Ubuntu Server 10.04 to QuantaStor Upgrade Guide

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NOTE: This guide is out-of-date, we recommend installing from the latest QuantaStor ISO if you're running QuantaStor on a base OS that's older than Ubuntu 16.04.

If you want to install Quantastor™ onto a existing Ubuntu 10.04 system you can simply upgrade it rather than having to reinstall the system using the QuanataStor installation media. Upgrading Ubuntu is a fairly straight forward process and can be summarized as follows:

  1. Download and Install Ubuntu Server 10.04.1 LTS with default options (~10 min)
  2. Install the QuantaStor packages via the 'apt-get' utility (~5 min)
  3. Login to QuantaStor Manager by connecting to your new QuantaStor system's IP address via your web browser and follow the Getting Started configuration checklist presented at your initial login.

Installation takes a total of about 15 to 30 minutes depending on the speed of your internet connection and your server hardware. In the following sections we'll go over each of these steps in detail.

Minimum System Requirements

  • Intel or AMD 64bit processor
  • Minimum 1 GB RAM
    • The more RAM you add the better as all excess RAM is utilized as read cache.
  • One (1) SATA, SAS, IDE, or SSD drive for use as the QuantaStor boot drive
    • If you're installing to USB flash media, please see our special instructions.
  • One or more (1+) SATA, SAS, SSD or IDE disk drives for use as data drives

Installing Ubuntu Server

If you don't already have Ubuntu Server installed, you can download the installation CD from ubuntu.com here:

After you have downloaded the installation CD you'll need to burn it to a CD-R using your CD burning software. After you have your Ubuntu Server 10.04 x64 CD in hand, place the disk into your server's CD-ROM and install it to a hard disk or SSD drive. Keep in mind that QuantaStor needs a dedicated disk for the OS so you will need one full hard disk for booting the system, and additional disks for data. The boot disk cannot be utilized by the system for creation storage pools so we recommend using a small capacity 2.5" drive for your system drive. The other benefit of using a 2.5" drive is that you can mount it to the interior of the server and not take up any of the hot-swap drive bays on the front of the enclosure.

NOTE: Installing to USB Flash Media

Installing to a USB flash driver is not recommended. Originally we looked at using USB flash media as a boot drive but in our testing we found that these drives would switch to read-only mode after a week or two of use. We have determined this to be a USB driver problem and are looking into addressing this in a future release so that USB media can be used. We recommend using two small capacity SATA drives (HDD or SDD) in a hardware mirror configuration for easy maintenance. The capacity of the drive should be at least 30GB + total of system RAM in GB.

During the installation you can take the default option for just about everything (just press Enter), but we recommend you deviate from the defaults in a few areas:

  • When you are asked for the system's hostname, change the default 'ubuntu' to something more relevant like 'quantastor-server1'
  • When you're presented with the list of server roles, select/check the 'OpenSSL Server' package from the list so that you may remotely manage the box over SSH.
  • Use a username of 'qadmin' for the default user account. This is not required, but whichever name and password you choose, be sure to write it down as you will need it in step 2. We will refer to this account as the 'qadmin' user account.

Partitioning

For step-by-step instructions partitioning and the installation process click here.

At this point you should have a working/booting Ubuntu Server installation. Next we're going to convert it into a QuantaStor iSCSI storage system.

Installing the OSNEXUS Quantastor packages

First login with the 'qadmin' user account. Next you'll need change to superuser/root in order to install packages and configure the system. To do that type 'sudo -i' and enter your password for your 'qadmin' account again. 

$ sudo -i

Next we need to tell the system where to find the QuantaStor packages. This command will create a file indicating to the system that additional packages can be found at http://packages.osnexus.com/packages. 

$ echo "deb http://packages.osnexus.com/packages lucid main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osnexus.list

Now we need to have the system gather information about those packages 

$ wget http://packages.osnexus.com/osnexus.gpg
$ apt-key add ./osnexus.gpg
$ apt-get update


Now we're ready to install the QuantaStor kernel. 

$ apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.35-17
$ apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.35-17-quantastor
$ apt-get install linux-image-2.6.35-17-quantastor


At this point, you need to reboot the box and verify that the new kernel is running. After the reboot, login and type this: 

$ uname -a

The output should look something like this, the key part is the 2.6.35-17 which is the kernel version. If it's still showing 2.6.32 the kernel upgrade didn't work. 

Linux quantastor 2.6.35-17-quantastor #23~lucid1 SMP Sat Aug 21 17:03:57 PDT 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Now we're ready to install all the QuantaStor storage system packages. You can do that in one step and it will drag all the other packages along as dependencies. 

$ sudo apt-get install qstormanager

That's it. The install will take a couple of minutes and note that the beta packages are not yet signed so you may have to explictly answer "y" or "Y" to a question like "Are you sure you want to install these unsigned packages [y/n]?".

The installation process will also install Postfix on the system. Postfix allows the QuantaStor system to send you emails when system alerts occur.

NOTE: Postfix Configuration

When you are presented with the 'Postfix Configuration' screen you'll want to setup the system as a 'Satellite system'. So press ENTER at the welcome page and then choose 'Satellite system" from the list noted as 'General type of mail configuration:'.

Next you'll set the "System mail name:". For this you can use the default that is presented (press ENTER) or you can enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that this system has been or will be assigned in your network's DNS server configuration.

Finally, you can specify the SMTP relay host if you have an SMTP server you want to relay outgoing mail through. If you don't know what it is or don't have one, delete what ever address is there (make it blank) and then press ENTER.

At this point package installation will continue (you'll see a number of messages saying "Setting up ...." and this will all complete within a couple of minutes.

Logging into QuantaStor Manager

At this point the storage system is installed ready to be managed and configured via your web browser using QuantaStor Manager. To access QuantaStor Manager you'll need to enter https://<system-ip-address> into your web browser where <system-ip-address> is replaced with the real IP address of the storage system. If you don't know the IP address, simply login as qadmin as you did before, and type ifconfig to get the IP address of the system. 

$ ifconfig

This will return information on your network adapters including the IP address of the system. Again, enter this IP address of the system into your web browser and the QuantaStor login screen will appear. For example, if the IP address shown in the ifconfig data is 192.168.0.224 you'll enter the URL https://192.168.0.224 into your web browser.

On the first login you enter the default 'admin' account name, and a password of 'password' without the quotes.


Configuring your QuantaStor Storage System

After you have logged in you will be immediately presented with the Getting Started checklist. This is here to help you quickly get the system configured without having had any prior knowledge of how to use QuantaStor. The first thing on this list is to enter your license key which you will have received via email. Free 90 day Trial Edition keys and Free/Community Edition keys are available from the web site here.

At this point we recommend that you review the Administrator's Guide for more detailed information on configuring your storage system.

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