Getting Started with Zadara

Zadara customers are using the File Fabric to take advantage of the high durability, scalability and low cost of Zadara Cloud Services. Customers are able to securely extend access to end users and existing file-based applications, significantly reducing migration costs to the cloud.

For more information on See The Enterprise File Fabric™ — The Killer Solution for Object Storage !

For evaluation and small to mid-size production environments the Enterprise File Fabric™ solution is typically deployed as a single virtual machine. The virtual machine includes an embedded database and search index.

The Enterprise File Fabric solution may also be deployed for High Availability with multiple virtual machines and a separate database.

Please contact us for more information on setting up HA deployments on the Zadara Cloud.

For production deployments see also Server Sizing Guide.

You will need the following information before you can complete setup on Zadara:

• A domain name (recommended)
• License key (required) - A trial key can be requested from Enterprise File Fabric Sign Up.
• KVM machine image for File Fabic in qcow2 format (contact mailto:support@storagemadeeasy.com)
• Outbound mail relay information. (recommended)
• Default storage system connectivity details - for example, Zadara Object Storage (required)
• An Active Directory service account if you are connecting to AD (optional)

From the Zadara Cloud Services console navigate to Machine Images and select “+ Create”.

1. Details Tab

Complete the tab and select Next:

• Name: File Fabric
• Create Image From: File or URL
• Firmware Type: BIOS
• Operating System: CentOS 7

2. Setup Tab

Complete the tab and select Finish:

• Create Image From: File or URL
• Storage Pool: SSD Pool
• Disk Type: Dosl

If you've chosen a URL location the file will be uploaded in the background.

From the Zadara Cloud Services console navigate to Networking > Security Groups and select “+ Create”.

Complete the form and select OK.

• Name: file-fabric-sg
• VPC: <Default>
• Rules:

From the Zadara Cloud Services console navigate to Compute > Instances and select “+ Create”.

1. Compute Tab

Complete the tab and select Next:

• Name: file-fabric-2006-vm
• Create From: Image
• Image: File Fabric 2006
• Instance Type:

• Key Pair: (not required)

2. Storage Tab

• Storage Pool: SSD Pool

3. Networking Tab

• Subnet
• IP
• DNS Name: file-fabric-2006-vm
• Security Group: file-fabric-sg

3. Config Tab

Select “Create”.

The instance can now be accessed at IP address using a standalone SSH client. The username is smeconfiguser and the password can be found in your trial email. For example:

ssh smeconfiguser@54.194.216.200

Check that you can become root. The root password can also be found in the trial email.

sudo bash

This will be required to complete configuration.

For security, change the password for smeconfiguser and root.

passwd

The appliance is configured, by default, with DHCP and a self-generated untrusted SSL certificate.

In order to use the web, desktop and mobile apps over SSL you will need a trusted SSL certificate and a fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

If you do NOT wish to use SSL for the trial you can disable it.

1. Log in as the Appliance Administrator as per the instructions below.
2. Navigate to Settings > Site Functionality
3. Set Always use HTTPS to No.
4. Set Generate secure server-side links to No.
5. Select Update options at the bottom of the page.

Choose three fully qualified domain names (FQDNs). For example:

• files.example.com - Domain name (service endpoint and website)
• files-webdav.example.com - used for WebDAV service
• files-s3.example.com - used for S3 service

Add DNS type A records that point these domain names to the appliance IP Address. For example,

Verify that Public DNS records are setup correctly:

curl -Lk http://files.example.com | head
curl -Lk http://files-webdav.example.com | head
curl -Lk http://files-s3.example.com | head

These commands should resolve the domain name, connect to port 80, get redirected to port 443 and return (part of) the web login page:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
   
<head>
	<!-- title -->
		<title>Home | SME Appliance</title>
	
	<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="content-type"/>
	<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EDGE,IE=11,chrome=1"/>
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no"/>

To update the appliance with the FQDN change to the root user by issuing “sudo bash“ with SSH. You can then edit /etc/hostname or simply:

echo files.example.com > /etc/hostname

If you are logged in as root leave root privilege:

[root@files smeconfiguser]# exit

As the smeconfiguser start the configuration server by typing smeconfigserver. You should see a confirmation that the config server is running:

[smeconfiguser@files ~]$ smeconfigserver
Please contact me with a browser on port 8080
Hit Ctrl+C when work is done

Now open your browser to:

http://<your_ip>:8080

Here you only need to configure the three domain names. Click “Configuration” and then “SME Server Hostname Settings”.

After Saving go to the “Overview” page and scroll down to the bottom to “Apply”. No other changes are required for the appliance on Zadara.

Follow the prompts on the page to reboot the appliance. If you are not doing this immediately stop the Config Server by typing Control-C in the terminal window.

The next step is add a trusted SSL certificate. You can generate one via Let's Encrypt or use your own certification.

Follow the instructions at SSL Certificates.

Open a browser to the domain name you assigned:

 https://files.example.com   

If you haven't set a domain name, use your external IP address:

 https://3.234.139.146

You'll see the following login page:

Log into the appliance as appladmin with a password from your trial license:

 User name: appladmin
 Password: appladminpassword

Configure your license key under Settings > License Key.

A trial key can be requested from https://www.storagemadeeasy.com/appform/.

Select “Password/Login” from the Main Menu to change the Appliance Administrator password.

After you select “Update password” you will be logged out and need to log back in.

An SMTP server is used by the appliance to send registration and notification emails to users. A daily report and error notices are also emailed to the “Notification Email”.

See SMTP Configuration.

If you do not initially configure an email server remember not to use email notifications when adding users.

With an SMTP server configured you can change the email of the Appliance Admin which will require a confirmation email.

Go to the main menu (Hamburger icon) to Password/Login to change the Account Email.

You can also set up Two Factor Authentication (2FA) for the Appliance Admin from this screen.

Server errors and a daily report are sent to a notification email that must be configured by the Appliance Administrator. The default is not to email reports.

The “Notification Email” setting is on the “SMTP and Filebox Configuration” page that can be found via the menu “Email and Filebox”.

An organization is an administrative unit for a set of users. It includes policies, storage resources, and permissions for those users. Organizations, also called tenants, are self-managed by their users and not accessible or even visible from other organizations on the same appliance.

The appliance administrator creates organizations and provides credentials for the first “Organization Administrator” who will log in to complete the setup of organization policies and users.

To create an organization see Organizations and Policies.

Log out as the appladmin user, and log back in as the user you just created. You will first see the “Add Storage Provider” screen. You have to add storage before you can continue setup. The first storage added is the “default storage” used for internal files such as generated image thumbnails. The default storage can be changed in the future.

• Zadara Object Storage - select Open S3 - S3 Compatible Cloud and follow the instructions on the next couple of screens.
• Zadara SMB - use one of the SMB connectors. Use the Multiuser SMB connector if you are using AD integration.
• Zadara NFS - use the FS (File System) connector.

See Adding an S3 Compatible Cloud Provider for more information.

An authentication provider can be added to allow users to log in using their corporate credentials. See Authentication Services for more information.

Once this is complete you can:

• Add users
• Share files
• …

For more information see Nasuni Access Anywhere