How to use the Amazon EC2 AMI for GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1

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GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 bundled with RedHat in the Amazon Cloud (EC2)

Last updated: February 4th 2014
GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 Enterprise is available as a ready-to-run 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI) bundled with RedHat 6.5. It is already licensed with a 50 device CORE license.

Quick-start information

If you're an experienced EC2 users this the information you'll need:
AMI name: ami-678ab80e.
Minimum instance size: Large
Recommended instance size: Large
Administer your instance using the web interface:e.g. http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com/
The instance uses EBS for persistent storage. Amazon EBS I/O and storage charges apply in addition to CPU time. Amazon charges apply to the RedHat OS
Application login user name/password: admin/admin
Operator login user name/password: operator/operator
PostgreSQL postgres password: postgres

Getting Started With GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 and Amazon EC2 Cloud

This guide walks through getting started with GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 in the Amazon EC2 cloud with a completely hosted, private copy.

Get an Amazon Account

If you have not already created an account on Amazon's EC2 service please do so now. Amazon will charge your account for the resources you consume on their service; GWOS does not receive any of this money.
You can sign up for a new account at:
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

Get the AMI

The GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 EC2 AMI image is an Instance Store AMI you purchase from Amazon. You can, of course, launch it, modify it, and bundle it into your own copy.

  • The instance has been left essentially as a clean, patched install of GWMEE 7.0.1. The Network Notification service is ON, and will submit anonymous usage data back to GroundWork when launched. A valid license is required for use and is preinstalled.
  • As with all EC2 instances, this one should be launched with your keys, which will give you root access to the console. See Amazon documentation for key setup.
Locating the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 7.0.1 AMI
  • Log in to your Amazon account
  • Choose the Region where you wish to launch
  • Go to aws.amazon.com
  • Unable to render embedded object: File (ami70-1.png) not found.
  • Select the AMI and Launch an instance.
  • Configure the instance to be created:
    In particular the following choices are recommended:
  • Create a single instance
  • Select an availability zone
  • Instance type is Large (m1.large 7.5GB)
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ami70-2.png) not found.
    Follow the on screen instructions. Default values are fine.
    Create Key Pair:
  • A user can use an existing, previously created key pair, create a new pair, or proceed without a key pair.
  • To configure the EC2 instance a user must have access to the console and therefore at this point the user has to create the  SSH keys if they don't exist already. Please follow the onscreen instructions on how to create keys.
  • User can create Security Groups defining access to the EC2 instance. Access should be configured so that SSH (port 22), HTTP (port 80), HTTPS (port 443) and Ntop Web (port 82) are open.
  • The instance is configured with the RedHat firewall (iptables) running with these ports open. You may wish to adjust "iptables" depending on your needs after you have launched the instance and connected via SSH.
    Launch the Instance

    Press the "Launch" button
    Click on "Instances" in the left side Navigation panel to check the instance creation process:
    After a few minutes the status will change from "starting" to "running". Linux and the GroundWork application will then launch for the first time, this process takes a few minutes after the instance begins running.

    Configuring the public access point for the GroundWork portal*

    The AMI instance has a private IP Address and a Public DNS. The Public DNS is often used to access the GroundWork Monitor portal. Make sure the GroundWork Monitor web portal IS configured with the Public DNS name by the following steps before you try to access the portal.

    Using the key you generated, access the instance with an SSH session:
    ssh -i <path to the key you generated> ec2-user@ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com
    You will be prompted to answer yes to connect to the instance.
    sudo su -
    As root, execute the following script to configure GroundWork to use the Public DNS name. Replace the ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com argment with your instance name. If you are going to use this in a Virtual Private Cloud, the argument would be the private address, or Private DNS name.
    /usr/local/groundwork/gw-config --machine_hostname ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com
    Then, restart GroundWork using the command
    /etc/init.d/groundwork restart
    When the root prompt comes back you are ready to use the instance.
    Access the GroundWork Monitor.

    Get the application by opening a new browser tab at the "public DNS" address of the newly created instance.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ami70-3.png) not found.
    Login using the default administrator credentials: Username: admin
    Password: admin
    You're now ready to explore GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1

    Be sure to change the password for the admin user, and to either disable or change the other default web accounts (User and Operator).
    Changing the default passwords is highly recommended. Do so as the Admin user. From the main portal screen choose (Group -> Organization -> Users and Groups Management)
    This is the panel you will see, click on the User Management, Account Info tabs and check the box for Change Password
    You can now configure monitoring of your cloud and web resources, or any hosts or applications reachable from your EC2 instance.
    Unable to render embedded object: File (ami70-5.png) not found.
    The ami we produced is set for the most popular Time Zone, on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. We applied the timezone adjustment to PHP referred to in technical bulletin 6.3-3 Timezone for php must be set in 6.3 so that the ami will work when launched in the Eastern US availability zones, but you may adjust this parameter for whatever time zone you launch the AMI in. Follow the instructions in the technical bulletin if you need to launch the ami in another time zone.

Learning about GroundWork Monitor

Check out the "Getting Started with GroundWork Monitor" training course on our web site .
Need to justify a monitoring investment?  Try our whitepapers http://www.groundworkopensource.com/resources/white-papers/

Note for VPC and other Non EC2 Deployment

Only if you plan to use your AMI instance in a different way than EC2 will change be needed. For instance you might be launching the AMI in a VPC. In that case the Public EC2 address might be inappropriate. For normal EC2 use ignore the next section.

Change Address

You can make these changes manually or by using the supplied address fixup script "/usr/local/groundwork/gw-config". This script is not present in the normal installation of GroundWork as it is only useful in the EC2 context.
We recommend you use the script

/usr/local/groundwork/gw-config --machine_hostname <the name or the ip address you wish to use>

If you choose to do this manually update these files with the address that will be associated with running GroundWork (for example in a VPC this might be the internal IP address). 

/usr/local/groundwork/config/josso-agent-config.xml
/usr/local/groundwork/config/ntop.properties
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/conf/groundwork/apache2-noma.conf
/usr/local/groundwork/config/configuration.properties
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/conf/groundwork/foundation-ui.conf
/usr/local/groundwork/noma/etc/NoMa.yaml

You will see many places in these 6 files where the public DNS name appears. It is something like "ec2-50-17-27-244.compute-1.amazonaws.com". Replace that with the hostname or ip address dictated by your circumstances. This will usually be what is returned when you type "hostname -f" or "ifconfig -a". Below you see an example of lines that must be changed.

/usr/local/groundwork/config/josso-agent-config.xml
          <gatewayLoginUrl>http://ec2-50-17-27-244.compute-1.amazonaws.com/josso/signon/login.do</gatewayLoginUrl>
          <gatewayLogoutUrl>http://ec2-50-17-27-244.compute-1.amazonaws.com/josso/signon/logout.do</gatewayLogoutUrl>
/usr/local/groundwork/config/ntop.properties
          ntop.host=ec2-50-17-27-244.compute-1.amazonaws.com
  • If you make changes to these files, manually or with our script you must restart GroundWork: 
    -bash-3.2# /etc/init.d/groundwork restart
noma stopped
Stopping GroundWork Services:                               [   OK   ]
Stopping /usr/local/groundwork/common/bin/ntop:            [  OK  ]
ntop stopped
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-snmptrapd.sh : snmptrapd stopped
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-snmptt.sh : snmptt stopped
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-syslog-ng.sh : syslog-ng stopped
/usr/local/groundwork/nagios/scripts/ctl.sh: nagios stopped
Syntax OK
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/scripts/ctl.sh : httpd stopped
could not change directory to "/root"
waiting for server to shut down.... done
server stopped
/usr/local/groundwork/postgresql/scripts/ctl.sh : postgresql stopped
could not change directory to "/root"
waiting for server to start.... done
server started
/usr/local/groundwork/postgresql/scripts/ctl.sh : postgresql  started at port 5432
Syntax OK
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/scripts/ctl.sh : httpd started at port 80
/usr/local/groundwork/nagios/scripts/ctl.sh: nagios started
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-syslog-ng.sh : syslog-ng started
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-snmptt.sh : snmptt started
/usr/local/groundwork/common/scripts/ctl-snmptrapd.sh : snmptrapd started
Starting /usr/local/groundwork/common/bin/ntop: Mon Feb  3 20:40:58 2014  Initializing gdbm databases
Checking for GroundWork Services:
    JBoss Portal Platform is not running
    JOSSO server is not running
    svscan is not running
    dumblogs are not running
    supervise for JBoss Portal Platform is not running
    Feeders are not running
    Spoolers are not running
    nagios2collage_socket is not running
    nagios2collage_eventlog is not running
    fping_process is not running
    gdma_spool_processor is not running
Starting GroundWork Services:
    Waiting for portal to be completely up and running:
	Portal controller is not available ...
	Portal controller is not available ...
	Portal is still starting ...
	Portal is still starting ...
	Portal is now running.
    Waiting for sequential application deployments:
	Waiting for push-server-1.8.2-P06-EE.war deployment:  .123456789.1
	Waiting for foundation-webapp.war deployment:  .123456789.123456789.123456
	Waiting for legacy-rest.war deployment:  .123456
    Connecting to Foundation:
	Listener is ready to accept data feeds ...
	Listener services are available.
    Waiting for sequential application deployments:
	Waiting for groundwork-enterprise-7.0.ear deployment:  .123456789.123456789.1
	Waiting for portal-groundwork-base.war deployment:  .123456
	Waiting for portal-reportviewer.war deployment:  .123456
	Waiting for birtviewer.war deployment:  .123456789.123456789.12345
	Waiting for cloudhub.war deployment:  .123456789.12345678
	Waiting for monarch.war deployment:  .123456789
	Waiting for nagvis.war deployment:  .12345
	Waiting for nms-rstools.war deployment:  .123456789
	Waiting for monarch-export.war deployment:  .12345
	Waiting for nagios-app.war deployment:  .12345678
	Waiting for nagvis_share.war deployment:  .12345
	Waiting for nedi.war deployment:  .123456
	Waiting for nms-cacti.war deployment:  .12345
	Waiting for performance.war deployment:  .12345
	Waiting for profiles.war deployment:  .123456
	Waiting for reports.war deployment:  .12345
    Waiting for parallel application deployments:
    Total portal startup time:         150.667 seconds.
    Total listener wait time:            0.003 seconds.
    Total war-file deployment time:    188.270 seconds.
    Total gwservices start-wait time:  338.940 seconds.
GroundWork Services start                                   [   OK   ]
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