Skip to content

Air Gap Install Instructions

Warning

This document is DEPRECATED. Please use the new airgap install methods based in the install.sh script. Documentation can be found at rs_install_airgap.

About

In an air-gapped install the DRP endpoint will not have access to the internet. In order to have a functional DRP endpoint you will need to pre-fetch some packages from the internet. This document will cover what the minimal requirements will be to get up and running in the air-gapped environment. We will cover what is needed and where to get it. In this document it will be assumed you will be using RHEL/CentOS 7 and starting the install of DRP after you have completed at least a "Minimal install" of the operating system. The commands being run to pre-fetch content are being run from an Ubuntu workstation machine with internet access, a web browser, and wget, but any workstation can be used as long as it has internet access and a way to download and save files from the internet.

Additional Operating System Packages Required

The following packages will need to be installed on your air-gapped endpoint:

  • bsdtar
  • libarchive (required by bsdtar)

It is assumed that these packages are already installed on the air-gapped DRP endpoint at the time of the DRP install.

RackN & DRP Requirements

The following is a list of DRP and RackN requirements needed for a successful air-gapped install.

  • DRP
  • DRP Installer
  • RackN Catalog
  • RackN Portal (URL Provided by RackN support) Optional
  • DRP Content
  • RackN License
  • Sledgehammer
  • CentOS (Optional)

Step By Step

The following commands should be run on the internet accessible workstation. The file versions will change so please do not blindly copy & paste these commands.

mkdir ~/air_gap
cd ~/air_gap
wget -O - https://rebar-catalog.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rackn-catalog.json | gunzip -c > rackn-catalog.json
url = $(jq -r '.sections.catalog_items."drp-stable".Source' rackn-catalog.json)
if wget url
then
    break
else
    # if we couldn't find dr-provision.zip, then try os/arch based zip
    arch=$(uname -m)
    case $arch in
        x86_64|amd64) arch=amd64   ;;
        aarch64)      arch=amd64   ;;
        armv7l)       arch=arm_v7  ;;
        ppc64le)      arch=ppc64le ;;
        *)            echo "unsupported arch"; exit 1
    esac
    os=$(uname -s)
    case $os in
        Darwin) os="darwin" ;;
        Linux)  os="linux"  ;;
        *)      echo "unsupported os"; exit 1
    wget ${url/.zip/.${arch}.${os}.zip}
wget -O install.sh get.rebar.digital/stable
chmod +x install.sh
mkdir task-library
cd task-library
wget $(jq -r '.sections.catalog_items."task-library-stable".Source' ../rackn-catalog.json)
cd ..
mkdir drp-community-content
cd drp-community-content
wget $(jq -r '.sections.catalog_items."drp-community-content-stable".Source' ../rackn-catalog.json)
mkdir ../sledgehammer
cd ../sledgehammer
grep -i sledgehammer ../drp-community-content/*.json | grep -i isourl | awk '{print $2}' | sort -u
# This should yield 2 urls.
# Download the tar file from each and save in this sledgehammer dir.
wget (url1)
wget (url2)
mkdir ../centos
cd ../centos
# Note that this should be the most recent version
# from the drp-community-content
wget http://mirror.rackspace.com/CentOS/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7-x86_64-Minimal-1908.iso
cd ..
mkdir ux
cd ux
wget (url provided by RackN support)

The last thing required is the RackN License. At this time you need to either generate the license from an existing internet accessible DRP endpoint, or by contacting RackN support to have a license generated for you. Once you have the license file save it in th~/air_gap dir as rackn-license.json

Next you need to move the contents of ~/air_gap to the air gap system. Ensure that the --zip-file is updated to use the right one. The next set of commands are run on the air-gapped system.

./install.sh --zip-file=v4.1.3.zip --systemd=true --drp-home-dir=/srv/dr-provision --local-ui=true --no-content=true install
cd ~/air_gap
drpcli contents upload rackn-license.json
cd drp-community-content
drpcli contents upload v4.1.2.json
cd ../task-library
drpcli contents upload v4.1.2.json

systemctl stop dr-provision

cd /srv/dr-provision/tftpboot/isos
mv ~/air_gap/sledgehammer/*.tar .
mv ~/air_gap/centos/*.iso .

cd /srv/dr-provision/tftpboot/files/ux
bsdtar -xf ~/air_gap/ux/file.zip

systemctl start dr-provision

Now to verify the portal is working. On a machine that can access the air-gapped endpoint open a web browser and visit https://<YOUR IP>:8092/. By default, a self-signed cert will need to be accepted (Note that you can provide your own certs during deployment.)Log in using the default user and password. Once logged in we will verify the portal is functioning properly by doing some final customizations. Set the default preferences for workflow.

  • Click "Info & Preferences" on the left hand navigation
  • On the right side of screen set "Default Workflow" to "discover-base"
  • Set "Default Stage" to "discover"
  • Set "Default BootEnv" to "sledgehammer"
  • Set "Unknown BootEnv" to "discovery"
  • Click save icon on the right (shaped like a floppy disk)

Note

These tasks can be completed using the cli or api directly. We are using the portal here to test functionality of our self-hosted portal and for ease of configuration.

Next add and ssh key to the global profile.

  • Click "Profiles" on the left hand navigation
  • Click on "global"
  • Click "Edit"
  • Add "access-keys"
  • Edit the "value" of "access-key" and place your ssh pub key in this value
  • Click "Save"

Next add package-repositories to the global profile.

  • Click "Edit" on the "global" profile
  • Add "package-repositories"
  • Edit the value of "package-repositories"
  • Example:
[
  {
    "arch": "x86_64",
    "installSource": true,
    "os": [
      "centos-7",
      "centos-7-install"
    ],
    "tag": "centos-7",
    "url": "https://10.0.0.10:8091/centos-7/install"
  }
]
  • Click "Save"

Next you need to configure a subnet.

  • Click "Subnets" on the left hand navigation
  • Click "Add"
  • Create Subnet From Interface
  • Click "Use Interface"
  • If defaults are acceptable scroll down and click "Add"

You must also have a license with the "enable-airgap" feature enabled.

  • Click "Catalog" on the left-hand navigation
  • Search for "ux-views"
  • Click the green download button
  • After the plugin finishes installing, refresh the webpage (CTRL+R)
  • Click "UX Config" on the left-hand navigation
  • Click the "airgap" row under "Core" in the "UX" section
  • Toggle the "airgap" config switch and click the blue save button.

Next it is time to power on machine to deploy. Power it on, make sure its setup to PXE boot in the bios as its default boot device. Once the machine has been discovered you should see it show up on the "Machines" view in the portal. You may need to hit refresh. Once the machine shows up you can provision it by setting the workflow of the machine to "centos-base". That will cause the machine to reboot which as long as the machine is set to PXE boot the CentOS 7 install will begin. Once it has completed you can log in to verify everything worked correctly.

ssh root@my_test_machine
cat /etc/yum.repos.d/*

This should show that the only repo configured matches what you defined above in the "package-repositories" parameter.