With Service Pack 3, Novell ZENworks Configuration Management now features a software appliance deployment option. This session explores the benefits of running Novell ZENworks Configuration Management as an appliance, provides guidance on when to choose this option, and gives you step-by-step deployment instructions. We'll also look at future plans for the appliance and invite you to offer your ideas and suggestions.

1. Introduction to Novell ZENworks ® ®
Configuration Management
Software Appliance
Jonathan Giffard
Senior Product Manager ZENworks
Novell, Inc./ jgiffard@novell.com

2. Contents
Why Appliances?
ZCMA
Deploying
Operational Considerations
Question Time
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3. Why Appliances?

4. Analogy Time
• Lets use the motor industry
Independent Software Vendors (ISV)
are manufacturers
End users are customers
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5. End User Expectation of ISV
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6. ISV Expectation of the End User
+
=
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7. End User Reality
+ =
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8. Appliance is Like an
Assembled Motorbike
• End users should be able to use the software
– They don't need to know how the everything is put together
• ISV is the manufacturer
– They know how the software works
– They know how the software should be installed
– They know how the operating system should be configured
– They know how to put it all together
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9. What's in an Appliance
Ingredients
Application Appliance
Install Files
Installation
Instructions
JeOS
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10. Delivering Appliances
Hypervisor Silicon
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11. Introducing ZCMA

12. Novell ZENworks Configuration
® ®
Management Appliance
SUSE Studio
ZENworks ®
Appliance
Configuration
Management 10.3
Installation
instructions
SUSE Linux ®
Enterprise Server
12 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

13. Overview
• Software appliance
– Built as a virtual machine from SUSE Studio
®
• JeOS
– Reduced footprint SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
Support for Novell ZENworks Configuration Management (ZCM) plus
® ®
> SNMP for monitoring
> samba for backups/UNC based content
> ssh and vnc for remote administration
– Firewall
> Ports only open for ZCM, ssh, vnc, snmp and samba
– Updates
> Critical updates will be supplied using ZCM System Update
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14. ZCMA Capabilities
• Identical to standard Novell ZENworks Configuration
® ®
Management
– Add patch, asset services using license keys
• Database support
– Internal Sybase
– External Sybase
– Microsoft SQL Server
– Oracle
> ZCM yes
> ZRS needs Oracle client
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15. Availability
• Obtaining
– It's not part of system update
> http://download.novell.com
– Follow links for Novell ZENWorks Configuration
® ®
Management (ZCM) 10.3 and select the appliance
– Import straight into ESXi
> Extract VMDK for use with VMware Workstation
• ZCMA will be a standard capability of ZCM 10.3
– Its free
– Really , it's FREE!
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16. Usage
• Setup development/test zones
• Leverage ESXi infrastructure
– Make appliance part of existing zone
– Create a new production zone
– Add / remove capacity as required
• DR
– Appliance can be deployed quickly
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17. Future
• Next release due for Novell ZENworks ® ®
Configuration Management (ZCM) 11
– JeOS to latest SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
®
– YaST replaced by WebYast
– Additional VM format: Xen, VMware workstation
– Live Image for installation on hardware
– Include as an option for SUSE Studio
> Roll your own appliance
• Post ZCM 11
– Satellite appliance/VPN/Amazon EC2 machine/?
– Ideas welcome
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18. Deploying with ESXi/ESX

19. Requirements
• Appliance virtual machines minimum needs
– vCPU: 1
– Memory: 4Gb
– Storage: 50Gb
• Hypervisor
– ESXi / ESX
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20. Importing Appliance into ESXi
• Load vSphere console
• File → Deploy OVF template
• Deploy from file
– Browse to appliance
OVA file
– Ignore warning on OS
• Set
– Name and location
– Resource pool
– Datastore
• Wait
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21. Post Import Edits
• Increase vCPU
count to 2
• Guest OS to SUSE ®
Linux Enterprise
Server (SLES) 64bit
• Add CDROM drive
• Ready for power on
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22. Deploying with VMware Workstation

23. Requirements
• Appliance virtual machines minimum needs
– vCPU: 1
– Memory: 2Gb
– Storage: 50Gb
• Hypervisor
– Need 64-bit host OS
– VMware Workstation 6.5 / 7
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24. Getting the VMDK
• Appliance ships as OVA
– Compressed
– Virtual machine definition
– Virtual machine disk
• Virtual machine disk is compatible with
VMware Workstation
• To get the disk from the OVA
– WinRAR to extract files in OVA
– Look for vmdk.gz
– Unzip this file to get virtual disk
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25. Importing Appliance
• Load VMware Workstation
• File → New Virtual Machine
• Follow wizard
• Important settings
– SCSI adapter
> LSI
– Use existing virtual disk
> Select extracted vmdk
> Ignore conversion
message
• At end, VMware will power
appliance up
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26. Post Import Edits
• Required components
– CDROM drive
• Optional
– Sound card
– USB controller
– Floppy
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27. Using ZCMA for the First Time

28. First Power On
• Run SUSE Linux Enterprise
®
Server (SLES) mini setup
– Language
– EULA
> 1 for SLES and 1 for
Novell ZENworks
® ®
Configuration Management
– Keyboard
– Timezone
– Root password
– Network
> Set IP details
– Novell ZENworks
® ®
> Slight pause for X-server to start
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29. ZENworks Installation ®
• It's actually just configuration
– Files have already been installed
• Identical to
normal installation
• Exception
– Always offers to install ZRS
after Novell ZENworks
®
Configuration Management
– Cancel if needed
– WARNING: ZRS installation
takes several minutes
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30. Administration
• Appliance supports
– ssh
– Vnc
• Alternatively
– ESXi console, vSphere
– VMware Workstation console
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31. Backup
• Strategies
– Backup entire appliance VM
– Install corporate backup agent on appliance
– Use internal appliance tools to create backup files and
then export to standard backup plan using CIFS shares.
• What to backup
– Internal CA if this is first primary in a zone
– Novell ZENworks Configuration Management
® ®
configuration details
– Internal Sybase database if used
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32. Monitoring
• Basic facilities
– Gnome monitor
• SNMP
– Integrate with existing management tools such as
> Nagios
> Solarwinds
> OpenNMS
> Managewise
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33. Getting Geeky with ZCMA

34. Install VMware Tools
Step 1
• Power up appliance virtual machine
• In vSphere,
– Inventory → Virtual Machine → Guest → Install/Upgrade VMware tools
• In VMware workstation
– VM → Install VMware tools
• ssh into appliance
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35. Install VMware Tools
Step 2
• Login as root
mkdir /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/hda /mnt/cdrom
cp /mnt/cdrom/VMware*.tar.gz ~/ -v
cd ~
tar -xf
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl
• Restart required
shutdown -r now
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36. Post VMware Tool Change
Network Card e1000 to vmxnet
• vmxnet improves performance
– Supports jumbo frames on gigabit networking
• Steps
– Remove e1000 adapter
– Add new network card using vmxnet 2 advanced adapter
– Start appliance
– Login as root
– YaST
> Delete VMWare Abstract Pro/1000 MT single port
> Configure VMWare Abstract Ethernet Controller
– Check network connection works
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37. Backup
Setting Up a Samba Share
• Objective
– Have tar'd backup files exposed on CIFS share
– Organizational backup tool can just grab them as part
of standard backup schedule
• Steps
– Create directory to hold backup files
– Use yast2 samba-server
> Add new share using folder created previously
> Add Guest OK for anonymous access
– Browse share from Windows machine to check access
37 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

38. Backup
Novell ZENworks Configuration Management Stuff
® ®
• zman
– Command line interface to many primary server functions
• To run from bash script
– Store zone credentials in user home directory
zman asc
– When user runs zman again, zone credentials are read
from this file
• Now can use cron to automate zman commands
– Schedule backups
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39. Backup
CA Authority
• Command to use
– zman certificate-authority-export/zman cae
• Parameters
– File path to export CA details to
– File encryption pass phrase 10 characters long
• Example
– Create pass phrase
> 1234567890 >> ~/myphrase.txt
– Run zman
> zman cae ~/my-ca-backup.bck < myphrase.txt
39 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

40. Backup
Automate Steps for CA Authority
• Process
– Place commands into a bash script
– Schedule with cron
• Example: backup every day at 8pm
– backup-ca.sh
> #!/bin/bash
> ZMANPATH=”/opt/novell/zenworks/bin”
> BACKUPPATH=”/mnt/backup/ca-backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).bck”
> PHRASEPATH=”/root/myphrase.txt”
> $ZMANPATH/zman cae $BACKUPPATH < $PHRASEPATH
> tar -cZf $BACKUPPATH.tgz $BACKUPPATH
– crontab -e
> 00 20 * * * /root/backup-ca.sh
40 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

41. Backup
Content Store
• Content store location
– /var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo
• Size
– Could be Gbs
• tar straight into backup folder
> tar -cFz /mnt/backup/content-repo.tgz /var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo
41 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

42. Backup
Automate Steps for Content Store
• Process
– Place commands into a bash script
– Schedule with cron
• Example: backup every day at 8pm
– backup-content.sh
> #!/bin/bash
> CONTENTPATH=”/var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo”
> BACKUPPATH=”/mnt/backup/content-repo-backup_$(date +%Y%m%d)”
> tar -cZf $BACKUPPATH.tgz $CONTENTPATH
– crontab -e
> 00 20 * * * /root/backup-content.sh
42 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

43. Backup
Sybase Database
• Command to use
– zman zenserver-backup / zman zsb
• Parameters
– File path to backup
– File encryption pass phrase >= 10 characters long
• Example
– Create pass phrase
> 1234567890 >> ~/myphrase.txt
– Run zman
> zman zsb ~/my-db-backup.bck < myphrase.txt
43 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

44. Backup
Automate Steps for Sybase
• Process
– Place commands into a bash script
– Schedule with cron
• Example: backup every day at 8pm
– backup-db.sh
> #!/bin/bash
> ZMANPATH=”/opt/novell/zenworks/bin”
> BACKUPPATH=”/mnt/backup/db-backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).bck”
> PHRASEPATH=”/root/myphrase.txt”
> $ZMANPATH/zman zsb $BACKUPPATH < $PHRASEPATH
> tar -cZf $BACKUPPATH.tgz $BACKUPPATH
– crontab -e
> 00 20 * * * /root/backup-ca.sh
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45. Restore
• Spin up a new appliance
• Following documentation at novell.com
– Restore ZCM server
– Restore Certificate authority
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46. UNC for Content
Samba CIFS Share
• Objective
– Have UNC path for content distribution
• Steps
– Create directory to hold content files
– Use yast2 samba-server
> Add new share using folder created previously
> Add Guest OK for anonymous access
– Browse share from Windows machine to check access
46 © Novell, Inc. All rights reserved.

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