Once the distribution is installed, you need to apply a basic configuration for all the Host in the infrastructure, and create a flexVDI Manager instance to get all your physical resources under control. This operation is done with flexvdi-config, a text based tool which allows you to easily accomplish these tasks.

Running flexVDI Config

After installing the Host and rebooting for the first time, flexVDI will show a login prompt. To launch flexVDI Config, follow the following steps:

1. Enter root as username, and the password configured during the installation.
2. Enter flexvdi-config on the command line, and press enter.

Initial configuration

The first time you run flexVDI Config, you'll be informed that an initial configuration will be applied for this Host.

You can run this operation again by selecting the Initial option in the main menu, but this is rarely needed.

Main menu

flexVDI Config main menu shows the following options:

1. Network: network configuration, creation of virtual bridges, vLANs and bonding.
2. Subscription: register the flexVDI Host in flexVDI portal to enable downloading software updates and flexVDI Manager.
3. Update: update the software of this flexVDI Host.
4. OCFS2: Configuration of shared storage.
5. Manager: Installation and coniguration of flexVDI Manager.
6. CIFS: Installation of a CIFS server on this flexVDI host to be used as ISO storage for the Guests Media Storage.

Network configuration

Select Network in order to configure the network settings.

Bonding creation

This feature allows you to use multiple network cards just as if there was only one. The flexVDI suite allows you to configure two different bonding modes:

• Active-backup: Only one slave card is active. If the active card fails, the other one becomes active and accepts network traffic. This option allows failure tolerance.
  
• 802.1ad:  This option allows interface aggregation in order to increase the bandwidth.  All interfaces must be configured with the same speed and bandwidth, and the network equipment (switches...) must support 802.1ad, also known as port Trunking or LACP (in Cisco).

To create a bonding with two network interfaces, follow these steps:

1. Choose Network in the main menu.
2. Choose Bondings.
3. Choose Create.
4. Choose the bonding mode that you wish to configure, Active-backup ó 802.1ad.

A new network interface named bondN will be created, where N is the bonding number starting at 0.

Now you have to configure this interface:

1. Select bond0 in the Bondings menu.
2. Use option Attach to add physical interfaces to the bonding
3. Use option Dettach to remove physical interfaces fromthe bonding
4. Use option Delete remove this bonding

Creating a virtual bridge

Virtual bridges communicate virtual machines with other computers. All the machines that have a network interface connected to the same virtual bridge will be connected to each other. Also, to access machines outside the flexVDI Host, a physical interface has to be assigned to that virtual bridge. It is important that all the servers included in the same infrastructure share the same network bridge configuration, so that the virtual machines will be able to start in any flexVDI Host with the required resources.

In the simplest case, we would have one network bridge (vibr0) with one physical interface assigned to it (eth0). This is the example described in the current guide. We will use this virtual bridge instance to communicate flexVDI Manager with other servers. In the event that the flexVDI Hosts have more than one physical interface, we must pay attention to ensure that the network bridge (virbr0) is defined on all the Hosts on interfaces belonging to the same physical network. In practice, you can create more complex configurations, such as defining multiple network bridges with different interfaces, physical interfaces devoted to specific purposes (iSCSI connection, management ...), and even create isolated network bridges. All these tasks can be performed from flexVDI Config.

To perform a simple configuration, follow these steps:

1. Select Network in the main menu.
2. Select Bridges.
3. Select Create.

You will be informed that a new network bridge named virbrN has been created, where N is the number of network bridge (in this case virbr0). Upon returning to the screen of network bridges, you will see you have a new bridge with that name, without any assigned slave. A isolated network bridge like that can be useful to define a subnet of virtual machines without direct access to the outside. Later you could create a virtual machine connected both to the isolated bridge and a second virtual bridge (with connection to the outside), to act as the router / firewall.

In order to attach a physical interface to the virtual bridge, just follow these steps:

1. Select virbr0.
2. Select Attach. A list of free network interfaces in that Host will be displayed. Select the one you want to use in order to provide network access to virtual machines (if you have any doubt, select eth0 and wire the first server interface).
   
   
   

As in the bondings option, when selecting a virtual bridge from the list, Dettach and Delete option remove a interface from the bridge, or remove the the bridge, respectively.

VLAN management

In a complex network configuration, it may be interesting to separate network traffic in different VLANs. The LocalVLAN option lets you define VLANs on network bridges so that the host can access them. This step only provides VLAN access to the host, but it is not needed to provide VLAN access to the virtual machines.

To create a VLAN on a network bridge, follow these steps:

1. Select Network in the main menu.
2. Select LocalVLAN.
3. Select Create.
4. Select the virtual network bridge on which you want to define access to the VLAN.
5. Enter the ID of the VLAN.
   

A new network interface is created with the name virbrN.id where virbrN is the name of the network bridge on which you created the VLAN and id is the VLAN identifier. Thus, through this interface the host is now able to access the VLAN in that virtual bridge.

Finally, selecting a VLAN interface on the menu a submenu LocalVLAN appears with the only option of deleting it.

Remember that the purpose of this option is giving the flexVDI host access to the VLANs. If you only need your flexVDI Manager to access VLAN , it is not necessary to perform these steps, as it is the flexVDI Manager the one that needs to be configured. Later on we will see the steps to do this.

TCP IP Configuration

The TCP / IP Network menu submenu lets you define the IP network parameters associated with each interface, both physical and virtual (bonding, bridge or VLAN). We will configure the network bridge virbr0 so that the host can access the Internet through it. This will allow us to update the host and download the flexVDI Manager image later.

1. Select Network in the main menu.
2. Select TCP / IP.
3. You will see a list of all available network interfaces on the host:
   
4. Select virbr0 and assign the appropriate network parameters for access to their corporate network. For example:

DNS Configuration 
 

Finally, the DNS option of the Network menu allows you to configure DNS servers for host name resolution. Simply enter the DNS option, and introduce the address of the name servers you want to use.

Applying network configuration changes

Once you have finished the previous steps, the network settings of your flexVDI Host have been defined. To apply this configuration, you must leave the Network menu. Then flexVDI-config will state that network settings have changed, so it is required to restart the network service for the changes to take effect. Confirm that you want to perform the operation. If you added or removed virtual bridges flexvdi-config will also prompt you to automatically restart the flexVDI Agent.

Registering this Host on flexVDI Network

In order to get software updates for the flexVDI Host and download the flexVDI Manager image, you need to register each flexVDI Host on the flexVDI Network. You just need Internet access in this Host, and the credentials provided when you registered in the Customer Portal (https://portal.flexvdi.com). Just select Subscription on the main menu, and enter your credentials.

Updating the distribution

It is recommended to perform an upgrade of the distribution after registration in the flexVDI Network. To do this, select the Update operation from the main menu. flexVDI Config asks for confirmation, and will remind you that this operation requires internet access and an active subscription to flexVDI Network. If everything is correct, select Yes and the update process will begin:

Registration and software update through a HTTP proxy

If your hosts reach Internet through an HTTP proxy, you need to configure flexVDI Config to use the proxy, BUT ONLY DURING THIS STEP.
If http proxy configuration is used in other steps, some of which access to other parts of the flexVDI infrastructure, such us the flexVDI Manager through http, these will probably fail.

To use the proxy to perform this single task, do the following:

• Close flexVDI Config.

• Configure bash shell environment variables using this command:

[root@flexhost ~]# export http_proxy=http://proxyname:proxyport https_proxy=https://proxyname:proxyport

• Now run flexvdi-config from that shell