation Scenario In the following installation scenario, the VCS, the Management Console and the application (VQMS, VDMS, or VTMS), are installed on the VCS Server. If you foresee that a large amount of storage space for your Library content will be required, the system library can be installed on a server different from the VCS server. Additionally, Additionally, the database usually usu ally resides on a separate database server than the VCS server. An example installation is depicted by Figure 1. 1.

Figure 1 – Example Installation Scenario

See “System Requirements” on page 7 for information about the minimum system requirements for following the example installation scenario.

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System Requirements

1


The hardware and software requirements are detailed in the following section.

General Considerations Considerations Review the following general information: 

Surgient is not compatible with VMware’s Virtual Virtual Center and Lab Manager products. Hosts that are managed by Surgient cannot also be managed by VMware products.



The disk space required by the System Library location depends upon the number and size of the images (labs, demos, classes) that are stored. s tored.

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Using NAIL Server (used to support cloning) in advanced mode requires two (2) 1 GB Ethernet cards in all VM hosts. For more information about NAIL Server in advanced mode, see the Management Console’s online Help.

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The Active X controls used u sed by Surgient require 32-bit Internet Explorer (default browser) when running on Windows 64 platforms. Both 32-bit Internet Explorer and 64-bit Internet Explorer are shipped in Windows x64. The combination of Firefox 2.0 and Sun Java J2SE 1.6 also works on 64-bit Windows.

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The VCS server and all VM host servers should reside on the s ame Local Area Network (LAN).


7

System Requirements Review the following system requirements for the example installation scenario. See Figure 1 on page 6 for a description of this configuration. Note:

Computer

Surgient VCS Server

Installation of the Surgient VCS components requires that both Microsoft IIS 6. x x and .NET Framework 2.0 be installed on the VCS host computer before installing the VCS and Management Console. Be aware that IIS must be installed before .NET Framework on the VCS machine. See the troubleshooting topic “.NET Framework Installed Before Microsoft IIS” on page 134 if IIS was not installed first.

Surgient Components General requirements for VCS, the Surgient applications, and related components

System Requirements Requirements Physical or virtual server with the following specifications:  English version of one of the following operating systems:  Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, (Standard, Enterprise, Web, x64)  Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 (Standard, (Standard, Enterprise, Web)  2 GB RAM  Free disk space:  10 GB free disk space if images are stored on a network attached storage (NAS) device  40 GB free disk space if images are stored on a local disk  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0  Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.x  ASP.NET ASP.NET Application Server installed and enabled Note: IIS must be installed before .NET Framework.

Library Host

8

System Library

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0  400 GB free disk space (The amount of required disk space depends on the size of the disk images.)  Surgient agent installed. 


Computer Database host

Surgient Components

System Requirements

Surgient database



 

Host Server

(host server for VMs)

Surgient Agent This is the server, running a VMware or Microsoft virtualization product, on which the Surgient application manages the virtual resources. A typical environment consists of multiple host servers whose aggregate capacity is pooled and allocated.

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One of the following databases:  Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP1  Microsoft SQL Server 2005 x64  Microsoft SQL Server Express  Microsoft SQL Server Express x64 Mixed Mode Authentication must be enabled Remote connections using TCP/IP must be enabled

One of the following virtualization products:  VMware ESX 3.0.1, 3.0.2  VMware ESX 3.5 (Standard or Enterprise version)  Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1  4 GB RAM (supports approximately 6 virtual machines with 512 MB RAM each)  10 GB free disk space (library provisioning) or 40 GB (dedicated cache location)  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0  Surgient agent installed 


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Computer Guest VM

(If your VM image does not contain a Surgient Guest Agent, these requirements are not applicable.)

Surgient Components Surgient Guest Agent These are the requirements of the guest VM in order for the Surgient Guest Agent to function properly.

System Requirements 

One of the following 32-bit operating systems:  Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows Vista Business edition or higher  Red Hat Linux 9.0  Red Hat ES 3.0 or 4.0  SUSE 9.0 or 9.1  SUSE ES 9.0

OR One of the following 64-bit operating systems:  Windows XP 64 or Windows Server 2003 R2 x64  Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 4.0  SUSE Enterprise Linux 10.0  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (Windows agents only) 

Note: VMs created from an image prepped with the

Surgient Image Prep process include a Surgient Guest Agent. Client computer

none

(Application users)

This is the computer used by IT operations and lab management personnel to administer the application and by end-users to request and access lab environments

English version of one of the following operating systems:  Microsoft Windows Server 2003  Microsoft Windows 2000  Microsoft Windows XP  Red Hat Linux 9.0  Novell SUSE Linux 9.0, 9.1  MAC OS X with Firefox browser; remote access methods supported are Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP (must use Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2.0 (Beta 2)).  One of the following web browsers:  Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 / 7.0 with cookies enabled (only 32-bit version of IE  Mozilla Firefox 1.5 / 2.0 with cookies enabled 

Note: Web browser must be configured for either:  

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Microsoft ActiveX controls Sun Java Plugin JRE 1.4.2_06 - 1.6 (version 1.5 for Mozilla Firefox for Linux)


Additional Considerations

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Depending on the configuration of your network and the needs of your customers, the following variables can also affect how you set u p a Surgient environment: 

Whether you anticipate any remote access requirements

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Whether you intend to implement a file-cache system to help maximize network efficiency

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Whether you intend to use a VMFS volume on a SAN (storage area network) for a Surgient library location.

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Whether you have any address translation needs

The following sections examine these variables in more detail and provide the information necessary for you to address any potential challenges.

Remote Access To address your potential remote access needs, Surgient provides the following solutions: 

Universal remote access (URA) – Enables communication from a remote computer to a Surgient VM located behind a firewall.

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Classroom readiness test (CRT) – Measures a network’s bandwidth and latency and compares them with established ranges to determine whether they are appropriate for your classroom needs.

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User readiness test (URT) – Used in conjunction with Surgient VDMS, VTMS, and VQMS to determine if a remote user ’s computer and the computer’s current location meet the requirements to successfully connect to a Surgient VM.

These solutions are described in greater detail in Chapter 4, “Remote Access,” on page 83. To utilize URA, you must install a URA gateway. Similarly, to take advantage of CRT, you must install a CRT server. Note:

The URA gateway and CRT server must not be installed on the same machine.


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For more information about the system requirements for the URA gateway and CRT server along with the requirements for the other servers used in a Surgient solution, see “System Requirements” on page 7.

Image Provisioning and File Cache Locations Images in Microsoft Virtual Server (MSVS) environments are, by default, provisioned to destination VMs directly from the system library. VMware ESX hosts can also access images directly from a system library when the system library server supports both NFS and CIFS access protocols (see “Using NFS Servers” on page 121) or the images are stored on a SAN (storage area network). For more information, see “Using a VMFS-based (SAN) Library Location” on page 118. For image provisioning from a system library to be successful, the following conditions must be met: 

All MSVS host servers and system libraries must reside within the same Windows domain.

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The agent that manages an MSVS host servers or system libraries cannot run as Local System account. Instead, it must run as a domain user in the machine’s Administrators group.

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ESX hosts that use a library location on a SAN VMFS volume must be configured before installing Surgient. See “Configuring the ESX Host and SAN Server” on page 120.

When a virtual lab is deployed under these conditions, the VM uses images that remain in the system library location. Files are not copied to the VM host server, which reduces the time required to deploy virtual labs. Situations exist, however, when provisioning from the system library is not optimal or possible. For instance, a very large number of VMs with h eavy usage can cause excessive load on the library server. For these situations, Surgient uses file caches and file cache locations . A file cache location describes any physical location on a server to which an image and its related files are copied. If your environment requires a large number of simultaneously accessible VMs, file cache locations provide load balancing across multiple servers.

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Whenever an application configuration is deployed, any file that is part of the server configuration, including the .vhd, .dsk, .vmdk, and .iso files, is copied to a file cache location and attached to the appropriate VM or VMs. Upon termination of the application configuration session, the image and all of its related files remain in the file cache location, where they can be attached to other VMs during future deployments. Surgient supports the following types of file cache locations: 

Dedicated file cache locations are created on each VM host server. Dedicated file cache locations are supported by MSVS and VMware ESX. (Legacy images that were created on an ESX 2. x server are always copied to a dedicated file cache.)

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Shared file cache locations are accessible by all the VM host servers in a specified resource pool. For VMware ESX, the shared cache locations can either use NFS and CIFS access protocols (see “Using NFS Servers” on page 121) or be on a SAN VMFS volume (see the Management Console online Help topic “Adding a Shared File Cache Location”).

With shared file cache locations, you have the option of setting up cache locations that are all managed by an existing Surgient agent on another server. Regardless of whether your shared cache locations are remote or local, the MSVS host servers and system libraries must reside within the same Windows domain, and the managing agent must run as a do main user in the Administrators group. When planning the optimal solution for your network configuration, it is important to remember the following points:  

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Each VM must have direct read/write access to a file cache location. A single physical host server can support multiple file cache locations, provided the locations exist on different volumes. The size of a shared file cache location is configurable. If you do not specify a size, the entire disk is used.

File cache locations can be set up on servers that are managed by Surgient agents or on remote servers accessible by a managed server. If you define more than one shared cache location, the system determines which location to use during a deployment by identifying the following criteria: 

The images and related files that are cached in each location


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1




The number of VMs that require the image

If the required image exists in a cache location that is not currently at maximum capacity, then that cache location is used. If the image resides in a cache location that is attached to more than the Surgient-approved number of VMs, the next available cache is used. When a file cache location reaches full capacity, the least recently used images and files are purged automatically. Cached files that are connected to a VM are considered active and cannot be purged. The online help provides detailed instructions for creating file cache locations.

Address Translation and Virtual Networking The repeated cloning of a small number of VMs provides a fast, efficient method by which to create a large pool of identical VMs. In a Surgient environment, many of the VMs that represent or comprise viable application configurations are clones of one or more original VMs. Unfortunately, cloned VMs share the following identifiers with the original VM as well as with each other:

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Machine name – Duplicate machine names cause conflicts with network shares. For example, an OS like Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 disables a clone’s network connection when it detects a duplicate machine name. Changing the machine name of each VM is a timeconsuming effort that requires a restart of each VM. Additionally, changing a machine name can break licensing codes, configuration files, registry entries, and certificates.

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Security identifier (SID) – Redundant SIDs generate authentication issues. Although SIDs can be changed, the process is a time-consuming effort that requires a system restart for each VM. Further, changing a VM’s SID can result in software problems that affect licensing codes, Windows authentication, Windows Shares, and IIS Services.



Static IP address – The duplication of IP addresses, each of which must be unique to every VM on a network, renders the original VM and all of its clones incapable of communicating over the same network. Although an administrator can change the IP address of each VM, this change can also disrupt Web services, databases, special protocol drivers, firewall


rules, tuned applications, and other servers that still use the previous IP address. The Surgient environment solves the problem of duplicate IP addresses by utilizing a network abstraction and isolation layer (NAIL). NAIL is installed automatically when the Surgient agent is installed. The appropriate IP addresses and MAC addresses are configured by way of the Surgient Management Console. As shown in Figure 2, NAIL uses network address translation (NAT) to provide a unique IP address for each VM on a network.

Figure 2 – Cloned VMs with Unique External IP Addresses

Network Communication Review the following section for information about the various types of network resources that you will need to create. Additionally, see the matrix of ports on page page 17 for a list of port numbers that Surgient requires for communication between the VCS and other components.

Network Requirements You will need to define network resources for the application configurations that you want to deploy. The appropriate IP addresses, MAC addresses, and VLAN IDs are defined using the Surgient Management Console.


15

1


Resource MAC Address Ranges

IP Address Ranges

Description

Requirements

This is the most widely used of the network resources because every VM NIC (network interface card) will consume an ethernet MAC address while the VM is deployed, regardless of how the interface is configured within the VM guest operating system, and regardless of whether multiple clones of the VM are simultaneously deployed.



NAIL uses IP address resources to prevent conflicts and provide a unique IP address for each VM whose network interfaces are configured with static IP addresses within the VM guest operating systems

These IP addresses cannot overlap with addresses assigned by any DHCP server. Plan to dedicate one additional IP address per VM host, plus one for each VM per test configuration that will be configured for NAIL cloning, up to the maximum number of concurrent VMs across all VM hosts. The size and values of this range can be changed at any time.

Values should fall within the VMware Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) range of 00:50:56:00:00:0000:50:56:3F:FF:FF.  The size and values of this range can be changed at any time.  Plan to use at least one MAC address for each VM per test configuration, up to the maximum number of concurrent VMs across all VM hosts.

Note: Consult your network administrator to determine a range of IP addresses valid for your local network that can be dedicated to your Surgient installation. VLAN ID Ranges

NAIL also uses a virtual LAN (VLAN) for VMs that require grouping, as is the case when multiple server configurations comprise a single application configuration. NAIL Server uses IEEE 802.1q VLANs to isolate application configurations from one another and prevent duplicate host name or IP address errors while simultaneously deploying clones of VMs.

You must use IDs within the range of 2 4095, inclusive.  If you are implementing NAIL Server in the advanced mode, you should work with your network administrator to select the appropriate network adapters, switches, and VLAN IDs that are compatible with your physical network environment.  As a general guideline, plan for 1-2 VLAN IDs per concurrent test configuration, depending on the complexity of the test configuration. The VLAN ID range selected should be dedicated for use by the Surgient product. 

Surgient recommends that you verify the accuracy of all IP address, MAC address, and VLAN ID ranges that you enter. A small error when entering a range of addresses can result in the creation of thousands of unwanted address records in the Surgient database. 16


Ports Used by Surgient

1

The following table lists the ports or port ranges required by Surgient. Note:

From VCS

All ports are TCP unless otherwise specified. Ping is open in some cases to facilitate connectivity testing, not for VCS communications. This matrix does not account for Windows networking ports.

To VCS

To DBs

To App

To Lib

To Hosts

To VMs

To URA GW

To Syslog

To LDAP

29972999

1433

29972999 1024-

4277

4277

4277

None

UDP 514

389

ICMP Ping

4999 >32767 ICMP Ping

From DBs

None

N/A

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

From App

2997-

1433

N/A

4277

4277

None

None

UDP 514

389

2999 80/ 443 ICMP Ping

From Lib

80/443

None

80/443

N/A

10244999 >32767

None

None

None

None

From Hosts

80/443

None

80/443

10244999 >32767

N/A

None

None

UDP 514

None

From VMs

80/443

None

None

None

None

N/A

None

None

None

From URA

None

None

None

None

5900 902

3389 5900 1494

N/A

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

N/A

None

GW From Syslog


17


From LDAP

To VCS

To DBs

To App

To Lib

To Hosts

To VMs

To URA GW

To Syslog

To LDAP

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

None

N/A

Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service Each physical computer that will be used to host the VMs that run the labs, or test configurations, must have a Surgient agent installed. On an agent host that runs Windows as the operating system, the agent runs as a service, displayed in the Services panel as Surgient Agent. Warning:

If the host on which you install the agent uses Microsoft Virtual Server, you must configure a user name and password. Do not run the Agent service as a Local System service, or deployments of labs might fail.

Considerations Review the following considerations when determining which account to use for the Agent service:

18



If the computer on which you install the agent is a member of a domain, the user name and password should be for a domain account.



For computers that are not in a domain, the same Windows user account must exist with the same password on every server/host where you install the Windows agent



Every Windows agent service must be configured to run under the same account.



The account must have read/write access to the System Library location.



The account must be a member of the local Administrators group (not necessarily Domain Administrators). A Domain User that is in the local Administrators group is preferred. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide



The password rules for the account must be configured to never expire. 1

Pre-installation Checklists This section contains a checklist that correspond to the example installation scenario. Before proceeding to the next chapter and installing the Surgient components on your network, it is recommended that you complete the checklist. Performing the tasks that are listed in the checklist will ensure that your network is functional and will help you determine the information that is needed during the installation process. A complementary pre-install worksheet is provided in Appendix A, “PreInstall Worksheet,” on page 137. To speed up the installation process, record the specified information in the appropriate worksheet and keep it nearby.

Installation Checklist Before attempting an intermediate installation, perform the following steps: ____

1. Identify the four or more servers that will be used in the Surgient environment, as follows. ___ VCS server ___ Library server ___ Host server ___ SQL Server database server Make certain the servers meet the specifications listed in “System Requirements” on page 7.

____

2. Add the VCS server to your network.

____

3. Verify that the VCS server has basic network connectivity by pinging your network gateway.

____

4. Record the DNS name and the IP address of the VCS server in lines 1 and 2 of the worksheet on page 137.

____

5. Add the library server to your network.


19


20

____

6. Verify that the library server has basic network connectivity by pinging the VCS server.

____

7. Verify that the VCS server can ping the library server.

____

8. Add the machine that will become the first VM host server to your network.

____

9. Verify that the host server has basic network connectivity by pinging the VCS server.

____

10. Verify that the VCS server can ping the host server.

____

11. Repeat steps 8 – 10 for each host server you add to your network.

____

12. Add the SQL server to your network.

____

13. Verify that the SQL server has basic network connectivity by pinging the VCS server.

____

14. Verify that the VCS server can ping the SQL server.

____

15. Record the following database information in the pre-install worksheet: 

Line 3 – Unique name of the operational database that will be created automatically during installation.



Line 4 – DNS name of the operational database server.



Line 5 – Installation account ID used to install the Surgient database. In some organizations, this might be the sa account.



Line 6 – Installation account password.



Line 7 – Unique name of the reporting database that will be created automatically during installation.



Line 8 – DNS name of the reporting database server, if different from the one used for the operational database.



Line 9 – Installation account ID used to install the Surgient database, if different from the one used for the operational database. In some organizations, this might be the sa account.



Line 10 – Installation account password, if different from the one used for the operational database.


____

16. In line 11 of the pre-install worksheet, record the password that you want to assign to the platform administrator account.

1

____

17. In line 12, record the DNS name of the SMTP e-mail server through which the Surgient VCS will send e-mail notifications.

____

18. In line 13, record the e-mail address that will receive notifications when an error occurs.

____

19. If your environment will be employing a universal remote access (URA) gateway, record the DNS name and IP address in lines 14 and 15, respectively. For more information on the URA gateway, see “Universal Remote Access” on page 84.

____

20. Determine and record in lines 16 and 17 the IP addresses and MAC addresses, respectively, to be used during address translation. For more information on how these addresses are used, see “Address Translation and Virtual Networking” on page 14.

____

21. If your environment will be using the Surgient classroom readiness test (CRT), record the DNS name and IP address in lines 18 and 19, respectively. For more information on CRT, see “Classroom Readiness Test” on page 93. Directions for completing the installation are listed in Chapter 2, “Product Installation.”


21


22


Product Installation

2

This chapter provides instructions for installing the Surgient VQMS product. 

“Installing the VCS and Management Console” on page 25



“Installing the Management Console on a Separate Server” on page 37



“Installing Surgient Applications” on page 43



“Installing Surgient Agents” on page 49



“Installing the VQMS CLI Server” on page 59



“Next Steps and Getting Started” on page 63


23

After using the information and checklists in the previous chapter to define and set up your network, you can begin installing the following Surgient products or components: 

Virtualization Control Server (VCS) and the Management Console ( page 25)



Virtual Demo Management System (VDMS), Virtual QA/Test Management Server (VQMS), and Virtual Training Management Server (VTMS) applications ( page 43)



Library and Host agents ( page 49)



VQMS CLI server ( page 59; optionally installed separately)

Once you have completed the installation, refer to Chapter 3, “Verifying the Installation,” on page 65. By default, the Surgient software is installed in c:\Program Files\ Surgient. You can choose a different destination directory during the install process. VCS log files are written to the \logs subdirectory in the destination directory.

Installation Scenario The following steps provide an overview of setting up your Surgient environment: 1. Install the Surgient VCS and Management Console on the VCS server. For more information, see “Installing the VCS and Management Console” on page 25. Note:

Depending upon your installation scenario, review the following topics: “Installing the Management Console on a Separate Server” on page 37 and “Installing the VCS on Multiple Servers” on page 139

2. Install the appropriate Surgient application. For more information, see “Installing Surgient Applications” on page 43. 3. Install a Surgient agent on the library server.

24


For more information, see “Installing Surgient Agents” on page 49. 2

P r o d u c t I n s t a l l a t i o n

4. Install an agent on the VM host server or servers. For more information, see “Installing Surgient Agents” on page 49. An example installation is depicted by Figure 3.

Figure 3 – Example Installation Scenario

Installing the VCS and Management Console To install the VCS components and the Management Console on a single machine, perform the following steps: Note:

In some situations, you might want to also install the Management Console on a separate computer, one that is more accessible to end users than the VCS Server might be. For more information, see “Installing the Management Console on a Separate Server” on page 37. Additionally, if you want to distribute the VCS components across multiple computers, review “Installing the VCS on Multiple Servers” on page 139.

1. From the Surgient CD, double-click SurgientVCS.exe to launch the Install Surgient VCS Wizard.


25

Note:

If an Open File – Security Warning message appears, click Run.

2. Click Next to view the License Agreement page.

26


2


3. Read the end user license agreement (EULA). To print a copy of the agreement, click Print. 4. Click I accept the terms of the license agreement . 5. Click Next to view the Installation Type page.


27

6. Click Express. 7. Click Next to view the Components To Install page.

28


8. Click Next to view the Destination Folder page. 2


9. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse. 10. Click Next to view the Operational Database page.


29

The operational database stores information associated with real-time processes and functions. 11. Specify the the following information for the operational database: 

A unique name for the database, which is recorded in line 3 of the pre-install worksheet.



The DNS name of the server that will act as the database server. This name is recorded in line 4 of the pre-install worksheet. To To select a server from a list of available servers, click Browse.



The authentication method to use while connecting to the database. 



To use SQL Server authentication, specify a logon ID and password. If you choose to use SQL Server authentication, the account and password information are recorded on lines 5 and 6 of the pre-install worksheet. To use Windows authentication, check Use Windows authentication.

12. 12. Click lick Next to view the Reporting Database page, which is automatically populated with values derived from the information specified on the Operational Database page. 30


2


The reporting database captures historical information to be used when generating reports. 13. Specify Specify the following following information information for the reporting reporting database: database: 

A unique name for the database, d atabase, which is recorded in line 7 of the pre-install worksheet.



The DNS name of the server that will act as the database server. This name is recorded in line 8 of the pre-install worksheet. To To select a server from a list of available servers, click Browse.







14. 14. Clic Click k Next to view the Platform Administrator Password page.


31

15. Type a password for the the platform administrator. administrator. This password is recorded in line 11 of the pre-install worksheet. 16. Confirm Confirm the password password by retyping retyping it. 17. 17. Click lick Next to view the Surgient VCS E-Mail Settings page.

32


2


The information specified on this page defines who will receive the appropriate e-mail message when an error occurs. 18. Specify Specify the followi following ng informati information: on: 

The DNS name of the mail server, such as mail.mycompany.com . This name is recorded in line 12 of the pre-install worksheet.



The e-mail address to which messages will be sent. This address is recorded in line 13 of the pre-install worksheet.

19. 19. Clic Click k Next to view the URA Gateway Information page.


33

20. Optional: If you are installing the Surgient VCS behind a firewall and want to enable browser access from outside the firewall, specify the host name or IP address of the Surgient universal remote access (URA) gateway. You might have recorded this information in lines 14 and 15 of the preinstall worksheet. If you do not know kno w this information at this time, however, you can specify it later by using the Management Console advanced configuration settings. For more information on the URA gateway, see “Universal Remote Access” on page 84. 84. 21. 21. Click lick Next to view the Verification page.

34


2


22. Verify that the appropriate components will be installed according according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 23. 23. Clic Click k Next to install the Surgient VCS. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.


35

24. Click Finish to quit the Install Surgient VCS Wizard.

36


Installing the Management Console on a Separate Server

2

The Surgient Management Console serves as the administrator’s interface to the Surgient platform. By default, the Management Console is installed directly on the VCS server, as part of the VCS Server installation. If your environment is such that the Management Console users do not easily have access to the VCS server, then you should install the Management Console on a separate server. To install the Surgient Management Console, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click SurgientVCS.exe to launch the Install Surgient VCS Wizard.

Note:


2. Click Next to view the Installation Type page.


37


3. Click Custom. 4. Click Next to view the Components To Install page.

38


The amount of disk space required for the installation and the amount of space available on the currently selected disk are both shown. To view the amount of space available on your other disks or to specify a different disk for the installation, click Disk Space. 5. Ensure that Management Console is the only selected check box. 6. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse. 7. Click Next to view the System Information page.

8. Specify the following information: 

The name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the Surgient VCS. If you have distributed the VCS across multiple servers, specify the name or IP address of the one on which the core services have been installed. These values are recorded on lines 1 and 2 of the pre-install worksheet. If you are installing the Management Console on the same computer as the Surgient VCS, type the name or IP address of the current computer.


39

2




The platform administrator password that was specified during the VCS installation. This password is recorded on line 11 of the preinstall worksheet.

9. Click Next to view the URA Gateway Information page.

10. Optional: If you are installing the Management Console in an environment that utilizes a firewall, specify the host name or IP address of the Surgient universal remote access (URA) gateway. This information is recorded on lines 14 and 15 of the pre-install worksheet. For more information on the URA gateway, see the Surgient Platform Operations Manual . 11. Click Next to view the Verification page.

40


2


12. Verify that the Management Console will be installed according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 13. Click Next to install the Management Console. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.


41


42


Installing Surgient Applications

2

Surgient applications (VQMS, VTMS, or VDMS) can be installed directly on the VCS server, or you can install an application on a separate application server. Follow the directions below for either case. To install a Surgient application, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click the file that corresponds to the application you want to install, as follows: 

To launch the Install Surgient VDMS Wizard, click VDMS.EXE.



To launch the Install Surgient VQMS Wizard, click VQMS.EXE.



VTMS.EXE. To launch the Install Surgient VTMS Wizard, click

Note:


The Welcome page opens.


43


Note:

The steps described in this section are applicable to all three Surgient applications. However, the accompanying figures represent the pages that are used during a Surgient VQMS installation.

2. Click Next to view the System Information page.


The name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the Surgient VCS. If you have distributed the VCS across multiple servers, specify the name or IP address of the one on which the core services have been installed. These values are recorded on lines 1 and 2 of the pre-install worksheet. If you are installing the application on the same computer as the Surgient VCS, type the name or IP address of the current computer.



The password for the platform administrator. This password is recorded on line 11 of the pre-install worksheet.

4. Click Next to view the Choose Destination Location page.

44


2


5. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\ (where is VDMS , VQMS, or VTMS , depending on which application you are installing), click Browse. If you are installing Surgient VTMS, go to step 6. If you are installing VDMS or VQMS, go to step 8. 6. Click Next to view the CRT Server Information page.


45

7. Optional: If you are installing VTMS in an environment that utilizes the Surgient classroom readiness test (CRT), specify the host name or IP address of the CRT server. These values are recorded on lines 18 and 19 of the pre-install worksheet. For more information on Surgient CRT, see “Classroom Readiness Test” on page 93. 8. Click Next to view the Start Copying Files page.

46


2


9. Verify that the application will be installed according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 10. Click Next to install the application. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.


47

11. Click Finish to quit the InstallShield Wizard.

48


Installing Surgient Agents

2

Agents must be installed on the following servers before setting them up for their intended use: 

Surgient-managed host servers (where the VMs are deployed)



Servers that manage the system library (Windows or ESX Server)



Servers that manage any file cache locations (Windows or ESX Server)

Surgient provides an ESX host agent for host servers that utilize VMware ESX 3.0.1, 3.0.2, or 3.5. Surgient also provides a Windows agent for the Windows 2000 and Windows 2003. When you install an agent, one or more modules are installed along with the core agent service. Which modules are installed is determined by the OS of the machine and whether the machine is a physical host. Do not change these selections without first contacting Surgient support. The following table lists the available Windows agent modules and the capabilities they provide:

Agent Module

Capabilities

Command line

Provides the ability to run various system commands.

File management

Provides the ability to manage files.

User management

Provides the ability to manage user accounts.

Performance monitor

Collects data from Microsoft’s WinPerf Monitor.

Microsoft Virtual Server

Provides the Windows commands needed to manage virtual resources.

Session state monitor

Allows consultants to instrument a customer's application for progress indication.

Table 1 – Windows Agent Module Types and Capabilities

The following sections describe how to install the Windows and ESX host agents.


49


Installing the Windows Agent To install the Windows agent, perform the following steps. Note:

Before installing the Agent, review “Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service” on page 18 for important information about selecting an account for the agent service to run as.

1. From the directory containing the distribution files, double-click WindowsAgent.exe to launch the Install Surgient Agent Wizard .

Note:

50

If a File Download message appears, click Open.


2. Click Next to view the Library Configuration page. 2


The Surgient library requires an Agent to manage the use of the library images and files, as well as to facilitate communication between the VCS, the application, and any client computers. The agent(s) that manage a library can be on a Windows host or an ESX Server host; typically a single agent is selected to manage the library location(s) for an environment. Select No to indicate if this agent will be not be used to manage a Surgient library. Select Yes to indicate if this agent will be used to manage a Surgient library. If you select Yes, provide the following information: 

Location to create the library : enter the path to connect to the server that will serve as the library location host.

Note:

The library location must be on a server to which all host servers that will use images from the library have access. For information about placing the library location on an NFS (network file system) server, see “Using NFS Servers” on page 121.


51



Location of the Images directory : this directory was created automatically during the VCS installation, and by default is located on >/Images. the VCS host in
3. Click Next to view the Agent Configuration page.

4. For the Agent Message Forwarder, specify the name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the VCS.

52


5. Click Next to view the Setup Type page. 2


6. Select Complete (Recommended) . 7. Enter the directory path in which you would like to install the Agent. To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\ Program Files\Surgient\Agent , click Browse.


53

8. Click Next to view the Service Configuration page.

9. Type a user name and password of a domain account under which the agent will run as a Windows service to communicate with the system library or file cache locations. See “Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service” on page 18 for important information about selecting an account for the agent service to run as. Agents that remotely manage the system library or file cache locations, such as NFS export volumes, must run as an account with administrator privileges and have Read/Write access. If you do not provide a user name and password here, the Agent will run as the Local System service. Warning:

54

If the host on which you install the agent uses Microsoft Virtual Server, you must configure a user name and password. Do not run the Agent service as the Local System account because this could result in deployment failures.


Note:

Agents installed on VM host servers must run as an account with administrator privileges and have Read/Write access to the remote file locations. Agents that remotely manage the system library or file cache locations, such as NFS export volumes, must run as an account with administrator privileges and have Read/Write access.

10. Click Next to begin the installation. The Setup Status page appears.


55

2


11. When the wizard finishes installing the Surgient agent, the Complete page opens.

12. Click Finish to conclude the Install Surgient Agent Wizard. Note:

56

After installing the Windows Agent, the computer must be rebooted if either of the following is true: -- The computer has one or more Intel PRO/1000 adapters. -- The computer will be used for deployments in "Advanced" server mode. The computer must be rebooted because the Windows Agent installation program adds two registry settings that affect the Intel network adapters.


Installing the ESX Host Agent

2


To install, start, and configure the ESX host agent, perform the following steps: 1. Log on to the target system as root. 2. Copy the file named esx-agent-5.4.0-xxx.i386.rpm from the Surgient CD or distribution file to a temporary location. 3. Navigate to the directory where the .rpm file is and enter the following command to install the agent: rpm -i esx3-agent-5.4.0-xxx.i386.rpm

where xxx is the build number associated with the agent that you want to install, such as 861. 4. Review the notice about firewall configuration and the port numbers that were opened for use by the Surgient agent. 5. Enter the following command to start and configure the agent: /etc/init.d/surgientagent start

6. Review the directory where the log files will be stored. By default, this is: /var/log/surgient/agent.log

7. Chose whether or not this ESX Host agent will manage any libraries. Type Y to indicate that this agent will act as a library agent. Type N to indicate that this agent will not act as a library agent. Note:

The Surgient library requires an Agent to manage the use of the library images and files, as well as to facilitate communication

between the VCS, the application, and any client computers. The agent(s) that manage a library can be on a Windows host or an ESX Server host; typically a single agent is selected to manage the library location(s) for an environment.


57

If you select Yes, provide the following information: 

Location to create the library : enter the path to connect to the server and directory that will serve as the library location. This is where images for your environment will be stored.

Note:



The library location must be on a server to which all host servers that will use images from the library have access. Options to consider include placing the library location on a SAN (storage area network) or placing the library location on an NFS (network file system) server. See Chapter 1 “Before You Start” for additional information.

Location of the Images directory : the Images directory is located on Surgient media, and contains images and files that are necessary for the configuration of the Surgient environment. When you enter the location of the Images directory, the agent installation program copies the required files into the library location that you defined in the previous step.

Note:

If you enter a path for the Images directory, but then see the prompt Required Surgient images were not found at dir/ subdir , this indicates that the required Surgient-supplied images are not in the location you entered for the Images directory. If the

Surgient media files are not local, you can use the UNIX mount command to mount a remote NFS volume or a remote UNC (Samba) shared directory containing the Surgient-supplied images. 8. Select the volume on the VM host computer where the VMs used in your environment will be created. Type 1 and press Enter to accept the default as shown. 9. Enter the URL of the mailbox server, using the IP Address of the computer where you installed VQMS (i.e. http://10.5.11.40/ingress/ mailbox.aspx). To uninstall the agent from an ESX host server, enter the following command: rpm -ev esx3-agent

where xxx is the build number associated with the agent that you want to uninstall, such as 861.

58


Installing the VQMS CLI Server

2

The Surgient VQMS CLI server is an optional component that allows VQMS users to issue commands and run scripts by way of a CLI environment, provided they are also using the appropriate command-line client. The CLI Server is installed by default with the VQMS server. However, certain environments might necessitate installing the CLI Server on a separate computer. To install the Surgient VQMS CLI server, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click SurgientVCS.exe to launch the Install Surgient VCS Wizard.

Note:


2. Click Next to view the Installation Type page.


59



60


The amount of disk space required for the installation and the amount of space available on the currently selected disk are both shown. To view the amount of space available on your other disks or to specify a different disk for the installation, click Disk Space. 5. Ensure that VQMS CLI Server is the only selected check box. 6. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse. 7. Click Next to view the System Information page.


The name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the Surgient VCS. If you have distributed the VCS across multiple servers, specify the one on which the core services have been installed. These values are recorded on lines 1 and 2 of the pre-install worksheet. If you are installing the VQMS CLI server on the same computer as the VCS, type the name or IP address of the current computer.



The password for the platform administrator. This value is recorded in line 11 of the pre-install worksheet.


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2


9. Click Next to view the Verification page.

10. Verify that the VQMS CLI server will be installed according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 11. Click Next to install the VQMS CLI server. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.

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2



Next Steps and Getting Started Now that you have successfully installed Surgient, identified the Library Location, installed and started the Host Agent(s), you are ready to log on to the Management Console and deploy a sample application configuration. See Chapter 3, “Verifying the Installation,” on page 65 for information about using a sample image to create and deploy an application configura-

tion. Note:

Before proceeding to Chapter 3 “Verifying the Installation” and verifying your installation, review both Chapter 4, “Remote Access,” on page 83 for information about remote access and enabling communication from a remote computer to a Surgient VM behind a firewall, and Chapter 5, “Advanced Installation and Administration,” on page 107.


63

64


Verifying the Installation

3

To verify that the installation was successful and to get you started with Surgient, this chapter addresses the following topics: 

“Quick Start Using the Surgient Sample Image” on page 66



“Workflow Summary” on page 67



“Copy the Sample Image into the Library Location” on page 67



“Launch the Surgient Management Console” on page 68



“Add a Library Location” on page 69



“Create Network Resources and Add to Default Resource Pool” on page 70



“Assign the Host to the Default Pool” on page 74



“Creating a Server Configuration” on page 76



“Creating an Application Configuration” on page 78



“Deploying a Sample Configuration” on page 79



“Connecting to the Deployed Configuration” on page 80



“Launching the Application” on page 80


65

Quick Start Using the Surgient Sample Image The instructions in this chapter are streamlined for deploying the sample image included in the installation media, as a way to both test your installation and to help you become familiar with the basic work flow. Refer to “Workflow Summary” on page 67 for an over view of each of the tasks. More detailed instructions about each of the tasks in this chapter is documented in the Management Console online Help. After completing the tasks in this chapter using the Surgient sample image, and when you are ready to build and deploy your full environment, it is important to refer to the complete instructions in the Management Console online Help. To access the online Help, open the Management Console and click Help on the upper right of the graphical user interface.

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Workflow Summary

3

The following steps are required to configure the environment in preparation for deploying the sample application configuration: 

Copy Surgient sample image files into the Templates directory in the library location that was defined during the Agent installation process. (See “Installing Surgient Agents” on page 49 for more information.)



Launch the Management Console and complete the following tasks: 

Add the library location, specifying the same server and location that you defined during the Agent installation process.



Create and add new network resources (at minimum, an IP address and a MAC address) to the default pool



Assign the new host (on which you installed the Agent) to the default pool



Create a server configuration



Create an application configuration



Deploy the application configuration and access the remote desktop session

Copy the Sample Image into the Library Location To add the sample image to your system library location, perform the following steps: 1. Log on to the computer on which the Surgient Agent that will act as the library agent is installed. 2. Navigate to the directory that was defined as the library location during the Agent installation. (See “Installing Surgient Agents” on page 49 for more information.) 3. Copy the sample image files (SurgientImageSample.iso, and either SurgientImageSample.vhd for a MSVS host or


67

V e r i f y i n g t h e I n s t a l l a t i o n

SurgientImageSample.vmdk for a VMware EX host) from the Surgient media into the Templates subdirectory of the library location.

Launch the Surgient Management Console After you install Surgient, begin the setup process by logging on to the Surgient Management Console Note:

Verify the Agent you installed on the VM host server is running. To do so in a Windows environment, view the Services panel to confirm that the Surgient Guest Agent is started. In an ESX environment, use the ps -ef command and locate an entry for surgientagent. To start the Agent on ESX, use the command /etc/init.d/ surgientagent start .

To access the Surgient Management Console in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, type the following URL in the web browser address bar: http:///console

where is the name or IP address of the server on which you installed the Management Console in “Product Installation” on page 23.” When the Log On panel opens, enter the user name (by default the user name is admin) and the platform administrator password that you created during the installation process. Note:

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Before clicking Log On to open the Management Console for the first time, see the “Testing Your Web Browser” on page 69.


3


Figure 4 – Log On Panel

Testing Your Web Browser Before logging on to the Management Console, Surgient recommends that you test your web browser. To do so, click the See if your browser is ready link on the Log On panel. The Surgient Web Browser and Connectivity Test launches and runs several tests. As each of the tests are completed, a message displays with the success or failure status. If all tests are successful, close the Test browser window and return to the Lon on panel for the Management Console. If any test failed, review the diagnostic information and make the required fixes.

Add a Library Location To add a new library location, perform the following steps: 1. Launch the Management Console. 2. Click the Library tab to open the Library Management view. 3. In the View pane, click Library Locations. 4. Click the green cross ( box.

) to open the Add a Library Location dialog

5. Select the server and volume for the library location from the table. If the volume that you want to use does not appear in the table, and it has a UNC path, use the Add Remote Volume area below the table to select Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

69

the Server, enter the UNC Path, and press Add. A new entry is added to the volume table at the top of the dialog box. Note:

The UNC path must be shared by a computer that belongs to the same Windows domain as the account that the Surgient Library Agent is running as. Additionally, if the library images from that share will be used on a MSVS host, then that host must also belong to the same Windows domain as the host server.

6. In the Step 2 section, in the Directory field, type the name of the directory, such as Library, that will be used for the library location. Do not type the drive letter in the Directory field. Note:

The directory that you enter must already exist and must contain the required Surgient sample image files in a sub-directory named Templates. See “Copy the Sample Image into the Library Location” on page 67.

7. (ESX 3.x) In the NFS Export Path field, type the NFS path to the directory if your environment includes VMware ESX 3. x and the library location is exported using NFS. For example: MyServer:/data/Library 8. Click OK .

Create Network Resources and Add to Default Resource Pool To deploy the sample application configuration, you must first create any required network resources, and add them to the resource pool that will be used by the deployed VM. Network resources are used by Surgient to allocate unique network addresses to each VM, thus preventing network conflicts. Network Resources include:

70



IP Addresses



MAC Addresses




VLAN IDs (for the purpose of deploying an application configuration that is based on the Surgient sample image, you will not need to create a VLAN ID.)

When you create the network resources, you identify ranges for each. If you used the pre-installation worksheet on page 137, refer to lines 16 and 17 of the worksheet for this information. Note:

Contact your System Administrator to reserve a block of IP addresses, MAC addresses, and VLAN IDs for use by Surgient. These network resources must be unique to the Surgient environment in order to avoid conflicts with physical resources elsewhere in the corporate network. Surgient also recommends that you verify the accuracy of all IP address, MAC address, and VLAN ID ranges that you enter. A small error when entering a range of addresses can result in the creation of thousands of unwanted address records in the Surgient database. For more detailed information, see “Network Requirements” on page 15 and refer to the Management Console online Help.

Follow these steps to create and add new network resources. 1. In the Management Console Home page, click the Resources tab. 2. In the left pane, click the Pools icon. 3. Select the Default Pool under Pool Names. 4. Scroll down and click the Network Resources tab in the details pane. 5. Click the Create a New Network Resource icon (


).

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3


The New Network Resource Wizard appears.

6. Select IP Address Range and click Next. 7. Follow the steps in the wizard to create the IP Address range, and click Finish to create the network resource 8. The Management Console displays the list of network resources; verify that the new resource you just added is at bottom of list. 9. In the left pane, click the Pools icon. 10. Repeat step 3. through step 9. to create the MAC Address range. Note:

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For the purpose of deploying an application configuration that is based on the Surgient sample image, you will not need to create VLAN IDs, although you might choose to do so now, if you know they will be required later in your environment. For more detailed information, see “Network Requirements” on page 15.


11. When you have added the network resources, view them on the Network Resources tab in the details pane for the default pool.

3


Next, see the following section to add the new host to the default pool.


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Assign the Host to the Default Pool This section provides instructions for adding the host computer the physical computer to the pool. The host computer is the physical computer where the test configurations will run. The host must have a Surgient Host Agent installed on it. Use the following steps to assign the host to a resource pool. 1. In the Management Console, scroll down to the details area for the default pool, click the Hosts tab. 2. Click the Add a Host to this Pool icon (

).

The Assign a Host to Pool dialog box appears.

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3. In the Available Hosts list, select the host by clicking on the row. 3

Note:

If a new VM host on which you have installed the Surgient Agent does not appear in the list, log on to the host and verify that the Agent has been started and is running. To do so in a Windows environment, view the Services panel to confirm that the Surgient Agent is started. In an ESX environment, use the ps -ef command and locate an entry for surgientagent. To start the Agent on ESX, use the command /etc/init.d/surgientagent start .

4. For Pooled RAM, specify the amount of RAM the host will contribute to the resource pool. 5. For Pooled VMs, click Calculate Default to determine the default number of VMs that this host will contribute to the resource pool. Lower this number if necessary. The calculated number is derived by dividing the total pooled RAM for the host by the minimum hardware profile size (256 MB). For example, if the pooled RAM is 3072, and each VM has 256 MB of RAM, then the number of VMs that the host can support is 12. 6. For Default Network , select the virtual network or portgroup associated with the host network adapter that is connected to the LAN for which the pooled IP addresses and default gateway are valid. This virtual network is what the VMs on the host use when communicating with other VMs or the external network. It is very important to select the correct network; if you are unsure which network to select, ask your network administrator to verify the correct network and the network adaptor that is bound to it.The default network setting ensures that VMs bind to the correct network adapter, usually one with external connectivity. Network connectivity to the Management Console server from IP addresses on this LAN is required. If no acceptable candidate virtual network is listed, cancel the “Assign Host to Pool” dialog and return after creating the virtual network or portgroup in the VM hos t management interface. Note:

When adding a VMware ESX 3.0 host to a resource pool, do not select VMkernel nor Service Console as the default virtual network.

7. Trunked Network : select Disconnected.


75


8. For NAIL Server Address, select either Use Pooled IP Address, or if the host computer uses DHCP, select DHCP.

9. Click Add. Warning:

While the host is pooling, the status “Pooling...” will appear in the Status column of the detail area for the default pool. Do not attempt to deploy the sample configuration until the status shows that pooling has completed. This may take several minutes.

Creating a Server Configuration To create a new server configuration using the Surgient sample image, perform the following steps in the Management Console: 1. From the Home page of the Management Console, in the Library section under Server Configurations, click New. The New Server Configuration wizard appears. 2. Step 1: In the Available table, select the SurgientImageSample.iso and either the SurgientImageSample.vhd (to deploy to an Microsoft MSVS host) or SurgientImageSample.vmdk (to deploy to a VMware ESX host). To multi-select, press and hold Ctrl and select the files. Note:

If you have copied the Surgient sample image files into the library location, but they do not appear in the list of files, close the New Server Configuration wizard. Click the Library tab, then click the Images and Files icon in the left pane. Finally, click the Synchronize Library Files View icon ( ). See “Copy the Sample Image into the Library Location” on page 67 if you have not yet copied the image into the library location.

3. Click Add under the Current Selections box. 4. Click Next at the bottom of the page. 5. Step 2: Mount Points

For VMware ESX: 76


a. Specify the mount points. 

For the .iso file, select IDE0:0



For the .vmdk image, select SCSI0:0

3


b. For the Bus type, select Use Default. For MSVS: a. Specify the mount points. 

For the .iso file, select IDE0:0



For the .vhd image, select IDE0:1

b. For the Bus type, select Use Default. 6. Click Next. 7. Step 3: Hardware Profile. Select the default 1 GB hardware profile for the new server configuration. 8. Click Next. 9. Step 4: Network Adapter Configuration . a. Under Ethernet Device 0, select DHCP/Static. b. Select Default for the Network Card Type . 10. Click Next. 11. Step 5: Remote Access Configuration

a.

Deselect the Has Agent check box in the upper right-hand corner, since the sample image that you are using to create the server configuration does not include a Surgient Agent. Be aware that the lack of an Agent will limit your remote access to the native console method. For more information, see the “Agentless Images” topic in the Management Console online Help.

b. In the Types area, select the Console Remote Access check box.

c. In the Authentication area, select Auto-Generate Account . 12. Click Next.


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13. Step 6: Basic Information . Type a name (such as test_server_config) and description for the new server configuration. 14. Click Next. 15. Review the values selected, then click Finish.

Creating an Application Configuration To create a new application configuration, perform the following steps: 1. From the Home page, in the Library section under Application Configurations, click New to open the New Application Configuration wizard. 2. In the Available table, select the server configurations that you want to add and then click Add. To select more than one server configuration, press and hold Ctrl and select the server configurations to be added. 3. Click Next. 4. On Step 2: Network Configuration, review the list of Virtual Networks that are currently defined. a.

To add a new network, enter the name and click Add Virtual Network . To specify that the network is isolated (a private network on a single host server) select the Isolated check box.

b. In the Server Configurations area, click the plus sign by each server configuration to expand the details about the server. c.

For each server configuration, select a Virtual Network from the drop-down list. For more information, see About Virtual Networking.

5. Click Next. 6. On Step 3: Basic Information, type a Name, Duration, and Description for the new application configuration. You might want to name the new application configuration in a way that you can easily tell that it contains the Surgient sample image. 7. Click Next. 78


On Step 4: Summary, review the values and click Finish. 3

Deploying a Sample Configuration Now that you have configured your environment and created an application configuration, the application configuration can be deployed. Use the following steps to deploy an application configuration. 1. From the Home tab of the Management Console, in the Library section under Application Configurations, click View All. 2. In the table listing the application configurations, select the application configuration that you created in the previous steps. 3. Scroll down, and in the details pane for the application configuration, click the Deploy This Configuration icon ( Application Configuration dialog box.

) to open the Deploy

4. Select to start the deployment immediately by selecting Now. 5. Select the Default Pool to use for the deployment. 6. Select Use Default for the deployment method for the image file.This option uses the deployment method supported by the host server, depending on whether the host is MSVS or ESX. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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7. Click Ok . To view deployment details, click the Reservations tab at the top of the page and select the appropriate reservation.

Connecting to the Deployed Configuration After deploying the application configuration, you next want to confirm that you can connect to the deployed test configuration on the remote host. Before connecting, verify that the deployment process has completed fully. To determine when the deployment process is complete, view the Status indicator in the Reservations tab of the Management Console. The status Available indicates that deployment is complete. To access a virtual machine for an active deployment, perform the following steps: 1. From the Home page of the management console, in the Reservations section, click View All. 2. Select the reservation containing the application configuration that you created and deployed in the previous steps and, in the corresponding row, click View. 3. In the individual configuration section, click the Console link. Note:

If you are prompted for an ActiveX control, download the control and install it. For VMware platforms you might need to launch the VMware UI to install the ActiveX control. Refer to the Management Console online Help topic about accessing a remote desktop session.

The remote computer's desktop appears.

Launching the Application To access the application (VQMS , VDMS, or VTMS) in Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, type the following URL in the browser address bar: VQMS: http:///vqms VTMS: http:///vtms 80


VDMS: http:///vdms 3


The server_name is the name or IP address of the server on which you

installed the application. Or, if you are logged on to the computer on which the application was installed, use the Start menu. Start =>Surgient =>V x MS =>V x MS Website. The Log On page opens.

To log on to the application, perform the following steps: 1. For your user name, type admin. 2. Type the platform administrator password that you created during the installation process of the surgient VCS. 3. Click Log On. The Surgient application opens to the Home page.


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Congratulations You have now verified that your installation is successful by creating and deploying a lab configuration using the Surgient sample image. Now you are ready to further build your environment, using your own images and creating additional configurations. Review the following chapters in this book to determine if you need to do further installation or configurations steps: 

Chapter 4, “Remote Access,” on page 83



Chapter 5, “Advanced Installation and Administration,” on page 107

For installation and configuration problems, refer to Chapter 6, “Troubleshooting the Installation,” on page 131. On the Home page of the Management Console, view the links in the Getting Started section. The online Help provides a Getting Started workflow diagram with the steps of setting up your Surgient environment, including importing your own images and creating new application configurations. You have already completed a streamlined version of these tasks earlier in this chapter, when you created an application configuration using the Surgient sample environment. To access the Management Console’s online Help, click any Help icon in the product or, in your web browser, go to www.surgient.com/pubs/54/base/ MCHelp/.

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3



83

84


Remote Access

4

This chapter addresses the installation of the following Surgient solutions: 

“Universal Remote Access” on page 84



“Classroom Readiness Test” on page 93



“User Readiness Test” on page 105


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The following sections describe when and how to install these Surgient solutions. 

Universal remote access (URA) – Enables communication from a remote computer to a Surgient VM located behind a firewall.



Classroom readiness test (CRT) – Measures a network’s bandwidth and latency and compares them with established ranges to determine whether they are appropriate for your classroom needs.



User readiness test (URT) – Used in conjunction with Surgient VDMS, VTMS, and VQMS to determine if a remote user ’s computer and the computer’s current location meet the requirements to successfully connect to a Surgient VM.

Universal Remote Access Some implementations of Surgient solutions require remote users to access deployed demos, labs, or test environments through a corporate firewall. To allow such connections between remote machines and Surgient VMs, Surgient relies heavily on remote desktop technologies like Microsoft’s remote desktop protocol (RDP), Linux’s virtual network computing (VNC), and Citrix remote technologies. Unfortunately, many firewalls identify sessions from remote workstations as restricted traffic. As a result, these firewalls prevent communication from taking place between the workstations and the destination servers. To address this issue, Surgient provides URA, which enables communication from a remote computer to a Surgient VM behind a firewall. URA bypasses firewall-imposed restrictions by transforming Surgient’s remote packets into viable HTTP or HTTPS traffic. After the modified packets pass through the firewall, they are returned to their original state and forwarded to their destination without compromising the security of the network. The following components enable this process: 

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A local listening proxy (LLP) that is available in ActiveX and Java formats. As the origination endpoint of the URA tunnel, the LLP acts as the façade connection to the RDP, VNC, or Citrix server, transforming the packets as they leave or return to the workstation.






A terminal client for RDP, VNC, or Citrix environments, available in ActiveX and Java formats. A URA gateway that complements the LLP, receiving the data necessary to establish connections to the appropriate destination server from the information embedded in the initiating requests. Functioning as the termination endpoint of the tunnel, the gateway returns the packets to their original state as RDP, VNC, or Citrix packets. The URA gateway is also essential to CRT and URT, both of which are described later in this chapter.

The appropriate LLP and terminal client are automatically downloaded to and installed on a remote workstation when a user establishes a terminal or desktop connection to a Surgient VM from within a Surgient application. The URA gateway, however, must be installed manually on a server that remote users can access by way of HTTPS. If complications prevent the terminal client from installing itself automatically on a remote workstation, the client can also be installed manually. For more information, see “Installing the URA Terminal Client” on page 90.

Installing the URA Gateway The URA gateway brokers the data that is transmitted between the LLP and the destination Surgient VM. It accomplishes this task by transforming the packets that arrive from the LLP and forwarding them to the appropriate destination VM. Conversely, the gateway also transforms all returning traffic sent from a destination VM and forwards it to the LLP. The minimum hardware and software requirements for the URA gateway are as follows: 

1 GHz Pentium 4



512 MB RAM



Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Standard, Enterprise, or Web Editions



Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0



Microsoft IIS 6.x with ASP.NET enabled


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4

R e m o t e A c c e s s

Because the URA gateway can receive hundreds of concurrent requests, it must not be installed on the same machine that hosts the CRT server. To install the URA gateway, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, navigate to the RemoteAccess directory and double-click URAGateway.exe to launch the Install Surgient URA Gateway Wizard.

Note:


2. Click Next to view the Choose Destination Location page.

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4


3. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\URAGateway , click Browse. 4. Click Next to view the Start Copying Files page.


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5. Verify that the URA gateway will be installed according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 6. Click Next to install the Surgient URA gateway. During installation, the URA Gateway Configuration dialog box opens.

7. Add to the list of approved servers each remote server to which the URA gateway will broker a connection. The following identifiers can be used to specify a server: 

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Host name – You can use regular expressions (regexes) wildcards to specify more than one host name. For example, to describe a host whose exact name is system, specify a host name of system. To describe every host whose name contains the string system, specify a host name of .*system.*. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

The following table lists some of the more common regex operators. 4

Regex Operator


Matches...

.

Any one character

?

The preceding element zero times or one time

*

The preceding element zero or more times

+

The preceding element one or more times

^

At the start of the line

$

At the end of the line

Table 2 – Common Regex Operators 

IP address range – To grant a range of IP addresses access to the URA gateway, specify the first and last addresses in the range.



IP subnet



Unique IP address

To add a server to the list of approved servers, perform the following steps: a.

Click the tab that corresponds to the appropriate identifier. For example, if you plan to identify a server by specifying its unique IP address, click the By IP Address tab.

b. Type the appropriate value or range of values, depending on the tab that you clicked. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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c.

Click Add.

Note:

To revoke a system’s ability to receive traffic from the URA gateway, select it from the list of approved servers and click Remove.

8. After you list all the servers to which the URA gateway can establish a connection, click OK to close the URA Gateway Configuration dialog box. 9. On the Complete page of the Install Surgient URA Gateway Wizard, click Finish. The URA gateway is installed in the directory that you specified. Make certain to configure the external firewall to allow HTTP and HTTPS connectivity to the gateway through ports 80 and 443, respectively. If it becomes necessary to change the destination access control or otherwise reconfigure the gateway, administrators can access a configuration utility from the Start menu.

Installing the URA Terminal Client In a typical scenario, the URA terminal client is installed automatically on a remote workstation when a user establishes a desktop connection to a Surgient VM from within a Surgient application. Sometimes, however, the client is not installed successfully. In such instances, it can be installed manually on a workstation, as per the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, navigate to the RemoteAccess directory and double-click URAClient.msi to launch the Install Surgient URA Client Wizard.

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4


Note:


2. Click Next to view the Destination Folder page.


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3. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\URAClient , click Change. 4. Click Next to view the Ready To Install page.

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Note:

To change the destination folder, click Back to return to the Destination Folder page.

4


5. Click Install to install the Surgient URA client. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.

6. Click Finish.

Classroom Readiness Test The Surgient CRT works with VTMS to measure the connectivity and performance characteristics of a physical classroom where hands-on training is scheduled to occur. More precisely, CRT measures the bandwidth and latency values of the classroom’s network and compares them with established ranges to determine whether they are favorable, unfavorable, or merely adequate for your classroom needs. The CRT application is automatically installed on the application server when Surgient VTMS is installed, and testers connect to the CRT application by way of a URL that the Surgient administrator or class instructor provides.


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After a tester connects to the CRT application by way of this link, he or she specifies the following information: 

The number of students expected to participate in the class



The desired quality of the classroom sessions

While the CRT server uses this information to generate bandwidth load, the CRT client is automatically downloaded to the workstation, where it measures the bandwidth and conducts tests on network latency. Upon completion of the readiness test, the tester can send the results to a Surgient administrator by way of an e-mail message from the test page. Note:

Test results can be sent in an e-mail message only if a value for CRT. Email.DefaultAddresses has been specified in the Management Console. For more information, see “Setting Classroom Readiness Test Configuration Values” in the Management Console online help.

If the test passes, the classroom is declared ready for use. If the classroom does not pass the test, the Surgient administrator analyzes the results and recommends a solution. The CRT server cannot be installed on the machine that hosts the URA gateway. See “Installing the CRT Server” for installation directions. If necessary, the CRT application can be installed manually on a server other than the application server. For more information, see “Installing the CRT Application” on page 97. If complications prevent the CRT client from installing itself automatically on a tester’s workstation, the client can be installed manually. See “Installing the CRT Client” on page 102 for instructions. For additional information on Surgient CRT, including directions for conducting a readiness test, see the Surgient Remote Access Testing Guide.

Installing the CRT Server If you intend to use Surgient CRT, you need to install the CRT server. The URA gateway must also be installed on your network, although it cannot reside on the same machine as the CRT server. 94


It is recommended that you identify the DNS name and IP address of the server that you intend to use as the CRT server and record these values in lines 19 and 20 of the pre-install worksheet. You can locate this worksheet in Appendix A, “Pre-Install Worksheet,” on page 137. These values are necessary when you install the CRT application. To install the CRT server, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click CRTServer.exe to launch the Install Surgient CRT Server Wizard .

Note:




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4


3. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\CRTServer , click Change. 4. Click Next to view the Ready To Install page.

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Note:


4


5. Click Install to install the Surgient CRT server. When the installation is finished, the Complete pages opens.

6. Click Finish. To change any of the CRT server’s configuration settings, including the IP address and port number, use the Management Console. The online help topic “Setting Classroom Readiness Test Configuration Values” lists the values that correspond to the different settings, along with the defaults.

Installing the CRT Application Although the CRT application is installed automatically when Surgient VTMS is installed, you might need to install it on a different server. To install the CRT application, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click CRT.exe to launch the Install Surgient CRT Wizard. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

97

Note:


2. Click Next to view the System Information page.

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4



The name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the Surgient VCS core services. This information is recorded on lines 1 and 2 of the pre-install worksheet.



The platform administrator password that was specified during the installation of the VCS core services. This password is recorded on line 11 of the pre-install worksheet.

4. Click Next to view the CRT Server Information page.


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5. Type the host name or IP address of the CRT server. These values are recorded in lines 18 and 19 of the pre-install worksheet. 6. Click Next to view the Choose Destination Location page.

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7. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\CRT , click Browse . 8. Click Next to view the Start Copying Files page.


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9. Verify that the Surgient CRT application will be installed according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 10. Click Next to install the Surgient CRT application. When the installation is finished, the Complete pages opens.

11. Click Finish. Although the CRT can be run at this time, you must use the Surgient Management Console to specify a value for CRT.Email. DefaultAddresses before the test results can be sent in an e-mail message. For more information, see “Setting Classroom Readiness Test Configuration Values” in the Management Console online help.

Installing the CRT Client You can manually install the CRT client if browser settings prevent the client’s automatic installation. To install the CRT client on a workstation, perform the following steps: 102


1. From the Surgient CD, double-click CRTClient.msi to launch the Install Surgient CRT Client Wizard .

Note:

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3. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\CRTClient , click Change. 4. Click Next to view the Ready To Install page.

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Note:


4


5. Click Install to install the Surgient CRT client. When the installation is finished, the Complete pages opens.

6. Click Finish.

User Readiness Test Surgient URT verifies whether a Web browser is configured to utilize the URA solution. When a user logs on to a Surgient application, he or she has the option of clicking a See if your browser is ready link that appears on the Log On page. Note:

The See if your browser is ready link can also be featured on a Web site, included in an e-mail message, or delivered by any other method you deem appropriate.

If a user clicks this link, a test is conducted on the browser. When a browser passes the test, a message informs the user that the browser is configured to Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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successfully use URA. Conversely, when a tested browser is not configured to utilize URA, the user is provided with the steps necessary to remedy the situation. URT also measures a network’s bandwidth and compares it with a set of defined performance ranges. If the amount of available bandwidth is high enough to fall within the passing range, the network passes the test. If the measurement falls within the range that is associated with failing, the network fails the test. Although URT requires no installation, the URA gateway must be installed for it to perform properly. Additionally, you might find it necessary on occasion to set or change some of URT’s configuration settings, including the server’s IP address or port number. To make these changes, use the Surgient Management Console. The online help topic “Setting User Readiness Test Configuration Values” lists the values that correspond to the different settings, along with the defaults. For instructor-led sessions and other scheduled events, URT must be run in advance on all participating machines. For on-demand events, however, URT can be either run in advance or integrated with the user registration and signup processes. Such on-demand events include activities like self-paced training and online product evaluations. For more information on Surgient URT, including system requirements and workflow details, see the Surgient Remote Access Testing Guide.

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Advanced Installation and Administration

5

This chapter addresses the following topics: 

“Moving an Existing Library Location” on page 108



“Configuring the ESX Host and SAN Server” on page 120



“Using a VMFS-based (SAN) Library Location” on page 118



“Using NFS Servers” on page 121



“Installing the Add-In for HP Quality Center” on page 124



“Installing the Command Line Interface (CLI)” on page 124



“Editing Advanced Configuration Settings” on page 129


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Moving an Existing Library Location The vcsadmin command librarymove can be used to move library content from one location to another. The main purpose of this command is to support the ability to move the library location that was defined during the original installation (now possibly too small ) into a larger directory. Moving library content includes physically copying files from the source location to the destination location, then adjusting all affected server configurations and snapshots to point to the new files at the destination location. The librarymove command can optionally delete source library files and/or the source library itself after everything has been successfully moved to the destination. The move operation involves copying very large files, so it could take hours or even days depending upon the size of the library in the source location. Note:

The destination location is not created as part of the move operation; it must first be created in the Management Console. Refer to the online Help topic “Adding a New Library Location.”

Because moving a library can take a long time, it is not required that activity on the VCS cease while file copying is in progress. The source library is fully functional until the very end of the move operation, when the script begins modifying objects in the database. Because VCS activity is continuing during the move, it is possible that the move script will encounter circumstances that prevent it from completely finishing the move. In that case an email is sent describing the problem. To recover, the user need only a) remove the blocking circumstance (e.g., cancelling a reservation) and b) run the same move operation again. The move script will resume where it left off without duplicating any file copying or other work that was completed during the first invocation. Deployments that are in the "Available" state are allowed and will continue to work normally during and after a library move. However, if any deployment is in an active phase (e.g., provisioning, deprovisioning, saving a snapshot, etc) the script will exit to prevent unexpected deployment failures. Using the librarymovestatus command, it should be possible to predict with some accuracy the time at which the copy procedure will finish and the script enters into its critical database update phase. As a best practice

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Surgient recommends that VCS administrators try to ensure that no active deployment automation occurs during this last phase of a move. To use vcsadmin to move a library location, follow these steps: 1. Launch the vcsadmin utility by double-clicking the vcsadmin.exe file in the installation directory on the VQMS server. By default, this directory is Program Files/Surgient/VQMS . 2. When the vcsadmin utility opens, log on by typing the following and pressing Enter: login

By default, the user ID is admin. The password is the Surgient platform administrator password that was defined during the VQMS installation. 3. After logging on, use the following syntax (providing the name of the server where the library is currently, the directory path of current library, the server name of the new library location, and the exact directory path): librarymove < options>

The following vcsadmin options exist support this feature: 

librarymove: starts the operation, which is performed in the

background by an automation script. When the move is complete, an email is sent to the user that requested the move. 

librarymovestatus: use to monitor the progress of the move

operation. 

librarymovecancel: use to cancel an in-progress move operation.



librarylist: use to show a list of all existing library locations.


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A d v a n c e d I n s t a l l a t i o n a n d A d m i n i s t r a t i o n

Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode In environments where a single application configuration will include servers that are located on different physical computers, the NAIL Server must be configured to run in advanced mode. NAIL (Network Abstraction and Isolation Layer) uses network address translation (NAT) to provide a unique IP address for each cloned VM on a network. With NAIL, an entire operating system (OS) stack and application, including groups of applications, can be imaged and moved from one VM to another and from one environment to another without any changes to the image itself. By default, NAIL Server is installed in standard mode. The standard mode is suitable for environments where all VMs within a single application configuration are on the same physical host. Using NAIL Server in standard mode requires relatively simple networking and switch configuration. However, if the VMs that are included in an application configuration must be deployed over multiple physical hosts, then use NAIL Server advanced mode. In advanced mode, NAIL Server uses VLANs to isolate application configuration instances from one another. If you are implementing NAIL Server in the advanced mode, you should work with your network administrator to select the appropriate network adapters, switches, and VLAN IDs that are compatible with your physical network environment. The VLANs used must be defined as network resources and pooled in the Surgient Management Console.

To implement NAIL Server Advanced Mode Review the following steps for implementing NAIL Server in advanced mode. Note:

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The following instructions assume that you have successfully installed and are running NAIL Server in standard mode. If you are running in standard mode, then you already have defined a default network, and you simply need to add a trunked network. However, instructions to create the default network are still provided below. If your installation is already running in standard mode, ignore the steps below to create the default network and follow those to create the trunked network.


1. Configure the physical network infrastructure (i.e. the system of switches and cables used by the virtualization hosts)

5



The physical network switches must allow traffic that is tagged with VLAN IDs.



See “NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Physical Cabling” on page 116 for detailed information and diagrams about configuring the switches and cables.

2. Connect the physical host (where the VMs reside) to the physical network switch. 

One adapter or NIC must be cabled to a network switch port that allows access to the VCS host computer and to external assets (file servers, web servers, the Internet, etc.).



The second adapter must be cabled to a port on the switch that allows VLAN tagged traffic.

3. Create two virtual networks that connect to the physical network adapters or NICs (Network Interface Cards) on the host. Use the installed virtualization software (MS Virtual Server or VMware ESX) to create the two virtual networks, one for each of the following purposes: 

Default network: this is the network that will be used to access external assets.



Trunked network: this is the network that will be used for VLAN traffic between the VM hosts.

Note:

Make note of the exact names of the two networks, as you will need to select the appropriate network when assigning the hosts to a resource pool in the Surgient Management Console.

For detailed instructions about creating the required virtual networks, see the appropriate topic for your virtualization software: 



“NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Creating Required Virtual Networks (ESX 3.x)” on page 112 “NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Creating Required Networks (MSVS)” on page 115


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4. 4.After creating the two virtual networks, alert the Surgient Agent on the host to the fact that two new virtual switches have been created. To do so, open the vcsadmin tool on the VCS host, login, and run the following command for each host: commandrun name_of_host poll

5. Change the Advanced Configuration setting to "advanced" (in Surgient Management Console). To change the mode to advanced, open the Management Console and click the Settings tab. On the Configuration Management page, click the System Environment icon in the left pane. In the System Environment Details area, click the Edit link for the NAIL Server Mode option, and change to advanced. Note:

If hosts are unpooled, change setting to advanced before pooling the hosts.

6. Edit the Pool utilization so that the new virtual networks are selected To do so, open the Surgient Management Console and view the list of all hosts. Select the host from the list and click the Show Host Utilization icon. Click the edit icon on the Host Utilization dialog box. On the Edit Pool Settings dialog box, from the Trunked Network list, select the new virtual network that you defined for the trunked network (the one you defined for VLAN traffic).

NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Creating Required Virtual Networks (ESX 3. x ) Using NAIL Server in advanced mode requires the existence of two virtual networks, a default network for external communication and a trunked network for VLAN-tagged traffic between virtual machines within a deployed application configuration. Use the following instructions for creating these networks in VMware ESX 3. x. For an overview of all steps required to implement NAIL Server in advanced mode, see “Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode” on page 110.

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To create the default network 5

1. Open VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client. 2. Select the VMware ESX server that you want to configure in the left pane. 3. Click the Configuration tab. 4. In the Hardware area, click the Network Adapters link. View the network adapters and determine which vmnic is connected to the default network on the physical switch. 5. In the Hardware area, click the Networking link. 6. The Network Configuration displays on the right. 7. To create the new default network, click the Add Networking... link. The Add Network Wizard appears. 8. In the Add Network Wizard, under the Connection Type area, select Virtual Machine, and then click Next. 9. Select Create a virtual switch and select the vmnic that is connected to the default network. 10. Click Next. 11. Under Port Group Properties , define the Network Label. This is the name of the default virtual network that will appear in the Surgient Management Console when you pool the VM host. Note:

Leave the VLAN ID field blank. Do not assign a VLAN ID to this port group.

12. Click Next. 13. On the Ready to Complete page, review the Summary and click Finish.

To create the trunked network 1. Open VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client. 2. Select the VMware ESX server that you want to configure in the left pane. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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3. Click the Configuration tab. 4. In the Hardware area, click the Network Adapters link. View the network adapters and determine which vmnic is connected to the trunked network on the physical switch. 5. In the Hardware area, click the Networking link. The Network Configuration displays on the right. To create the new trunked network, click the Add Networking...link. The Add Network Wizard appears. 6. In the Add Network Wizard, under the Connection Type area, select Virtual Machine, and then click Next. 7. Under Create a virtual switch , select the vmnic that is connected to the physical adapter for the trunked network. 8. Click Next. 9. Under Port Group Properties , define the Network Label. This is the name of the trunked virtual network that will appear in the Surgient Management Console when you pool the VM host. Surgient recommends that you name the network Trunked Network. 10. In the VLAN ID field, enter 4095. This value causes the network to accept all VLAN IDs, which is required by NAIL Server in advanced mode. 11. Click Next. 12. On the Ready to Complete page, review the Summary and click Finish. After completing the above steps, the two new virtual networks that you created are shown in the networking diagram on the Configuration tab of the Virtual Infrastructure Client. Next Step: Return to step 4 of “Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode” on page 110.

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NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Creating Required Networks (MSVS) Using NAIL Server in advanced mode requires the existence of two virtual networks, a default network for external communication and a trunked network for VLAN traffic between virtual machines within a deployed application configuration. Use the following instructions for creating these networks in Microsoft Virtual Server (MSVS). For an overview of all steps required to implement NAIL Server in advanced mode, see “Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode” on page 110.

To create the default network 1. Open the Microsoft Virtual Server web interface. 2. In the left pane, select Create under Virtual Networks. 3. In the Network Properties page: a.

Define the default network name. This is the network that will be used to access external assets.

b. Select the network adapter on the physical computer (the host). c.

Add a note stating the purpose of the network (NAIL Server advanced mode, default network, etc.).

d. Click OK

To create the trunked network 1. Open the Microsoft Virtual Server web interface. 2. In the left pane, select Create under Virtual Networks. 3. In the Network Properties page: a.

Define the trunked network name. This is the name of the trunked virtual network that will appear in the Surgient Management Console when you pool the VM host. Surgient recommends that you name the network Trunked Network.

b. Select the network adapter on the physical computer (the host). Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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c.

Add a note stating the purpose of the network (NAIL Server advanced mode, default network, etc.).

d. Click OK . Next Step: Return to step 4 of “Configuring NAIL Server Advanced Mode” on page 110.

NAIL Server Advanced Mode: Physical Cabling Physical hosts are cabled as shown in the diagram below. Configuring the physical network infrastructure as described here is the first step in implementing NAIL Server in advanced mode. For an overview of all required steps, see NAIL Server: Implementing Advanced Mode. In addition to using the cabling descriptions below, the following steps must be done to configure the port on the physical switch that will be used for the trunked network: 

Create the required VLANs on the switch. These VLAN IDs must match the VLAN ID ranges that are defined as network resources in the Surgient Management Console.



Set the allowed VLAN IDs for the port. Again, these IDs must match those defined as network resources in the Surgient Management Console. Furthermore, be sure to exclude any VLAN IDs that are used as native VLANs on the default networks.



Enable BPDU filtering on all ports that the trunked NIC will connect to.



Enable 802.Iq trunking on the port.



Set the bridge priority to a value less than 32999 (which is the NAIL server's bridge priority).

The following diagram shows the configuration for a two-port host (VMware 3.0 or Microsoft Virtual Server (MVS).

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Using a VMFS-based (SAN) Library Location Surgient enables a shared, SAN-based VMFS file system to serve as a library location. All ESX hosts that have direct access to the VMFS LUN will be able to run images directly from the library without requiring NFS. Using a shared library location on a SAN reduces VM deployment times by eliminating the need to copy files locally to the ESX server. Existing investments that customers have made in Fibre Channel or ISCSI networks can be utilized directly. As a suggested best practice, separate file caches (local VMFS, a separate LUN on the SAN, or a unique directory on the shared VMFS LUN) for each content host can still be used to store redo files and snapshots for each host. The diagram below shows some of the key components of a Surgient installation using a VMFS library.

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Note:

Alternatively, if your environment does not include a SAN, you can select an NFS-enabled server as the library location. For more information, see See “Using NFS Servers” on page 121. The maximum number of hosts that can connect to a single VMFS volume is 32. Due to a VMware limitation related to file locking, only ESX-3 native disk images (containing both a .vmdk and a -flat.vmdk) can be shared directly out of a VMFS library location. Surgient will still support server configurations based on ESX legacy disk formats such as .dsk and single-file .vmdk, but in a non-optimized manner. When such legacy images are deployed from a VMFS library the Surgient automation will fall back to deploying to the host's dedicated file cache. A VMFS directory can also be used as a shared file cache location on the SAN. All of the considerations noted for defining the library location on the SAN also apply to creating a shared file cache. For additional information, see the management Console online Help topic “Adding New File Cache Location.”

Workflow Summary Review the following summary of the workflow for using a VMFS volume on a SAN as the library location. Before installing VCS/applications:

1. Create the volume on the SAN server that you want to use as the library location. 2. Select which ESX host will be the library server. 3. Configure the selected ESX host to connect to the SAN server (see page 120). 4. Install the Surgient ESX host agent (see page 57). During installation: 

Answer Yes to the prompt asking if this agent will manage a library.


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

The library images must be placed into the new VMFS volume during this agent installation.



Designate the directory where the VM configuration files and redo files will be created. This directory could be on a local disk or on a dedicated VMFS volume on the SAN.

After installing VCS/applications:

5. Use the Management Console to create the new library location. See "Add a New Library Location" in the Management Console online Help.

Configuring the ESX Host and SAN Server Before using the Management Console to add a library location on a VMFS volume of a SAN (storage area network), the VMware ESX 3. x host needs to be configured to connect with the SAN server. Note:

The following section outlines the basic steps required, and refers to the use of iSCSI protocol for communication between the ESX server and the SAN. The specific steps required in your environment might be different.

1. Log on to ESX3 server using the VI3 client and enable the iSCSI Software Adapter on the ESX3 host. This process adds the IP address of the SAN server to the ESX host’s list of connected storage devices, so that the ESX host is “aware” of the SAN server. 2. Log on to the SAN server management interface and add the ESX host as a client. 3. Using the SAN server management interface, map the ESX host to a volume on the SAN server. Note:

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When using a SAN VMFS volume as a Surgient library location, a single volume is shared by multiple ESX hosts (maximum of 32). Using a shared library location reduces VM deployment times by eliminating the need to copy files locally to the ESX server.


4. On the ESX host, scan for new VMFS volumes. This process should be done whenever changes are made to the volumes available to your ESX3 server. a.

Login to ESX3 server using the VI3 client.

b. In the Configuration tab, click on "Storage Adapters" in the Hardware list. c.

Right-Click on the "iSCSI Software Adapter" item and select "Rescan".

d. In the Configuration tab, click on "Storage" in the Hardware list. e.

Click the "Refresh" link to see the new VMFS volume.

If you are connecting to a volume that has not been formatted, do the following steps: a.

Click the "Add Storage..." link to add the LUN

b. Select Disk/LUN for the type of storage c.

Follow the prompts to format the volume with the VMFS file system

Warning:

Do not "Remove" the datastore from the "Storage" locations. This permanently deletes all of the files on the volume which makes them unavailable to the other servers that are sharing the volume. If you want to disconnect the ESX3 server from the SAN server, disable the Storage Adapter.

Using NFS Servers VMware's ESX server provides the ability for ESX host servers to run VMs from images stored on remote storage devices. This capability enables an ESX host server to provision images directly from the system library or from a shared file cache. Provisioning from these storage locations reduces VM deployment times by eliminating the need to copy files to the ESX server. A storage device on an NFS server that is selected to act as a system library or shared file cache must support both NFS and CIFS access protocols. A Surgient Windows agent must access the device through a UNC path (using Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

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CIFS protocol) to read and report the device content while ESX hosts access the device through an NFS exported path. For ESX servers to remotely access the NFS server, the following conditions must be met: 

The NFS volume used for the file cache or library location must be exported by the NFS server



Access permissions on the NFS server must be set so that the library location or file cache location is accessible by the ESX host s erver



The ESX server must be configured to enable NFS

The following are examples of platforms that support both NFS and CIFS 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 NFS, running Samba to provide CIFS



Fedora Core 4 NFS Server, running Samba to provide CIFS



IBM N Series storage devices N3700, N5000, N7000

 

NetApp FAS series FAS900, FAS200, FAS3000, and FAS6000 EMC Celerra NS 40/80 series, 350, and 500/700 series; CNS, or NSX DART

Note:

For a more detailed list of supported NFS platforms, refer to the VMware ESX documentation.

Enabling NFS on the ESX 3. x Server Any ESX 3. x host servers that will access a remote file cache or system library location must be configured to enable NFS. Configuring these hosts is best done using the VMware Infrastructure Client, which can be downloaded from the host server to your local machine. To download and install the VMware Infrastructure Client, use the following procedure: 1. In a Web browser, type the IP address of the ESX host. 2. Click Download the VMware Infrastructure Client . 3. Run the downloaded installer and accept all default settings. 122


To configure the ESX 3.0 server, use the following procedure: 5


1. From the Start menu on your local machine, select Programs -> VMware -> VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client 2.0 2. Log in to the ESX server. 3. In the tree view on the left, highlight the server. 4. Click the Configuration tab on the right. 5. In the Hardware panel, click Networking. 6. Click Add Networking in the upper right corner to open the Add Network Wizard. 7. Select the VMkernel radio button and click Next. 8. In the Network Access window, you can choose to create a new virtual switch or use an existing switch, then click Next. 9. Enter a routable IP address, subnet mask, and gateway address, then click Next. 10. Verify the connection settings and click Finish.

Agent Access Permissions An NFS storage device selected to act as a system library or shared file cache must support both NFS and CIFS access protocols. The ESX 3. x hosts access the device through an NFS exported path. A Surgient Windows agent must access the device through a UNC path to read and report the device content. While the Surgient ESX agent runs as root, the NFS client username and UNIX uid presented to the NFS server is root/uid:0. This client username-uid originates from within the vmkernel not the ESX Server Console OS, s o changing the user account that the Surgient Agent runs as does not affect the NFS client userid-uid. Be aware that VMware does not support changing the NFS client userid and uid used to connect to an NFS server The Windows agent that is remotely managing the system library or file cache locations, either using NFS or CIFS, must run as an account with administrator privileges and have Read/Write access to the exported volume.


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Installing the Add-In for HP Quality Center For detailed information about installing and using the HP Quality Center, access the Surgient VQMS Add-In for HP Quality Center manual by clicking the Quality Center link under Documentation on the Management Console home page.

Installing the Command Line Interface (CLI) The Surgient VQMS CLI client is an optional component that allows VQMS users to issue commands and run scripts on the VQMS server from their remote computer.

Installing the CLI Client on Windows To install the Surgient VQMS CLI client on a Windows computer, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD or the downloaded installation files, double-click VcsCli.exe to launch the Install Surgient VcsCli Wizard.

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Note:


2. Click Next to view the Server Information page.

3. Enter the URL, using the IP address, of the VQMS Server.


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5


4. Click Next to view the next Server Information page.

5. Review the destination folder, or to specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse.

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6. Click Next to view the Start Copying Files page. 5



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7. Review the files that will be installed, and click Next to view the Setup status page.

When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens. 8. Click Finish to quit the Install Surgient VcsCli Wizard.

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Installing the CLI Client on Linux

5

To install the Surgient VQMS CLI client on a Linux computer, perform the following steps. Note:

The CLI requires the Mono .NET Runtime environment, version 1.1.7 or later.

1. From the Surgient CD or the downloaded installation files, copy the file named VcsCli.tar.gz to your Linux working directory. 2. Run the following command to extract the files: tar xvfz VcsCli.tar.gz

3. Run the following command to install the CLI utility: mono VcsCli.exe

4. When prompted enter the following information: 

User ID: Enter the ID that was defined during the installation of VQMS. By default, this password is admin.



Password: Enter the Surgient password that was defined during the installation of VQMS.



Org: Enter Internal as the Organization.

Editing Advanced Configuration Settings When VQMS is installed, the ability to edit advanced configuration settings is, by default, disabled. Surgient recommends that the editing function not be enabled without first contacting Surgient customer support and discussing the needs.

To Enable Editing 1. Launch the vcsadmin utility by double-clicking the vcsadmin.exe file in the installation directory on the VQMS server. By default, this directory is Program Files/Surgient/VCS .


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2. When the vcsadmin utility opens, log on by typing the following and pressing Enter: login < userid > < password >

By default, the user ID is admin. The password is the surgient platform administrator password that was defined during the VQMS installation. 3. After logging on, enter the following command and press Enter: configset AdvancedConfiguration.AllowEditing=true

4. Open the Management Console and click the Settings tab. 5. On the Configuration Management page, click the Advanced Configuration icon in the left pane. Verify that the Edit icon (

) appears in the upper right of the page.

To change the Advanced Configuration settings, select the name of the specific configuration that you want to edit, and then click the Edit icon.

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Troubleshooting the Installation

6

This chapter addresses the following troubleshooting topics: 

“General Troubleshooting First Steps” on page 132



“New Host Does Not Appear in Management Console” on page 132



“Error While Adding Host to Pool” on page 133



“.NET Framework Installed Before Microsoft IIS” on page 134



“Installation Error Messages” on page 135


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General Troubleshooting First Steps Take the following steps in you encounter problems and do not have an immediate diagnosis or work-around. 1. Verify that the following three services are running on the VCS host: 

Surgient Control Service



Surgient Engine Service



Surgient Services Container

2. Run the Test Communication test in the Management Console to verify that all agents are responding to and communicating with the VCS.

New Host Does Not Appear in Management Console If a new VM host on which you have installed the Surgient Agent does not appear in the Hosts table of the Management Console, log on to the ho st and verify that the Agent has been started and is running. To do so in a Windows environment, view the Services panel to confirm that the Surgient Agent is started. In an ESX environment, use the ps -ef command and locate an entry for surgientagent . To start the Agent on ESX, use the command /etc/ init.d/surgientagent start .

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Error While Adding Host to Pool

6

Review the following information if you receive this error message, or a similar one, while adding a host to a pool: Command 'Engine.Script.initialize-nail-vm' did not complete successfully

This error message occurs for a variety of reasons, including the following: 

The Default Network selected when assigning the host to the pool might not have connectivity to the network on which the VCS server is located. Verify that there is not a firewall between the VCS server and the Default Network.



The IP Address range defined as a network resource for the pool is not valid for the Default Network selected when assigning the h ost to the pool. Modify either the IP Address range or select a different network.



If on the Assign Host to a Pool dialog box you selected DHCP for the NAIL Server Address, and there is no DHCP server on the Default Network. Select the Use Pooled IP Address option.



Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is disabled for the access port on the switch into which the VM host network adapter (which is associated with the Default Network) is connected. Consult your network administrator to enable STP for the switch port.


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T r o u b l e s h o o t i n g t h e I n s t a l l a t i o n

.NET Framework Installed Before Microsoft IIS Installation of the Surgient components requires that both IIS and .NET Framework 2.0 be installed on the computer before you install Surgient. Since IIS and .NET Framework 2.0 do not depend on each other, it is possible to install IIS after .NET Framework. If this happens, the Surgient components can be installed but the Surgient Agent Message Forwarder (the Mailbox) will not run correctly. Whenever an agent attempts to access the Mailbox web site, the following error occurs: The current identity (NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE) does not have write access to 'C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\ Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files'.

The solution for this problem is to run the Repair operation on the .NET Framework 2.0 installer. 1. Run the Add or Remove Programs tool on the VCS server. 2. Select Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 from the list of installed applications. 3. Click Change/Remove. 4. When the .NET Framework installer appears, check the Repair option and click Next 5. Wait for the operation to complete and reboot the machine when prompted. 6. From a windows command prompt, run c:\WINDOWS\ Microsoft.Net\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i -enable

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Installation Error Messages

6

Review the following installation errors and solutions.

Read/Write Access to the System Library Location Review the following information if you receive this error message, or a similar one, during the installation process: User does not have proper permissions to manage library or wrong password entered.

Verify the following permissions for the user account under which the Surgient agent Windows service runs: a.

Directory permissions for the local directory on the VCS server or

b. Directory and share permissions for the remote volume UNC location Refer to “Choosing a Windows Account for the Agent Service” on page 18 for detailed information.

Error Accessing Agent Message Forwarder Review the following information if you receive this error message, or a similar one, during the installation process: Error accessing Agent Message Forwarder site: http:// 10.252.1.22/ingress This is likely due to a misconfiguration of IIS or ASPNET. Correct these issues then install again.

To resolve this issue, take the following steps: 

Verify the Default Web Site in IIS. The home directory must exist and must be configured with the proper permissions.



Run the Repair operation on the .NET Framework 2.0 installer (see instructions on page 134).


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T r o u b l e s h o o t i n g t h e I n s t a l l a t i o n



Verify that ASP.NET 2.0 is enabled. To do so, open the IIS Manager and select Web Services Extensions, and then verify that ASP.NET v2.0 is set to Allowed.

Required Components Not Installed If you receive the following error messages, cancel installation and install the required software, then install again. For information about prerequisites, see See “System Requirements” on page 7. Examples of error messages: 

Install requires that your computer is running Windows Server 2003



Install needs .NET 2.0 to continue



Install needs IIS to continue

To install IIS, follow these steps: Open the Add/Remove Programs panel. In the far left pane, click Add/ Remove Windows Components to launch the Windows Components Wizard. Select the checkbox for Application Server, and then click Details. In the Application Server panel, select the checkbox for Internet Informatin Services (IIS). 

Install needs ASPNET to continue

This error occurs when the ASP.NET subcomponent of IIS is not enabled. To enable ASP.NET, open the Add/Remove Programs panel. In the far left pane, click Add/Remove Windows Components to launch the Windows Components Wizard. Select the checkbox for Application Server, and then click Details. In the Application Server panel, select the checkbox for ASP.NET.

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Pre-Install Worksheet

A

Use the worksheet in this appendix to record information that will be needed when you install Surgient products. Having this information available when you begin an installation will help speed up the installation process.

Data Needed During Installation Surgient VCS Server

1.

DNS name:

2.

IP address:

Operational Database

3.

Database name:

4.

DNS name:

5.

Installation account ID:

6.

Installation account password:

Reporting Database

7.

Database name:

8.

DNS name:

9.

Installation account ID:

10.

Installation account password:

Admin Password

11.

Password of default platform administrator:

SMTP E-mail Server

12.

DNS name:


137

Data Needed During Installation 13.

E-mail address to receive alerts:

URA Gateway

14.

DNS name:

15.

IP address:

Network Address Translation

16.

Range of IP addresses:

17.

Range of MAC addresses:

Classroom Readiness Training Server (VTMS)

18.

DNS name:

19.

IP address:

Second VCS Server (Advanced Scenario)

138

20.

DNS name:

21.

IP address:


Installing the VCS on Multiple Servers

B

You can distribute the Surgient VCS across multiple servers. This appendix provides instructions to: 

install the core services and component services on a primary VCS server



install the agent message forwarder and processor on a secondary server


139

Installing the Core Services and Component Services To install the Surgient VCS core services and component services on the primary VCS server, perform the following steps: 1. From the Surgient CD, double-click SurgientVCS.exe to launch the Install Surgient VCS Wizard .

Note:



140


B

I n s t a l l i n g t h e V C S o n M u l t i p l e S e r v e r s



141


142


The amount of disk space required for the installation and the amount of space available on the currently selected disk are both shown. To view the amount of space available on your other disks or to specify a different disk for the installation, click Disk Space. 8. Ensure that Component Services and Core Services are the only selected check boxes. 9. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse. 10. Click Next to view the Operational Database page.

The operational database stores information associated with real-time processes and functions. 11. Specify the following information for the operational database: 



A unique name for the database, which is recorded in line 3 of the pre-install worksheet. The DNS name of the server that will act as the database server. This name is recorded in line 4 of the pre-install worksheet. To select a server from a list of available servers, click Browse.


143

B








12. Click Next to view the Reporting Database page, which is automatically populated with values derived from the information specified on the Operational Database page.

The reporting database captures historical information to be used when generating reports. 13. Specify the following information for the reporting database: 



144

A unique name for the database, which is recorded in line 7 of the pre-install worksheet. The DNS name of the server that will act as the database server. This name is recorded in line 8 of the pre-install worksheet. To select a server from a list of available servers, click Browse. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide







14. Click Next to view the Platform Administrator Password page.

15. Type a password for the platform administrator. This password is recorded in line 11 of the pre-install worksheet. 16. Confirm the password by retyping it. 17. Click Next to view the Surgient VCS E-Mail Settings page.


145

B


The information specified on this page defines who will receive the appropriate e-mail message when an error occurs. 18. Specify Specify the followi following ng informati information: on: 

The DNS name of the mail server, such as mail.mycompany.com . This name is recorded in line 12 of the pre-install worksheet.



The e-mail address to which messages will be sent. s ent. This address is recorded in line 13 of the pre-install worksheet.

19. 19. Click lick Next to view the Verification page.

146


B


20. Verify that the appropriate components will be installed according according to your specifications. To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 21. 21. Clic Click k Next to install the Surgient VCS core services and component services. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.


147

22. 22. Click lick Finish to quit the Install Surgient VCS Wizard.

Installing Installing the Agent Message Forwarder and Processor To install the Surgient VCS agent message forwarder and agent message processor on the secondary VCS server, perform the following steps: 1. From From the the Sur Surgi gien entt CD, CD, doubl doublee-cl clic ick k SurgientVCS.exe to launch the Install Surgient VCS Wizard .

148


B


Note:




149


150


B




151

The amount of disk space required for the installation and the amount of space available on the currently selected disk are both shown. To view the amount of space available on your other disks or to specify a different disk for the installation, click Disk Space. 8. Ensure that Agent Message Forwarder and Agent Message Processor are the only selected check boxes. 9. Optional: To specify a destination folder other than the default folder of C:\Program Files\Surgient\VCS , click Browse. 10. Click Next to view the System Information page.


The name or IP address of the computer on which you have installed the Surgient VCS core services. This information is recorded on lines 1 and 2 of the pre-install worksheet.



The platform administrator password that was specified during the VCS installation. This password is recorded on line 11 of the preinstall worksheet.

12. Click Next to view the Select IP Address page.

152


B


13. Type or select the IP address of the agent message forwarder. This value is the IP address of the machine on which the VCS core and component services are installed. It is recorded on line 2 of the pre-install worksheet. 14. Click Done to view the Verification page.

15. Verify that the appropriate components will be installed according to your specifications. Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

153

To make a correction, click Back until you return to the appropriate page. 16. Click Next to install the Surgient VCS agent message forwarder and agent message processor. When the installation is finished, the Complete page opens.


154


Index A additional considerations 11 administrators. See platform administrators advanced mode NAIL Server 16 agent message forwarder 2, 52, 148 processor 2 agents 4, 49 application servers 3 applications 2 C caches 3, 12, 121, 123 classroom readiness test. See CRT Command Line Interface (CLI) client, installing 124 command-line interfaces 4, 59, 124 component services 2, 140 components 2, 28, 38, 151 Configuration Settings enabling editing of 129 core services 2, 140 CRT application 93, 97 client 94, 102 installing 94 server 45, 94, 99 D databases 3, 29, 143 dedicated file cache locations 13 determining scope of installation 4 E e-mail settings 32, 145 Surgient Installation and Configuration Guide

enable editing advanced configuration settings 129 enabling NFS on ESX 3.0 122 EULA 27, 141, 150

F file caches 3, 12, 121, 123 firewalls 11, 34, 84 forwarders. See agent message forwarder G gateway. See URA gateway H host servers 4 HP Quality Center 124 HTTP 84, 90 I image provisioning 12 images diversity 5 installation scenario 6 installations 11 product installation 24 worksheet 137 installing agents 49 CRT CRT application 97 CRT client 102 CRT server 94 Management Console 37 preparations 1, 4 URA client URA gateway 84, 85 VCS 139 VQMS CLI server 59, 124

155

intermediate installation checklist 19 IP addresses 89, 152

L libraries 3 library location moving 108 SAN 118 local listening proxy 84 logging on Management Console 68 VQMS 80 M machine names 14 Management Console 2 installing 37 logging on 68 N NAIL 15 NAIL Server advanced mode 16 advanced mode, configuring 110 advanced mode, physical cabling 116 NFS support enabling 122 set permissions 123 O operations database 3, 29, 143 P passwords 32, 40, 81, 99, 145 planning additional considerations 11 installations 1, 4 platform administrators 32, 40, 81, 145 pool

156

assigning a host to 74 ports 17, 90 pre-install worksheet 137 processors. See agent message processors provisioning 12

R remote access 11, 83 desktop protocol 84 reporting 5 reporting database 30, 144 S SAN configuring ESX servers 120 library location 118 security identifiers 14 services 2, 140 setting permission on NFS servers 123 shared file cache locations 13 Static IP addresses 14 subnetworks 89 Surgient applications 2 components 2, 28, 38, 142, 151 solutions 11 system library 3, 121, 123 T terminal client. See URA client tests 11 U URA 11, 34 URA client 85, 90 URA gateway 33, 40, 85, 106 installing 84, 85 requirements 85

Surgient Installation and Configura-

URT 11, 105

V VCS e-mail settings 32, 145 installing 139 multiple-server installation 139 virtual labs 4 virtual networks computing 84 Virtualization Control Server 2 VMFS 118 VQMS logging on 80 VQMS CLI 124 VQMS CLI server 4, 59, 124 W worksheets 137


157

Surgient Install 54

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