1. Installing NEXThink V4 Portal
What you will need |
NEXThink V4 Installation DVD |
Access to a physical or virtual server |
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What you need to know |
Type of your keyboard |
Root password to choose |
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Planned network configuration for Portal |
Installation of Portal is very similar to the installation of Engine: you need a physical or virtual server and you start the same setup program at boot time from the same installation DVD. The only thing that changes is that you select Portal and not Engine as the component to install. Go back to the documentation on Installing Engine if you need more detail for any of the following steps:
- Enter BIOS and put the DVD drive as the first boot device of your server or use the DVD image to boot your virtual machine.
- Exit BIOS and let your server reboot or start your virtual machine. Installation program starts.
The program warns you that all the data in your disk will be erased and asks you if you want to continue with the installation. Type Yes.
- Now you can set your network configuration for the Portal server. In the case of Portal, we recommend to set the correct IP address, subnet mask and gateway address right at this point and not to leave it for a later moment. If you installed Engine in a different server, remember to give Portal a different IP address than that of Engine in order to avoid conflicts.
- In the package selection, select Portal:
- Select the type of keyboard that you are using.
- Choose a password for the root user and make sure that you do not forget it.
- Wait a few moments until the installation of packages ends.
- Once the installation is finished, remove the NEXThink V4 Installation DVD from the DVD drive and reboot the server or detach the DVD image from the virtual machine and restart it.
- After system reboot, Portal is automatically started and ready for configuration.
2. Portal Configuration
What you will need |
a web browser |
What you need to know |
Portal admin account default credentials: username=admin , password=admin |
the Engine IP address and listening port number for the Portal |
Connect to Portal by opening a web browser and directing it to the Portal IP address that you just set during installation. Enter the default credentials Username admin, Password admin in the login screen:
2.1. Connecting to Engine
On the left menu, go to NEXThink Portal Management > NEXThink Engines and click on the Add Engine icon
Enter the Engine IP address or DNS host name and the port number on which Engine accepts Portal requests. As an option, you can add a description for the Engine.
Then click on the Connect engine icon
The Engines Management page also display information about the Engine version and its number of authorized sources as defined in the License. You will notice that if the setting is correct and the Portal is able to connect to the Engine, the status light has turned green.
3. Portal Upgrade
The method of upgrade here explained is only valid if you are updating from a NEXThink V4 Portal to a newer version of Portal V4. On the other hand, if you are upgrading from NEXThink V3, please read the section Upgrading From NEXThink V3.
Software updates of Portal are available in the form of RPM packages. Assume you have the latest versions of the Portal, follow these steps to install them.
What you will need |
a client computer |
a web browser |
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a SFTP client like WinSCP |
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a SSH client like Putty |
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or a combined SFTP and SSH client such as Tunelier |
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What you need to know |
SSH account default credentials: username=nexthink , password=123456 |
the Engine IP address |
- Get from NEXThink the Portal RPM packages, verify the RPM md5 checksum. You will need the following packages:
- nxt-apache-tomcat-5.5.x-x.noarch.rpm
- portal-4.0.0.x-x.noarch.rpm
- Upload the RPMs to the Engine with the SFTP client using the built-in NEXThink Support account.
- Connect to the server with a SSH client using the credentials of the built-in NEXThink Support account.
- To install the new packages, use the following command:
sudo rpm -Uvh nxt-apache-tomcat-5.5.x-x.noarch.rpm portal-4.0.0.x-x.noarch.rpm
You will be prompted to enter the nexthink password to gain access to the rpm privileged command.
- Once the RPMs have been updated, you can check the Portal logfile using the following command:
tail -f /var/nexthink/portal/log/portal.log
and look for:2009-01-12 08:38:02,227 [PortalServletThread] INFO com.nexthink.portal.Portal : Connecting to configured engines (1)... 2009-01-12 08:38:02,227 [PortalServletThread] INFO c.n.p.d.session.EngineSession : Connecting to [127.0.0.1:999]... 2009-01-12 08:38:02,932 [PortalServletThread] INFO c.n.p.d.session.EngineSession : Engine '[127.0.0.1:999]' is connected. 2009-01-12 08:38:02,935 [PortalServletThread] INFO com.nexthink.portal.Portal : Portal is up and running