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Post-Install Setup

Once you have a running DRP endpoint, you will need to do some additional sets. These are the same regardless of your installation environment.

Some steps will depend upon if you are running virtual machine, booting physical servers, or managing cloud resources.

UX and License

All Digital Rebar operations run locally and behind your firewall. RackN never has direct access to your DRP endpoint.

The Digital Rebar UX is hosted at RackN for most users. RackN does not have access to your data, credentials, or provisioning APIs. The RackN portal runs as a single-page app locally in your browser. All DRP API calls remain behind your firewall.

To start, open the Digital Rebar API in a browser:

Info

https://\<ip_address_of_your_endpoint>:8092/

You will be redirected to the RackN Portal UX after you visit the Digital Rebar API port and accept the self-signed certificate generated by the installation.

Login to Digital Rebar:

Info

username: rocketskates
password: r0cketsk8ts

After login, you will be prompted to create and download a extendable trial license that enables most enterprise feature of Digital Rebar. If you save the generated license file, you'll be able to use it to bypass this process in the future.

Manually Install RackN License

If you have obtained a RackN license file using the process from prior installs, then you can bypass this step in subsequent resets by uploading the rackn-license.json file via the CLI.

drpcli contents upload rackn-license.json

UX System Bootstrap Wizard

On the top left section of the Info & Preferences page, the RackN Portal shows the steps needed to create a fully operational Digital Rebar endpoint.

A quick start system will have some initial configuration already done. Work through the bootstrap check list until all items have green check marks. The final Machines step requires actions outside of Digital Rebar, consult provision a machine for assistance.

If you prefer command line actions over a UX, all of the UX Wizard steps can also be performed using the steps below.

CLI System Bootstrap (optional)

These drpcli bootstrapping steps include the ones suggested by the install script.

To use DRPCLI, you need to set the target endpoint and credentials. This can be done per call using command line flags; however, most users prefer to set environment variables for this purpose.

export RS_ENDPOINT=https://<ip_address_of_your_endpoint>:8092/
export RS_KEY=rocketskates:r0cketsk8ts

First, set a more secure password for your endpoint.

mypass="D1gitalR3bar"
drpcli users password rocketskates $mypass
export RS_KEY=rocketskates:$mypass

Next, define the provisioning Subnet in Digital Rebar DHCP. Since you must include all of the necessary DHCP boot options to correctly PXE boot a Machine, we recommend using the UX to create Subnets because it has logic to determine sane defaults.

The following command line example contains the JSON Subnet and DHCP definitions. You MUST modify the network parameters to match your environment.

###
#  EXAMPLE - please modify the below values according to your environment  !!!
###

echo '{
  "Name": "local_subnet",
  "Subnet": "10.10.16.10/24",
  "ActiveStart": "10.10.16.100",
  "ActiveEnd": "10.10.16.254",
  "ActiveLeaseTime": 60,
  "Enabled": true,
  "ReservedLeaseTime": 7200,
  "Strategy": "MAC",
  "Options": [
    { "Code": 3, "Value": "10.10.16.1", "Description": "Default Gateway" },
    { "Code": 6, "Value": "8.8.8.8", "Description": "DNS Servers" },
    { "Code": 15, "Value": "example.com", "Description": "Domain Name" }
  ]
}' > /tmp/local_subnet.json

vim /tmp/local_subnet.json

drpcli subnets create - < /tmp/local_subnet.json

Finally, install one of these popular trial operating systems.

drpcli bootenvs uploadiso ubuntu-20.04-install  # optional, requires at least 3G of free space
drpcli bootenvs uploadiso centos-8-install      # optional, requires at least 30G of free space

Note that drpcli bootenvs uploadiso command is a helper command that combines two common steps. It fetchs the ISO referenced in the bootenv from the internet and then uploads the ISO to Digital Rebar. If you perform these steps many times, we recommend storing the downloaded ISO media locally and then uploading it using drpcli isos upload.

Provision a Machine

Create network bootable virtual machine

  • with at least 2 Gb of RAM (4 Gb is preferred)
  • set to network boot first
  • attached to Digital Rebar provisioning network (aka Layer 2 subnet)

Note

Physical machines attached to the network can DHCP PXE boot as well.

Power on the machine. No further action is required.

The machine should boot into the Sledgehammer discovery operating system. Typically, the machine console looks like:

Success

Digital Rebar: Sledgehammer ###................................####
Kernel 3.10.0-693.21.1.el7.x86_64 on an x86_64

d0c-c4-7a-e5-48-b6 login:

Note the version may be different than is listed above.

After the boot is complete, the UX Machines page should show the newly discovered machine.

If you have installed another operating system ISO besides Sledgehammer, then you can now provision an operating system by setting the target workflow on the machine:

  1. Select the target machine (indicated with a check in the left most box)
  2. Click the "Profiles" bulk action tab
  3. Select the target profile (typically universal-application-ubuntu-20.04.2 or universal-application-centos-8)
  4. Apply the profile to the machine by clicking the + button to the right of the profile
  5. Click the "Machines" tab
  6. Select the target workflow from the action list at the top of the page (typically universal-linux-install)
  7. Press the "Run Workflow" button (looks like a play icon next to the workflow list)

You should see immediate updates to the machine's stages and tasks as Digital Rebar processes the workflow.

After installation completes, you can quickly return to Sledgehammer by running the universal-discover workflow.

Advanced Features Catalog (next steps)

Digital Rebar is capable of automated workflow management of the boot process, power control, and much more. This quickstart walks through the simplest process to get you up and running with a single test install. Please review the rest of the documentation for further configuration details and information on automation of your provisioning environment.

The UX Catalog contains a list of available extensions to Digital Rebar that are avaible for installation. Choosing an item from the Catalog will automatically download and install the capability. All items run locally in your Digital Rebar endpoint, no connection to RackN is required after the download.

Fully automated provisioning control requires use of plugins for Power Management actions. These are done through the IPMI subsystem, with a specific IPMI plugin for a specific environments.