Quick Installation¶

An automated installation script is available to install SlipStream and all of its dependencies on a CentOS 7 machine.

Node Preparation¶

Deploy the machine that you’ll be using for your SlipStream server with the CentOS 7 operating system. (See the prerequisites in the previous section for sizing information. A machine with 4 CPU cores, 8 GB of RAM and 20 GB of disk space is recommended as a minimum.)

The installation script will not perform a general upgrade of your CentOS 7 system. You may want to run:

$ yum upgrade -y

to ensure your system has the latest software and security patches.

Installation Overview¶

This installation script will run through the following phases:

Prepares the node:
- Adds YUM repositories (EPEL, Nginx, Elasticstack, SlipStream)
- Installs global dependencies (unzip, curl, wget, …)
- Configures the firewall
  
  Allow all outgoing packets
  
  Allow loopback connections
  
  Allow incoming ICMP requests
  
  Allow incoming SSH connections (port 22)
  
  Allow incoming HTTP connections (port 80)
  
  Allow incoming HTTPS connections (port 443)
  
  Deny all other incoming connections
  
  Deny forwarding
- Disables SELinux
Installs SlipStream dependencies:
- Elasticsearch
- HSQLDB
- Graphite
- Zookeeper
Installs the SlipStream client
Installs the SlipStream servers
- Stops running services
- Installs and configures packages
- Starts SlipStream services
- Installs and configures nginx proxy
Installs and configures time synchronization service
- Required for checking validity of certificates, etc.
Install SlipStream in /opt/slipstream
Install HSQLDB in /opt/hsqldb
Install nginx
Install some other dependencies with yum and python-pip
Configure nginx, HSQLDB and SlipStream
Start nginx, HSQLDB and SlipStream

These instructions assume that you will be using the prebuilt binary packages for SlipStream. If you want to build your own packages from source, refer to the Developer Guide.

Run the Installation Script¶

Note

If you are installing the Enterprise Edition you must install the certificates (yum-client.crt and yum-client.key) provided by SixSq into /etc/slipstream/ before starting the SlipStream installation process.

Warning

If you’re behind a web proxy, see the Installation via Web Proxy section before starting.

This command will take care of the full SlipStream installation process:

$ curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/slipstream/SlipStream/master/install/slipstream-install.sh | bash -s {edition} {repokind}

Replace the placeholders with the values for your installation. The possible values are provided in the following table.

placeholder	values
placeholder	values
`{edition}`	`community` or `enterprise`
`{edition}`	`community` or `enterprise`
`{repokind}`	`snapshot`, `candidate` or `release`
`{repokind}`	`snapshot`, `candidate` or `release`

The logs of the installation are available in the file /tmp/slipstream-install.log and /tmp/slipstream-connectors-install.log. These can be consulted to understand the details of the installation process or to debug problems.

SSL Certificate¶

The SlipStream installation script will generate a self-signed certificate for the server. If you want to avoid browser warnings about insecure certificate, install a certificate signed by a widely accepted certificate authority.

Place your server certificate (formatted as an X509 certificate and key) in the files /etc/nginx/ssl/server.crt and /etc/nginx/ssl/server.key. You must restart the server to have SlipStream use the new certificate.

Cloud Connectors¶

If you have installed Community Edition of SlipStream, the quick install script will have already installed all the open-source connectors.

If you have installed the Enterprise Edition, you have to install all connectors you have a license for.

To install connectors, simply execute:

$ curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/slipstream/SlipStream/master/install/ss-install-connectors.sh | bash -s -- -r {repokind} {connector names}

placeholder	values
placeholder	values
`{connector names}`	space-separated list of connectors
`{connector names}`	space-separated list of connectors
`{repokind}`	`snapshot`, `candidate` or `release`
`{repokind}`	`snapshot`, `candidate` or `release`

Once all needed connectors are installed, restart SlipStream:

$ systemctl restart slipstream

You will then be able to configure the cloud connectors that you have installed.

Testing the Service¶

You should now be able to contact the SlipStream server with a web browser using HTTPS; the URL should be https://your_machine/. You should be redirected to the login page that looks similar to the following screenshot.

If everything looks good, you are ready to configure the server and cloud connectors.

SlipStream Login Page

Configuration¶

To configure your SlipStream server, log into the server as super and use the pages found under the “Configuration” menu item. Use the information in the Authentication, Cloud Connectors, and Connector Installation and Configuration sections.

Installation via Web Proxy¶

If you are installing SlipStream from behind a web proxy, you’ll need some additional configuration to ensure that the scripts and packages can be downloaded through the proxy. Set the following environmental variables:

http_proxy=http://user:password@ip_addr:3128/
HTTPS_PROXY=https://user:password@ip_addr:3128/
HTTP_PROXY=http://user:password@ip_addr:3128/

replacing the user, password, and ip_addr with the appropriate values. This allows the commands curl and rpm to access everything.

In addition, you need to add the following lines to /etc/yum.conf:

# The proxy server - proxy server:port number
proxy=http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:3128
# The account details for yum connections
proxy_username=xxx
proxy_password=yyy

again replacing the values as appropriate.