Installing Enterprise for Production

These instructions describe how to install the latest version of CFEngine Enterprise in a production environment using pre-compiled rpm and deb packages for Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat, CentOS, and SUSE.

General Requirements

CFEngine recommends the following:

Host(s) Memory

256 MB available memory in order to run the CFEngine agent software (cf-agent).

Disk Storage

Plan for approximately 100MB of disk space per host. Due to MongoDB's pre-allocation strategy, always provide an extra 2G to 4G of disk space if you plan to bootstrap more hosts later.

Network

  • Verify that the machine’s network connection is working and that port 5308 (used by CFEngine) is open for both incoming and outgoing connections.

  • If iptables are active on your operating system, stop this service or adapt it to allow for communication on the above ports. If applicable, type the following two commands: /etc/init.d/iptables stop and chkconfig iptables off

CFEngine bundles all critical dependencies into the package; therefore, additional software is not required.

Requirements for VIOS

CFEngine Enterprise has Virtual I/O Server (VIOS) Recognized status from IBM. This means that CFEngine Enterprise has been technically verified by IBM to be installed in and manage VIOS environments.

During testing, CFEngine Enterprise was seen to use up to 2% of the VIOS CPU during cf-agent runs with the default CFEngine policy. The resource utilization may vary depending on the policy CFEngine is running. The VIOS should be configured with Shared Processors in Uncapped mode.

Policy Server Requirements

CFEngine recommends the following:

Dedicated server

CFEngine enterprise expectes to be installed on to a fresh system and not be co-located with any other webserver or database server.

Memory

A minimum of 2 GB of available memory and a modern 64 bit processor. For a large number of Hosts (Clients), we recommend 8 GB of available memory per 500 hosts that are bootstrapped to your Policy Server. Contact your sales representative if you have any questions regarding these numbers.

Port 80

The Policy Server hosts the Mission Portal through Apache, so ensure that port 80 is open.

Note: To avoid potential interference with the installation process, start from a blank system (i.e. no Apache Web Server, no MongoDB, etc).

MongoDB Requirements

CFEngine uses MongoDB, an open-source, NoSQL database. It stores data that is collected from the Hosts.

CFEngine recommends the following configurations:

  1. Filesystem type:
    • ext4 (a 2.6.23 kernel is required for efficient filesystem preallocation)
    • xfs (a 2.6.25 kernel is required for efficient filesystem preallocation)
  2. Memory: Approximately 8 GB per 500 hosts
  3. Turn off NUMA if you are running MongoDB on NUMA. Refer to http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/NUMA for more information.
  4. Do not use large VM pages with Linux. Refer to http://linuxgazette.net/155/krishnakumar.html for more information on large pages.
  5. Set the file descriptor limit and user process limit to 4k+ (see etc/limits and ulimit)

Download Packages

CFEngine Enterprise is provided in two packages; one is for the Policy Server (hub) and the other is for each Host (client).

Select a Policy Server (hub) package to download:

Ubuntu 10.04

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/ubuntu-10.04-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub_3.5.2-1_amd64.deb

Ubuntu 12.04

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/ubuntu-12.04-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub_3.5.2-1_amd64.deb

RHEL 5.4

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/rhel-5.4-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub-3.5.2-1.x86_64.rpm

SUSE 11.1

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/sles-11.1-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub-3.5.2-1.x86_64.rpm

Debian 6.0

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/debian-6.0-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub_3.5.2-1_amd64.deb

RHEL 6.0 

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/hub/rhel-6.0-x86_64/cfengine-nova-hub-3.5.2-1.x86_64.rpm

Select a Host (client) package to download:

Ubuntu/Debian 32-bit:

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/client/agent_deb_i386/cfengine-nova_3.5.2-1_i386.deb

Ubuntu/Debian 64-bit:

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/client/agent_deb_x86_64/cfengine-nova_3.5.2-1_x86_64.deb

Redhat/CentOS/SUSE 32-bit:

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/client/agent_rpm_i386/cfengine-nova-3.5.2-1.i386.rpm

Redhat/CentOS/SUSE 64-bit:

wget http://s3.amazonaws.com/cfengine.packages/Enterprise-3.5.2/client/agent_rpm_x86_64/cfengine-nova-3.5.2-1.x86_64.rpm

Install Packages

Log in as root and then follow these steps to install CFEngine Enterprise:

  1. On the designated Policy Server, install the cfengine-nova-hub package:

        [RedHat/CentOS/SUSE] $ rpm -i <hub package>.rpm
    [Debian/Ubuntu]      $ dpkg -i <hub package>.deb

  2. On each Host, install the cfengine-nova package:

        [RedHat/CentOS/SUSE] $ rpm -i <agent package>.rpm
    [Debian/Ubuntu]      $ dpkg -i <agent package>.deb

Bootstrap

Run the bootstrap command, first on the policy server and then on each host:

$ /var/cfengine/bin/cf-agent --bootstrap <IP address of the Policy Server>

Licensed installations

If you are evaluating CFEngine Enterprise or otherwise using it in an environment with less than 25 agents connecting to a Policy Server, you do not need a license and there is no expiry.

If you are a customer, please send the Policy Server's public key (/var/cfengine/ppkeys/localhost.pub) to CFEngine support to obtain a license. CFEngine will send you a license.dat file. Copy the obtained license file to /var/cfengine/masterfiles/license.dat

Next Steps

When bootstrapping is complete, CFEngine is up and running on your system.

The Mission Portal is immediately accessible. Connect to the Policy Server through your web browser at http://<IP address of your Policy Server>.

To be able to use the Mission Portal's Design Center front-end, continue with integrating Mission Portal with git.

Learn more about CFEngine by using the following resources:

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