A flexVDI infrastructure uses an instance of flexVDI Manager to manage its resources and coordinate the actions of the all the components. This instance can be created and managed with the flexvdi-config tool. A single flexVDI Manager instance manages a full flexVDI cluster with several hosts. Therefor, we will performe the flexVDI manager installation only once during the installation of the first node of the cluster. The rest fo the hosts only need to be registered with the manager; this step is explained later in the Administration Guide.

The "Manager" option in flexvdi-config shows a menu with the following options:

Install: Installs a new instance of flexVDI Manager.
Password: Changes the password of the flexVDI Manager.
Backup: Back up the information managed by the flexVDI Manager.
Restore: Restore a backup.
Upgrade: Upgrade the instance of flexVDI Manager.
Register: Register the current flexVDI Host with an instance of flexVDI Manager.
Refresh: Update SSH Keys hosts in the Manager, in case they have changed.
Clusterize: Enable high availability functionality in a cluster manager.

Starting the installation

To start the installation of a new flexVDI Manager instance, follow these steps:

Launch flexVDI Config by entering flexvdi-config in the shell, just as you did when configuring the flexVDI Host.
Select the Manager operation option.
Select Install. You will be shown a window to select the source of the image of the flexVDI Manager.

To install the flexVDI Manager you need to download a base image with the desired version of the sowtware. You have two options:

If the Host has Internet access, select the Remote option and follow these steps:
1. Choose the download destination (/var/tmp by default).
2. Select flexVDI 2.2 as product family.
3. Select the version of flexVDI Manager to install.
4. Wait for the download to complete.
If you do not have Internet access, download the image from the Customer Portal in another computer and copy it to /var/tmp in the flexVDI Host. You can use the scp command for this task. Then select Local.

If after downloading the image using the Remote option, you cancel the installation, you can later select the Local option to load the image from the directory where you previously downloaded it to avoid having to download it again.

Installation parameters

The installation process will ask you a series of data to configure the instance of flexVDI Manager.

Instance number

In order to be able to uniquely identify each flexVDI Manager instance and the Guests managed by them, an integer from 0 to 99 known as instance number is used. If you plan to install multiple flexVDI Manager instances in the same corporate network, make sure you are using different instance numbers for each flexVDI Manager installation. The next step in the installation will ask you to introduce an instance number for this Manager.

Destination path

A flexVDI Manager instance requires approximately 10 GB of disk storage. By default, it is created on the directory /flexvdi/local, which is located on the root partition. If this location doesn't have enough space for the installation, you will need to specify an alternative path.

Network bridge

flexVDI Manager instance works as any other Guest, that's why it needs a network bridge to access the corporate network. Select the virtual bridge virbr0 you created previously.

VLAN management

In the event that the flexVDI Manager will use a VLAN and it must tag its traffic (because the physical interface is connected to a port of a switch with 802.1q in trunk mode), you must specify the ID of the VLAN like this:

Network parameters

Enter the IP address, network mask and, optionally, the gateway address that this instance will use. Please remember these parameters cannot be the same as the ones configured for the Host.

Instance deployment

After completing the previous steps, a screen with a summary of all information entered will be displayed:

Please review the data, and choose YES if it is correct. Then, an automatic process will start to deploy your new instance. This process will take a few minutes, and can't be interrupted. After finishing, you'll be notified of its outcome.

Change the default password

After the installation of flexVDI Manager instance, it is highly recommended that you change the default password (flexvdi). To do this, follow these steps with the flexvdi-config tool:

Select Manager option in the main menu.
Select Password.
flexVDI Config automatically take the IP address of the instance of flexVDI Manager you configured above. Confirm that the address is correct, and press OK.
Enter the current password for your instance of flexVDI Manager.
Enter your new password twice.

From this point, you must use your new password for all tasks that require connection to the instance of flexVDI Manager, both from flexVDI Config and from flexVDI Dashboard.

Register the host with flexVDI Manager

Once the Host and flexVDI Manager instance have been configured, you need to register the Hosts so that the flexVDI Manager can start managing its physical resources. This can be done with the flexVDI Config tool, following these steps.

Select Manager in the main menu.
Select Register.
Enter the password for the flexVDI Manager instance you just installed.
Finally, flexVDI Config will advise updating the SSH keys of the hosts connected to this instance of flexVDI Manager. Do it.

Upgrade the Manager

When a new version of flexVDI Manager is released, you can update your installation with the flexVDI Config tool. The upgrade process preserves all logical objects created on the platform (guests, policies, storage, etc ...), while repeating the installation process would delete the database leaving the platform as new. However, it is advisable to make a backup of the Manager before proceeding with the upgrade process. To perform an update, follow these steps:

Select Manager in the main menu of flexvdi-config.
Select Upgrade.
Enter the current password for your instance of flexVDI Manager.
Follow the process to download a particular version of flexVDI Manager as described at the beginning of this chapter. Note that flexvdi-config is able to discern if you want to upgrade or downgrade, depending on whether you choose a later or earlier version than the one that is already installed.
Confirm that you want to continue with the operation.
Once finished, it will show a message with the outcome.