MidVision RapidDeploy for HTTP Server on Azure

Microsoft Azure Installation and Support guide

1. Overview

This guide will provide step by step instructions how to start using the installed products on your Microsoft Azure instance.

This Azure Virtual Machine contains a ready-to-run MidVision RapidDeploy for HTTP Server image at the selected version. In order to use this image, you need to launch it with your selected type. 

Visit the MidVision RapidDeploy for HTTP Server pages on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace
Launch on Azure

2. Launching an instance

In order to launch a MidVision RapidDeploy for HTTP Server instance, a few settings need to be configured on the Azure console as follows:

  1. Open new Azure Virtual Machine wizard;
  2. Select the IBM IHS Azure image based on your requirements from gallery;
  3. Choose VM name, size, Authentication user and credentials. The Standard DS2V2/General Purpose type or larger is recommended when running IBM HTTP.  Basic DS1V2 is the minimal requirement, which will be sufficient to run IBM IHS. Larger instances may be required based on the number of IBM HTTP servers etc required and the expected resource use of each;
  4. Define cloud service DNS name, Regions and open endpoint ports.
Port 22 to connect via SSH (enabled by default), 
Port 80 to reach the Http Server,
Port 9090 to reach RapidDeploy web console (enabled by default), 
Port 20000 and 20100 to open for RapidDeploy Remote Agent (optional)

 3. Initial login and setup

The MidVision RapidDeploy for HTTP Server product is shipped with a base binary installation. On the first login to the instance, you will be placed into a console wizard. The following is an overview of the steps you will be guided through to create the required profiles on the instance:

  1. Log onto the instance via SSH with your Azure user and credentials.
  2. Once the admin user is logged in, please log in as the  ‘midvision’ user via the command ‘sudo su – midvision’.
  3. You are placed in a setup wizard.
  4. Set initial password for RapidDeploy user “mvadmin”.
  5. Choose which ports to open on Red Hat Linux firewall. You should open port 9090 for the RapidDeploy web console if required. YOu should open ports 80 and 443 for the Http Server.

All inputs asking for specific data can be left as blank just by hitting [return], which will pick the default value displayed at the end of the question. Please refer to IBM documentation for WebSphere HTTP Server configuration.

Once the VM instance has started up:

  1. Log onto the instance via SSH as the ‘azureuser’ user, using the key you selected above.  For example:
    • Via SSH from your desktop, for example 
      ssh -i ./MidVisionUSMC.pem azureuser@[public-ip-address]
  2. Type sudo su - midvision
  3. You should see the MidVision banner and then you are placed in a setup wizard. 
    Welcome to                                                                                                                                             

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|  \/  (_) __| \ \   / (_)___(_) ___  _ __        / ___| | ___  _   _  __| |
| |\/| | |/ _` |\ \ / /| / __| |/ _ \| '_ \ _____| |   | |/ _ \| | | |/ _` |
| |  | | | (_| | \ V / | \__ \ | (_) | | | |_____| |___| | (_) | |_| | (_| |
|_|  |_|_|\__,_|  \_/  |_|___/_|\___/|_| |_|      \____|_|\___/ \__,_|\__,_|

                                                       A MidVision Service

        * WebSite: https://www.midvisioncloud.com/product-category/microsoft-azure-marketplace
        * Support: http://support.midvision.com/redmine/projects/devtestcloud
        * Forum:   https://www.midvisioncloud.com/community      

Please run 'sudo su - midvision' to start using provided services.

Welcome, this is DevTestCloud IBM IHS image first run configuration

Note that you can rerun this configuration wizard again by executing /home/midvision/firstrunsetup.sh script

Configuration steps
- Set RapidDeploy framework initial password
- Open ports on RHEL firewall

4. Accessing the web and command line consoles

4.1 Access the IBM HTTP Server (IHS)

Confirm installation. The IBM IHS Web Server should be running on port 80:

http://[publicip]

4.2 Access the RapidDeploy Web Console

RapidDeploy server and agent will start up automatically when you start your instance. You can access the web console on:

http://[publicip]:9090/MidVision

Note: make sure you have port 9090 open in your Security group when trying to access RapidDeploy web console. For the first time, you can set the password for the default username ” mvadmin “. 

You can prevent auto starting RapidDeploy on instance startup by removing it from the system chkconfig list.

systemctl disable rapiddeploystart.service 

5. Maintaining the installation

The following sections cover some of the activities you might want to perform after the instance has been started.
  • midvision: This is the default user, which you can log in as. It is permitted to use all SUDO rights. To switch to the root user, type “sudo su“.
  • root: This is the superuser in linux systems. You can log in as any other user without using passwords. E.g: “su azureuser“, “su midvision
  • azureuser: The Azure default user.

RedHat Enterprise Linux instances are shipped with a firewall by default to protect your machine. For security reasons, the instance is only accessible via SSH (port 22) at first, so further ports can be opened on the firewall as needed. You will need to open all the ports in this internal firewall, which you have open in your Security group. There is a script placed in the user home of the midvision user (/home/midvision), which is also the starting location when logged in. You will need to be the root user to run this script. Example usage:

[midvision@ ] sudo ./open-firewall.sh 9090
Open firewall port 9090 iptables: Saving firewall rules to /etc/sysconfig/iptables:[ OK ]
 

There are a few scripts and other files in midvision and root users home directory, which will need to remain unchanged in order to keep the provided scripts working. There are a set of scripts in midvision home directory. Those scripts are executed when logging into the instance controlled by .bash_profile, but you can also execute them manually whenever they are needed. There are some hidden files used as well,.firstrun indicates that the setup wizard has already run once, .host file is needed to determine the previously bound hostname to WebSphere service.

To restart RapidDeploy manually from the filesystem, use the rapiddeploy linux service. The RapidDeploy version is 5.0. RapidDeploy home is located at /var/rd/midvision Example usage:

[midvision@ ] sudo service rapiddeploystart start 
[midvision@ ] sudo service rapiddeploystart stop

The RapidDeploy server uses an in-memory database, so your RapidDeploy framework needs to be shut down properly to save your work. This happens when the instance is stopping or when calling the stop service manually from the command line. Note that on instance restart, unsaved data will be lost.

If you don’t want to use RapidDeploy and free memory on your instance you can stop rapiddeploy service using command:

[midvision@ ] sudo service rapiddeploystart stop

Then in order to make sure it will not start when an instance starts again run this command:

[midvision@ ] sudo systemctl disable rapiddeploystart.service

For security reasons, you will need to change the default password (default value is ‘[instance-id]‘) for user mvadmin. This will be requested the first time only when you log in to the RapidDeploy server.

6. Troubleshooting

6.1 Session loss during setup

If you lose your SSH connection to the target instance during the first run setup script execution (e.g. as a result of a network problem), we advise you to delete and recreate the Azure instance and run the script again.

6.2 Contacting MidVision support

Please visit our support website.