Openfiler Graphical Installation Readme

 

Graphical Installation

This How-to applies to: 2.2, 2.3 
This How-to is intended for: End user

Installation of Openfiler using the standard graphical-based installation method.

 

Introduction

This document describes the process of installing Openfiler using the default graphical installation interface. If you experience any problems with the graphical install track, such as a garbled screen due to the installer not being able to auto-detect your graphics hardware, please try a text-based install. The text-based install track is described here.

Total time for installation is about 15 - 20 minutes including software installation to disk. 

System Requirements

Openfiler has the following hardware requirements to be successfully installed:

1. x86 or x64 based computer with at least 512MB RAM and 1GB storage for the OS image.

2. At least one supported network interface card

3. A CDROM or DVD-ROM drive if you are performing a local install

4. A supported disk controller with data drives attached.

Please see full system requirements information here.

Installation

The installation process is described with screenshots for illustrative purposes. If you are unable to proceed at any point with the installation process or you make a mistake, use the Back button to return to previous points in the installation process. Any errors or intractable problems with the installation process should be reported either to the Openfiler Users mailing list or, alternatively, if you feel you have found a bug please use the bug tracking system. If you report a bug, be sure to enter a valid email address so that you can keep track of any updates to it right up to resolution. You *must* first registerwith the bug tracker in order to be able to post a new bug. 

Starting the Installation

To begin the installation, insert the Openfiler disk into your CD/DVD-ROM drive and ensure your system is configured to boot off the CD/DVD-ROM drive. After the system POSTs, the installer boot prompt will come up. At this point, just hit the Enter key to proceed.

After a few moments, the first screen of the installer will be presented. If at this point your screen happens to be garbled, it is likely that the installer has been unable to automatically detect your graphics subsystem hardware. You may restart the installation process in text-mode and proceed accordingly in that case. The first screen of the installer is depicted below. The next step is to click on the Next button to proceed with the installation.

Keyboard Selection

This screen deals with keyboard layout selection. Use the scroll bar on the right to scroll up and down and select your desired keyboard layout from the list. Once you are satisfied with your selection, click the Next button to proceed.

Disk Partitioning Setup

Next comes the disk partitioning.  You must select manual disk partitioning as it ensures you will end up with a bootable system and with the correct partitioning scheme. Openfiler does not support automatic partitioning and you will be unable to configure data storage disks in the Openfiler graphical user interface if you select automatic partitioning. Click the Next button once you have selected the correct radiobutton option.

 

Disk Setup

On the disk setup screen, if you have any existing partitions on the system, please delete them. DO NOT DELETE ANY EXISTING OPENFILER DATA PARTITIONS UNLESS YOU NO LONGER REQUIRE THE DATA ON THEM. To delete a partition, highlight it in the list of partitions and click the Delete button. You should now have a clean disk on which to create your partitions.

 

You need to create three partitions on the system in order to proceed with the installation:

1. "/boot" - this is where the kernel will reside and the system will boot from

2. "swap" - this is the swap partition for memory swapping to disk

3. "/"- this is the system root partition where all system applications and libraries will be installed

Create /boot Partition

Proceed by creating a boot partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with a form with several fields and checkboxes. Enter the partition mount path "/boot" and the select the disk on with to create the partition. In the illustrated example, this disk is hda (the first IDE hard disk). Your setup will very likely be different as you may have several disks of different types. You should make sure that only the first disk is checked and no others. If you are installing on a SCSI-only system, this disk will be designated sda. If you are installing on a system that has both IDE and SCSI disks, please select hda if you intend to use the IDE disk as your boot drive.

The following is a list of all entries required to create the boot partition:

1. Mount Point: /boot

2. Filesystem Type: ext3

3. Allowable Drives: select one disk only. This should be the first IDE (hda) or first SCSI disk (sda)

4. Size(MB): 100 (this is the size in Megabytes, allocate 100MB by entering "100")

5. Additional Size Options: select Fixed Size radiobutton from the options.

6. Force to be a primary partition: checked (select this checkbox to force the partition to be created as a primary partition)

After configuration, your settings should resemble the following illustration:

Once you are satisfied with your entries, click the OK button to create the partition.

Create / (root) Partition

Proceed by creating a root partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with the same form as previously when creating the boot partition. The details are identical to what was entered for the /bootpartition except this time the Mount Point: should be "/" and the Size(MB): should be 2048MB or at a minimum 1024MB.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, click the OK button to proceed.

Create Swap Partition

Proceed by creating a swap partition. Click on the New button. You will be presented with the same form as previously when creating the boot and root partitions. The details are identical to what was entered for the boot partition except this time the Mount Point: should swap. Use the drop down list to select a swap partition type. The Size(MB): of the partition should be at least 1024MB and need not exceed 2048MB.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, proceed by clicking the OK button to create the partition. You should now have a set of partitions ready for the Openfiler Operating System image to install to. Your disk partition scheme should resemble the following: 

You have now completed the partitioning tasks of the installation process and should click Next to proceed to the next step.

Network Configuration

In this section you will configure network devices, system hostname and DNS parameters. You will need to configure at least one network interface card in order to access the Openfiler web interface and to serve data to clients on a network. In the unlikely event that you will be using DHCP to configure the network address, you can simply click Next and proceed to the next stage of the installation process.

If on the other hand you wish to define a specific IP address and hostname, click the Edit button at the top right corner of the screen in the Network Devices section. Network interface devices are designated ethX where X is a number starting at 0. The first network interface device is therefore eth0. If you have more than one network interface device, they will all be listed in the Network Devices section.

When you click the Edit button, a new form will popup for you to configure the network device in question. As you do not wish to use DHCP for this interface, uncheck the Configure Using DHCP checkbox. This will then allow you to enter a network IP address and Netmask in the appropriate form fields. Enter your desired settings and click OK to proceed.

Once you have configured a network IP address, you may now enter a hostname for the system. The default hostname localhost.localdomain is not suitable and you will need to enter a proper hostname for the system. This will be used later when you configure the system to participate on your network either as an Active Directory / Windows NT PDC client or as an LDAP domain member server. You will also, at this point, need to configure gateway IP address and DNS server IP addresses. To complete this task you will need the following information:

1. Desired hostname - this is the name you will call the system. Usually this will be a fully qualified hostname e.g homer.the-simpsons.com .

2. Gateway IP address - this is the IP address of your network gateway to allow routing to the Internet

3. Primary DNS Server - this is the DNS server on your network. Note that if you intend to use Active Directory or LDAP as your authentication mechanism, you will need to assign a functional DNS IP address so that the authentication mechanism is able to resolve the authentication server hostnames.

4. Secondary/Tertiary DNS Server - enter a second and third DNS server if they are available on your network.

The following illustration shows an example where a hostname has been assigned, and gateway IP, primary and secondary DNS information has also been entered.

Once you are satisfied with your entries, please proceed by clicking the Next button.

Time Zone Selection

Set the default system time zone. You can achieve this by following the instructions on the left side of the screen. If your system BIOS has been configured to use UTC, check the UTC checkbox at the bottom of the screen and click Next to proceed.

Set Root Password

You need to configure a root password for the system. The root password is the superuser administrator password. With the root account, you can log into the system to perform any administrative tasks that are not offered via the web interface. Select a suitable password and enter it twice in the provided textboxes. When you are satisfied with your entries, click Next to proceed with the installation process.

NB: the root password is meant for logging into the console of the Openfiler server. The default username and password for the Openfiler web management GUI are: "openfiler" and "password" respectively.

About To Install

This screen informs you that installation configuration has been completed and the installer is awaiting your input to start the installation process which will format disks, copy data to the system and configure system parameters such as setting up the boot loader and adding system users. Click Next if you are satisfied with the entries you have made in the previous screens.

Note

You cannot go back to previous screens once you have gone past this point. The installer will erase any data on the partitions you defined in the partitioning section.

Installation

Once you have clicked Next in the preceding section, the installer will begin the installation process. The following screenshots depict what happens at this point.

Installation Complete

Once the installation has completed, you will be presented with a congratulatory message. At this point you simply need to click the Reboot button to finish the installer and boot into the installed Openfiler system.

Note

After you click Reboot remove the installation CD from the CD/DVD-ROM drive.

Once the system boots up, start configuring Openfiler by pointing your browser at the host name or IP address of the Openfiler system. The interface is accessible from https port 446. e.g.. https://homer.the-simpsons.com:446.

Management Interface: https://<ip of openfiler host>:446

Administrator Username: openfiler

Administrator Password: password

You can learn how to manage the Openfiler system by browsing the administrator guide online which can be found here.

Congratulations

Congratulations! Thank you for choosing to use Openfiler