2.2.2. Install on bare metal using CDROM

This chapter explains how to try Virtual Service Router on a physical machine, and install it, using a CDROM drive either physical or virtual.

If your server has a physical CD/DVD drive, you first need to burn the iso file on a blank CD or DVD. If it provides a virtual CDROM feature, simply use the iso file as input.

When you’re done, you can either:

Test Virtual Service Router

You will need physical access to the machine, and a keyboard and screen attached to it to complete these steps. Alternately, you may access the machine using its first serial port.

Once your CDROM setup is ready, it has to be inserted in the machine on which you want to test Virtual Service Router.

Warning

Please make sure that there is no other Virtual Service Router live CDROM or live USB inserted in this machine. Otherwise the system might fail to boot properly.

Then, you should go in the BIOS setup, select the CDROM drive as first boot device, save the configuration, and reboot.

After some time, you should get an output similar to the following on screen.

                            GNU GRUB  version 2.02

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*Virtual Service Router - X.Y.Z                                             |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

     Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.
     Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands
     before booting or `c' for a command-line.
  The highlighted entry will be executed automatically in 9s.

After 10 seconds, or if you type on the Enter key, the boot will start. You should get the following output.

  ____        _____ _   _ ____   __     ______  ____
 / /\ \      / /_ _| \ | |  _ \  \ \   / / ___||  _ \
| '_ \ \ /\ / / | ||  \| | | | |  \ \ / /\___ \| |_) |
| (_) \ V  V /  | || |\  | |_| |   \ V /  ___) |  _ <
 \___/ \_/\_/  |___|_| \_|____/     \_/  |____/|_| \_\

vsr login:

You are ready to test the software. Your data will not persist after a reboot.

The next step is to perform your first configuration.

Install Virtual Service Router

Once you have tried Virtual Service Router, you can install it on your machine.

It can be done from the CLI, using the system-image command.

But first, you need to know on which device Virtual Service Router should be installed. To do so, log in as admin, password admin, and at the prompt, do:

vsr> show disk
name   label        fstype      total         available
====== ============ =========== ============= =========
sda                             1000190509056
====== ============ =========== ============= =========

sda is the device we are looking for. We will install Virtual Service Router on sda in our example. The data on sda will be lost in the process.

Warning

Please carefully check the device associated to the disk you want to use, or you could wipe the wrong drive in the next step.

Note

Please make sure to select this disk as boot device after installation.

Then launch the installation on sda.

vsr> cmd system-image install-on-disk sda

This command will install Virtual Service Router on /dev/sda. The relevant configuration files will be copied from the CDROM drive to the local drive. At the end of the installation, you can reboot and unload the CDROM.

Note

To restore from a backup file, add backup-url <url> to the previous command. This will restore your configurations, private keys, certificates and licenses.

The backup file must have been generated on the same or previous minor version (e.g. a backup from 3.0.1 can be restored on 3.0.x or 3.1.x).

You will then get the familiar GRUB screen that you got when you were testing the software, and after some time, the login screen.

                            GNU GRUB  version 2.02

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*Virtual Service Router - X.Y.Z                                             |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
|                                                                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

     Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.
     Press enter to boot the selected OS, `e' to edit the commands
     before booting or `c' for a command-line.
  The highlighted entry will be executed automatically in 9s.

(...)

  ____        _____ _   _ ____   __     ______  ____
 / /\ \      / /_ _| \ | |  _ \  \ \   / / ___||  _ \
| '_ \ \ /\ / / | ||  \| | | | |  \ \ / /\___ \| |_) |
| (_) \ V  V /  | || |\  | |_| |   \ V /  ___) |  _ <
 \___/ \_/\_/  |___|_| \_|____/     \_/  |____/|_| \_\

vsr login:

The next step is to perform your first configuration.