OVA Installation

The OVA installation assumes deployment in a network-isolated environment. One clone of the OVA will become an install node. The ECS deployment will then proceed from the install node.

Prerequisites

Listed below are all necessary components for a successful ECS Community Edition installation. If they are not met the installation will likely fail.

Hardware Requirements

The installation process is designed to be performed from either a dedicated installation node. However, it is possible, if you so choose, for one of the ECS data nodes to double as the install node. The install node will bootstrap the ECS data nodes and configure the ECS instance. When the process is complete, the install node may be safely destroyed. Both single node and multi-node deployments require only a single install node.

The technical requirements for the installation node are minimal, but reducing available CPU, memory, and IO throughput will adversely affect the speed of the installation process:

  • 1 CPU Core
  • 2 GB Memory
  • 10 GB HDD
  • CentOS 7 Minimal installation (ISO- and network-based minimal installs are equally supported)

The minimum technical requirements for each ECS data node are:

  • 4 CPU Cores
  • 16 GB Memory
  • 16 GB Minimum system block storage device
  • 104 GB Minimum additional block storage device in a raw, unpartitioned state.
  • CentOS 7 Minimal installation (ISO- and network-based minimal installs are equally supported)

The recommended technical requirements for each ECS data node are:

  • 8 CPU Cores
  • 64GB RAM
  • 16GB root block storage
  • 1TB additional block storage
  • CentOS 7.4 Minimal installation

For multi-node installations each data node must fulfill these minimum qualifications. The installer will do a pre-flight check to ensure that the minimum qualifications are met. If they are not, the installation will not continue.

Environmental Requirements

The following environmental requirements must also be met to ensure a successful installation:

  • Network: All nodes, including install node and ECS data node(s), must exist on the same IPv4 subnet. IPv6 networking may work, but is neither tested nor supported for ECS Community Edition at this time.
  • Remote Access: Installation is coordinated via Ansible and SSH. However, public key authentication during the initial authentication and access configuration is not yet supported. Therefore, password authentication must be enabled on all nodes, including install node and ECS data node(s). This is a known issue and will be addressed in a future release
  • OS: CentOS 7 Minimal installation (ISO- and network-based minimal installs are equally supported)

All-in-One Single-Node Deployments

A single node can successfully run the installation procedure on itself. To do this simply input the node’s own IP address as the installation node as well as the data node in the deploy.yml file.

1. Getting Started

1.1. Download and deploy the OVA to a VM

The OVA is available for download from the release notes page. Select the most recent version of the OVA for the best experience.

1.2. Deploy a VM from the OVA and Adjust its resources to have a minimum of:

  • 16GB RAM
  • 4 CPU cores
  • (Optional) Increase vmdk from the minimum 104GB

1.3. Clone the VM

Clone the VM you created enough times to reach the number of nodes desired for your deployment. The minimum number of nodes for basic functionality is one (1). The minimum number of nodes for erasure coding replication to be enabled is four (4).

1.4. Collect and Configure networking information

Power on the VMs and collect their DHCP assigned IP addresses from the vCenter client or from the VMs themselves

You may also assign static IP addresses by logging into each VM and running nmtui to set network the network variables (IP, mask, gateway, DNS, etc).

The information you collect in this step is crucial for step 2.

2. Creating The Deployment Map (deploy.yml)

Installation requires the creation of a deployment map. This map is represented in a YAML configuration file called deploy.yml.

Below are steps for creating a basic deploy.yml. All fields indicated below are required for a successful installation.

  1. Log into the first VM and run videploy.

  2. Edit this deploy.yml file with your favorite editor on another machine, or use vi deploy.yml on the install node. Read the comments in the file and review the examples in the examples/ directory.

  3. Top-level deployment facts (facts:)

    1. Enter the IP address of the install node into the install_node: field.
    2. Enter into the management_clients: field the CIDR address/mask of each machine or subnet that will be whitelisted in node’s firewalls and allowed to communicate with ECS management API.
    • 10.1.100.50/32 is exactly the IP address.
    • 192.168.2.0/24 is the entire /24 subnet.
    • 0.0.0.0/0 represents the entire Internet.

  4. SSH login details (ssh_defaults:)

    1. If the SSH server is bound to a non-standard port, enter that port number in the ssh_port: field, or leave it set at the default (22).
    2. Enter the username of a user permitted to run commands as UID 0/GID 0 (“root”) via the sudo command into the ssh_username: field. This must be the same across all nodes.
    3. Enter the password for the above user in the ssh_password: field. This will only be used during the initial public key authentication setup and can be changed after. This must be the same across all nodes.

  5. Node configuration (node_defaults:)

    1. Enter the DNS domain for the ECS installation. This can simply be set to localdomain if you will not be using DNS with this ECS deployment.
    2. Enter each DNS server address, one per line, into dns_servers:. This can be what’s present in /etc/resolv.conf, or it can be a different DNS server entirely. This DNS server will be set to the primary DNS server for each ECS node.
    3. Enter each NTP server address, one per line, into ntp_servers:.

  6. Storage Pool configuration (storage_pools:)

    1. Enter the storage pool name:.
    2. Enter each member data node’s IP address, one per line, in members:.
    3. Under options:, enter each block device reserved for ECS, one per line, in ecs_block_devices:. All member data nodes of a storage pool must be identical.

  7. Virtual Data Center configuration (virtual_data_centers:)

    1. Enter each VDC name:.
    2. Enter each member Storage Pool name, one per line, in members:

  8. Optional directives, such as those for Replication Groups and users, may also be configured at this time.

  9. After completing the deploy.yml file to your liking, exit out of videploy as you would the vim editor (ESC, :, wq, ENTER). This will update the deploy.yml file.

More on deploy.yml

If you need to make changes to your deploy.yml after bootstrapping, there are two utilities for this.

  1. The videploy utility will update the installed deploy.yml file in place and is the preferred method.
  2. The update_deploy utility will update the installed deploy.yml file with the contents of a different deploy.yml file.

See the [utilties][utilities] document for more information on these and other ECS CE utilities.

For more information on deploy.yml, please read the reference guide found here.

4. Deploying ECS Nodes (ova-step1)

Once the deploy.yml file has been correctly written and the install node rebooted if needed, then the next step is to simply run ova-step1.

After the installer initializes, the EMC ECS license agreement will appear on the screen. Press q to close the screen and type yes to accept the license and continue or no to abort the process. The install cannot continue until the license agreement has been accepted.

5. Deploying ECS Topology (ova-step2)

If you would prefer to manually configure your ECS topology, you may skip this step entirely.

Once ova-step1 has completed, you may then direct the installer to configure the ECS topology by running ova-step2. Once ova-step2 has completed, your ECS will be ready for use.

Assuming all went well, you now have a functioning ECS Community Edition instance and you may now proceed with your test efforts.