RightLink 5.8 Installer for CentOS
Table of Contents
Objective
Boot a non-RightScale-enabled CentOS instance, perform some manual configuration, install the RightLink package, and re-bundle the instance into a new, RightScale-enabled AMI. Optionally: test compatibility before bundling and create an MCI (MultiCloud Image) for your new image.
Important! Do not forget to tag the MultiCloud Image! Any image with RightLink must be tagged appropriately to successfully operate with the RightScale management platform; see the last step in this article for more information.
NOTE: Although the steps provided below for bundling an instance may still be valid in some scenarios, we encourage you to explore using the Instance Provisioner to bundle an existing instance. See Create New Instance with the Instance Provisioner for additional information.
Overview
The following tutorial assumes that you are not using a published RightImage to launch a CentOS instance. (You do not need to install RightLink if you are using v5 RightImages or later.)
Steps
Launch a CentOS EC2 Instance
In order to create a new RightLink-enabled image, you will need to launch a bare EC2 instance in the AWS region where you want the new image to be created. The image can either be a private AMI (that you own) or another AMI that you have access to use that you do not own.
In the RightScale Dashboard, navigate to the appropriate cloud in the menu (e.g. Clouds > AWS Region > Instances > New) and launch a new instance with the AMI you would like to RightLink-enable.
Note: Ensure that you have TCP port 22 open in the Security Group (Create a Security Group) used when launching the server. This port is required for SSH access. (see screenshot)
SSH into the instance
Once the instance becomes operational, click on its 'SSH Console' button in the RightScale Dashboard.
Set the Cloud Type
Run the following command to set the cloud type to Amazon EC2:
mkdir -p /etc/rightscale.d && echo -n ec2 > /etc/rightscale.d/cloud
This file is used by the RightLink agent to recognize which cloud type the instance is running in.
Other values for the cloud type in this file are as follows:
- ec2
- rackspace
- eucalyptus
- cloudstack
- none
Install RightLink
Install Package Dependencies
There are a few dependencies to the RightLink package. As the package does not yet reside in a YUM repository, manually install the following packages (some of these will likely already be installed).
yum -y install git lsb dig bind-utils bash git-core
We also need to install the 'rightimage-extras' package, which is a meta package that lists other packages essential to ServerTemplate functionality. To install, configure a repository:
sudo cat >/etc/yum.repos.d/RightScale-epel.repo<<-EOF [rightscale-epel] name=RightScale Software baseurl=http://cf-mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_software/epel/6/x86_64/archive/latest/ gpgcheck=1 enabled=1 gpgkey=http://s3.amazonaws.com/rightscale_key_pub/rightscale_key.pub EOF
Then, install the package:
yum install rightimage-extras -y Install RightScale Package
Browse RightScale's mirror (http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/) for available RightLink packages. Although we recommend using the latest available RightLink package, it may not be available for your particular release. The most recently published packages can be found in the "latest" RightLink packages directory. If you do not find a suitable package in the "latest" directory, you can also browse for a different version from one of the archived directories. You must choose the distribution package that's most appropriate for your purposes, based upon your instance's operating system and CPU architecture (32- or 64-bit).
Example
Once your instance becomes operational, SSH into it and install the appropriate RPM package according to the release and machine architecture. You can copy and paste the link from your browser if desired.
rpm -iv http://mirror.rightscale.com/rightscale_rightlink/latest/centos/rightscale_5.8.13-centos_6.4-x86_64.rpm
The above example downloads and installs the package for a CentOS 5.8 x86 (64-bit) instance.
Bundle the Instance
To create a new AMI from the running instance, click the Bundle button in the Dashboard.
Once the bundle worker has completed the task, view the audit entry and take note of the AWS ID that was used to register the new AMI.
Test the Bundled Image (optional)
To perform a compatibility test on the new private RightLink-enabled image that you just created, see Testing your Private RightLink-enabled Image.
Create a MultiCloud Image
In order to properly use the new RightScale-enabled image with ServerTemplates, you should create a MultiCloud Image (MCI) that references the new image. See Create a New MultiCloud Image. The MCI can then be added to any local (HEAD) ServerTemplates in your account. If you need to make that image available in a different AWS region, follow the Replicate an Image to different AWS regions.
Tag the MultiCloud Image (mandatory)
Once you've created the MCI, you will need to add the following tag to the MCI so that RightScale will be able to identify the created image as a RightLink-enabled image:
provides:rs_agent_type=right_link
Congratulations! You now have an MCI that points to a RightLink-enabled image for launching CentOS instances. Just like any other instance that's launched using one of our v5 RightImages (which are RightLink-enabled), you will be able to see monitoring graphs and execute scripts inside the Dashboard.
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