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Deploying Socialcast

Page history last edited by Mitch 14 years, 1 month ago

 

Purpose of this Guide

 

This is a step-by-step guide designed for engineers within a client's IT group to deploy and set up Socialcast behind the firewall. This guide will cover each step, from receiving the virtual appliance image to ensuring that Socialcast appears in a browser window.

 

Prerequisites

 

Before beginning deployment, your team should have gone through the IT Questionnaire with the Socialcast engineers.  Doing this helps Socialcast better understand the environment we are deploying into, which ensures a smoother deployment process.

 

You will also have gone through the Technical Overview and completed any information-gathering needed.  This involves key prerequisites, from obtaining a hostname and SSL certificate to securing a Flickr API key if needed.

 

Deploying Socialcast

 

Obtain the Socialcast appliance image

 

Upon request, your Socialcast account team will email you a link to download the image. This link will be to a compressed version of the Socialcast appliance in VMWare.  The link will expire 24 hours after you have received it, so please ensure that you download it as soon as you receive it. Downloading may take anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours depending on your connection speed.

 

Upload the Socialcast Appliance

  

  • Extract the appliance image from the archive supplied by Socialcast.
  • Connect to your vSphere cluster using the vSphere client.
  • Upload and stage the Socialcast appliance, but do not start the virtual machine.

 

Allocate Storage for the Socialcast Appliance

 

The Socialcast appliance uses virtual disks or network file shares to store various types of data generated during operation.  This data is stored in three separate volumes: 

 

  • Data: This volume will be used to store application data and log files, and it must be at least 50GB in size.
  • Assets: This volume will be used to store assets that users upload through the web interface (documents, images, etc.), and must be at least 50GB in size.  An NFS or SMB/CIFS share may also be used for this purpose. 
  • Backup: (optional): This volume will be used to store backups of the Socialcast appliance data.  We recommend the use of an NFS or SMB/CIFS share for this purpose.

 

The following figures demonstrate how to add a virtual disk to the Socialcast appliance.

 

Figure 1:  View virtual machine properties

 

 

 

Figure 2: Add a virtual disk

 

 

Configure Networking

 

Note: If your network environment provides DHCP you may skip network configuration. 

 

First, you'll need to determine the the IP address and subnet mask of the address allocated for the appliance  Once you have the address, open the virtual serial console for the appliance in the vCenter client. Log in as root.

 

Run the following command to assign the IP address to the virtual ethernet adapter: 

 

ifconfig eth0 [ip-address] netmask [netmask]

 

Then test that everything worked by running: 

 

ping -c1 [ip-address]

 

which should output something like: 

 

64 bytes from [ip-address]: icmp_seq=0. time=11. ms

--- [ip-address] ping statistics --- 
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms 
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 11.000/11.000/11.000/0.000 ms 

 

You should now be able to access the appliance from the same subnet.

 

Complete the Socialcast Initial Configuration Wizard

 

Visit the Socialcast appliance administration panel by navigating to https://[ip-address]:8003 using a web browser.

 

Note: The Socialcast appliance initially uses a self-signed certificate to establish HTTPS connections; you must choose to trust the certificate if your browser warns you, or you will not be allowed access to appliance administration panel. Appliance administrators can upload a certificate signed by a trusted CA once the initial configuration has been completed.

 

Log In 

 

You may log in to the appliance administration panel using the following default credentials:

 

Username: admin

Password: password

 

Change Administrator Password

 

The configuration wizard requires you to immediately change the administrator account password.  This password will be required to access the appliance administration panel, so please take steps to ensure that future administrators will have access to it. We cannot recover your password if it is lost, so please keep it in a safe place.

 

Note: Accounts which have access to the Socialcast appliance administration panel cannot be used to access the Socialcast community itself.  Likewise, Socialcast community accounts do not have access to the appliance administration panel.

 

Change Root Password

 

The configuration wizard prompts you to set a password for the super-user account of the underlying linux operating system.  It is critical that you choose a password which complies with your organization's security policies. Parties which know this password may use it to gain access to your Socialcast appliance. 

 

Note: You do not need to share your root password with employees of Socialcast Inc. Likewise, Socialcast employees do not have the ability to recover a lost password.

 

Configure Notification

 

The Socialcast appliance can optionally send alert emails to administrators in the event that some manual action is required.   The "Configure Notification" panel allows you to specify the SMTP gateway information, and recipients of these alerts.

 

Note: The Socialcast community email settings are configured using a separate configuration panel. 

 

Configure Networking

 

The "Configure Networking" panel exposes various aspects of networking configuration.  If your organization makes use of DHCP, you can safely skip this panel by clicking the "Skip Networking Configuration" button. 

 

Configure Internet Proxy

 

Socialcast supports several optional features that require access to remote servers over HTTP or HTTPS.  The "Configure Internet Proxy" provides the ability to configure a proxy server that Socialcast will use to access these remote servers, rather than connecting to them directly.

 

Configure System

 

The "Configure System" panel provides the ability to configure the Socialcast community service itself.

 

Socialcast System Configuration

 

These settings govern the fundamental behavior of the Sociaclast community. 

 

  • Application Domain: This is the hostname that users will enter to access the Socialcast community.
    • Note: This must corrospond to the DNS record that points to the Socialcast appliance; failure to match this domain name to the DNS record will interfere with normal use of the Socialcast community.
    • Note: Changing this value will force users to reinstall their desktop application, and will likely cause issues with the SSL certificate you have installed for the appliance. 
  • SMTP Settings: These are the settings that the Socialcast community will use to connect to your SMTP gateway in order to send mail to users
    • Note: This setting is separate from the SMTP settings configured in "Configure Notification"  

 

Email Dropbox

 

The Socialcast community can optionally make use of an IMAP server to allow users to share messages via email.

 

Note: This feature will not be advertised to Socialcast community users unless it is configured, so feel free to skip this section if you're not ready to enable the email dropbox functionality

 

Flickr Integration

 

Socialcast's optional Flickr integration requires a Flickr API key.  Visit http://www.flickr.com/services/api/keys/apply/ to apply for an API key.

 

Note: This feature will not be advertised to Socialcast community users unless it is configured, so feel free to skip this section if you're not ready to enable flickr integration

 

Configure Storage 

 

The "Configure Storage" panel allows you to format and configure the data and asset volumes that Socialcast requires.

 

Format Volumes

 

Virtual disks added to the Socialcast appliance must be formatted and labeled before they can be used.  To format a volume, simply:

 

  1. Select the volume you wish to format from the "Volume to Format" drop-down
  2. Type an appropriate label in the "Label" field (we suggest "data," "assets," or "backup" depending on the type of data that will be stored on the volume)
  3. Click "Format Selected Volume"

 

CAUTION: Formatting a volume destroys all data that is already on the drive; reformatting a volume in a live Socialcast appliance will disrupt service and may result in data loss

 

Note: If you intend to use a virtual disk to store appliance backups, make sure you format the backup volume before submitting the "Configure Storage" panel.

 

Data Store

 

This section allows you to set the label of the volume that the Socialcast appliance will use to store application data and logs.  Simply enter the label you provided in the "Format Volumes" panel for the virtual disk designated for storing data.

 

CAUTION: Changing this value in a live Socialcast appliance will disrupt service and may result in data loss

 

Asset Store

 

This section allow you to set the label or configure the network file share that the Socialcast appliance will use to store user uploaded content.  Select the type of volume that will be used for storage of assets, and enter the appropriate information.

 

CAUTION: Changing this value in a live Socialcast appliance will disrupt service and may result in data loss 

 

The Socialcast appliance performs an automatic initalization process when you submit the "Configure Storage" panel.  This process may take a few minutes to complete.

 

Configure MySQL

 

The "Configure MySQL" asks you to set a super user password for the underlying MySQL RDBMS server. This password may be needed for emergency maintenance later, so make sure future administrators have access to it.

 

Backup and Restore

 

The "Backup and Restore" panel provides access to backup settings, including the location of the backup volume and the schedule on which the automated backups will run.

 

Note: Automatic backup can be configured later, so feel free to simply submit the "Backup and Restore" panel if you're not ready to configure automated backups.

 

Test the Socialcast Community

 

To verify the configuration, visit the application domain you entered in the "Configure System" panel in a web browser, and you will see your community login page.  You can log in using the following default credentials:

 

email: admin@socialcast.com

password: password

 

LDAP Mirroring Configuration

 

Socialcast can be configured to mirror from an LDAP v3 compatible directory server.  Please consult your Socialcast account team to schedule a LDAP configuration consultation meeting.