Virtual machines

Ardexa has developed a version of Linux for x86_64 that is extremely reliable for IoT environments. It is known as ArdexaLinux. This guide will take you through the steps to load the ArdexaLinux image onto your virtual machine and install the Ardexa agent.

Note: Ardexa Devices provided to our enterprise customers come pre-installed with ArdexaLinux and an agent, so you can ignore this guide.

Preparation

This guide assumes that this is not your first time installing a virtual machine from scratch. If in doubt, please test this procedure on your local virtual environment first and if you still have questions, please contact your Account Manager

Please read this guide in full before starting the installation. Selecting "Install Ardexa" from the boot menu will automatically wipe the attached hard drive with no further user interaction. This is by design to make installing new machines as simple as possible. DO NOT boot this ISO on an existing machine unless you want to overwrite any and all data you have on that system. You have been warned.

The pre-requisites for these instructions are the following:

1. A virtual machine with

   1. 2, 4 or 8 cpus (depending on the expected load)

   2. 4, 8 or 16 GB RAM (Ardexa agent and plugins are quite memory efficient, so are more likely to be CPU bound than memory bound)

   3. 20, 60 or 100GB disk depending on the variety, frequency and historical requirements

   4. At least one network interface with internet access. Add more interfaces (or routes) to suit your network configuration and desired level of separation

   5. EFI mode is preferred

2. The ArdexaLinux Image, supplied by Ardexa.

3. The password for the ArdexaLinux image, also provided by Ardexa

4. Access to the Ardexa Cloud, and permissions that enable you to create a new Device

If you don't have these, contact Ardexa.

Install Ardexa Linux Image

• Copy the ArdexaLinux ISO image to a location that is accessible by the hypervisor and mount the ISO into the new virtual machine prior to the first boot

• Boot the machine. Make sure the BIOS setting is selected to boot off the ISO (this should happen by default since the primary drive is blank)

• A boot loader will appear. Select Install Ardexa to automatically install Ardexa.

WARNING: Shortly after pressing ENTER, the installer will completely wipe the attached hard drive. It will not stop to ask you for confirmation. This is the first and last time user interaction is required to complete the install.

• System will automatically reboot. If it does not boot to text-based login screen, then change the BIOS boot order to boot from the first hard drive and unmount the ISO.

Networking

If you are using a NAT interface or a bridged connection to a network running DHCP, then you can skip the setup and head straight to the last step to get the IP address: the Ardexa device will automatically attempt to use DHCP by default.

Static IP

To configure a static IP, you will need to log into the system and manually edit the network configuration files. While this is possible, we don't recommend it unless you are comfortable with Linux and the command line. Instead, get started using a NAT interface and once the agent is installed and the machine is connected to the Ardexa App, you can use the web UI to configure the interface before switching the VM network interface to its destination subnet.

Getting the IP address

Ardexa will have given you the username and password along with the ISO. Log into the system now, noting that nothing will appear on screen while you are typing the password.

Once you are logged in, run ip a and press ENTER to get a list of all the network interfaces. You will see something like this:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enX0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 9001 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 02:dd:b0:09:38:81 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.59.16.12/27 metric 100 brd 10.59.16.31 scope global dynamic enX0
       valid_lft 2270sec preferred_lft 2270sec
    inet6 fe80::dd:b0ff:fe09:3881/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: docker0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default 
    link/ether 02:42:7b:0e:6a:44 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 172.17.0.1/16 brd 172.17.255.255 scope global docker0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::42:7bff:fe0e:6a44/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

We are looking for the interface name that starts with en and then we are looking for the line starting with inet. This is the IP (and subnet) assigned to the interface, in this case 10.59.16.12/27.

Create Ardexa Agent

• Login into your Ardexa App Workgroup.

• Select [DEVICES] menu

• Select NEW DEVICE

  • Select Edge device

  • Input thes name of your device in your chosen format

  • Select Linux 64 bit (x86_64)

  • Click CREATE

A new agentPack will be automatically downloaded onto your local machine. You will need to transfer this agentPack to the Virtual Machine. Some common methods are:

• Using the hypervisor

  • Shared folder

  • Network drive

  • USB pass through

  • Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) attached as a removeable drive (virtual USB stick)

• SSH: either copying TO the machine or logging into the machine and copying FROM another system

• Downloaded from a web or FTP server

Install Ardexa Agent

For installation of the Ardexa agent, see Installation (ARM64 or X86/AMD64)

Setting up the timezone

Review the process here to setup the device time zone.

A note about reusing Virtual Disks

It is tempting (and quite efficient) to take a copy of this baseline install and use it for other images. This can be a great method for rolling out many virtual machines, but there is one catch to be aware of. Ardexa Agents use their digital certificate as their identity. By taking a copy of the disk after the agent is installed and using it in another machine, you now have two machines using the same identity. This is a problem, but one that is fairly easy to work around.

The trick is to have a dedicated "provisioning" device. Install this into your baseline image and each new machine will start with it as the default identity. Once the machine is connected, you can then use the move workgroup feature to transfer the device and give it a new identity. This way, no device is ever permanently using the "provisioning" identity and you can keep re-using it for all your future installs. Just make sure not to start two new VMs at the same time!