Preparations

Prepare Operating Systems

Before installing Software with Riedel Software Manager, prepare the Nodes (servers, computers, virtual machines) you intend to install software on with an operating system. For this, follow the official operating system installation guides: Debian “bookworm” release 12.x (the latest stable release).

Information on preparing a virtual machine instance in Oracle Virtualbox can be found in the chapter Prepare Virtual Machine Environment.

• Please use the suggested standard installation mode and do not install any minimal/light installation variants.

• Do not configure a root password. This enables the regular use of sudo commands without the need for further configuration by RSM.

• Configure a network interface that has an Internet connection.

• Set the software selection: SSH server + standard system utilities.

Make a note of the IP address, the username and password (also used as SSH credentials) chosen during the installation of the operating system. This will be required later in the Riedel Software Manager during the initial configuration to connect to the Nodes.

Download required Assets

To create a server based Riedel software installation, at least three files are required and need to be obtained from Riedel Customer Success:

• Riedel Software Manager (RSM)
  Main Application (Windows, macOS or Linux).

• Suite File (*.suite)
  Choose the suite file containing all desired Riedel features.

• Node File (*.node)
  Choose the Node file fitting your operating system version (e.g. Debian 12).

Network Requirements

Configuration

Make sure that you are using a freshly installed system before you start creating a Cluster with RSM.

When installing a Cluster, the network settings configured in the server setup are migrated to the NetworkManager, which is the network management system used by the #Cockpit-Project.

If you want to create a complex network configuration with RSM before creating a Cluster, this configuration must use the NetworkManager under Linux so that it is correctly adopted by Cockpit Project after the Cluster has been created.

• Please only use the standard network configuration when setting up the server.

• If a custom network configuration is required,

  • either perform it via Cockpit after installation

  • or configure the network with NetworkManager on the node before using the node in a Cluster.

Connectivity

The prepared Nodes (servers, computers, virtual machines) must have network connectivity to the computer designated to run the Riedel Software Manager on. The COTS servers require an Internet connection during installation.

IP Addresses

Every Node of the Cluster requires an individual IP address in the network. For high-availability Clusters, a fourth address is required. This is a Virtual IP address used as a floating address assigned to one of the Nodes serving as the high-available connection point for other systems to communicate with the Cluster.

DNS

It is recommended to provide DNS resolution for host names for the individual Nodes of a Cluster. This way certificates are issued using the host name, and the IP address can be changed after the Cluster has been created. For this, the network must have a working DNS server to provide DNS resolution, or DNS resolution can be achieved by creating static host entries on the computers that interact with the Cluster.

If DNS resolution support is not available, the Cluster can also be created based on IP addresses only. In this scenario, changing any of the IP addresses after creating the Cluster is not supported. To change the IP address, the Cluster needs to be destroyed and then recreated.

Example

Refer to the following tables for an example.

Single Node Setup:

High-Availability Setup:

Cockpit Project

RSM will install Cockpit project on the Cluster Nodes to simplify management of IP addresses and other server-related settings.

• The web interface of the Cockpit project is available http://[node ip]:9090.

• You can log in with the user name and password that was created during the server setup.

For an extensive user guide on Cockpit project please refer to:
Read Hat Documentation – Managing systems using the RHEL 9 web console