Let’s start by installing CentOS 6.4.  I am going to do it in a ESXi virtual machine, with 2 vCPUs, 6GB RAM, and a 300GB virtual disk.

 Attach the CentOS install DVD and let’s fire the VM up!

Skip the media check..

Next, next, next, next..

Agree to discard data in the disk, since it is a virtual ESXi vmdk disk.

Key in the FQDN of the server, and click Configure Network.

Configure the network, in this case running on eth0.

Next.

Choose appropriate timezone.

Choose a secure password for root user.

Don’t forget to click ‘Review and modify partitioning layout’ as the Zenoss installation will require non-journaled filesystem for the RRD files.

The default swap did not show exactly 6GB, so I fixed that.  I then gave 150GB to root (‘/’), 60GB to home partition (‘/home’), and the remaining free space for the RRD files.  I used ‘/opt/zenoss/perf’ as the mount point for the RRD files because that is the information given in the Zenoss installation guide.  I have not checked the auto-deploy script yet, so this might be the wrong thing to do.  The ext2 filesystem is used because ext2 is not a journaled filesystem.

Agree to format sda.

Agree to write partition layout to disk.

Agree to install bootloader into sda.

I choose the minimal installation, because I will not be needing the GUI and would like the server to be as clean as possible without unwanted rubbish.

Wait for the installation to complete.

Click reboot to reboot the server after the installation has been completed.

Installation has been completed and the server booted to the console login screen.

That concludes the server OS installation.  In the next post I will begin installing Zenoss proper.

 

About a year ago I was playing around with Zenoss 3 as we were exploring the options for resource usage reporting.  Had a go with Zenoss, Splunk, and some other solutions.  In the end, we decided to go for something else, a more ‘commercial’ solution fit and worthy for an ‘enterprise’.

Since then, Zenoss has launched a new version which is Zenoss 4.  Our ‘commercial’ solution is moving along but is not quite done.  In the meantime, I want to come up with a quick monitoring dashboard so that I can do my job (system administration) better.  So, I decided to have another go with Zenoss.

First, let’s start with reading the installation guide and see what the requirements are.

Requirement number one: Zenoss runs on RHEL/Centos.  Good, I like rpm-based linux.

Requirement number two: Hardware.

Deployment Size	Memory	CPU	Storage
1 to 250 devices	4GB	2 cores	300GB, 10K RPM or SSD
250 to 500 devices	8GB	4 cores	300GB, 10K RPM or SSD
500 to 1000 devices	16GB	8 cores	300GB, 15K RPM or SSD

Ok, I will probably use this on 200+ devices, so I think I will need 6GB and 2 cores.

Requirement number three: Non-journaled filesystem for RRD files that will be located in /opt/zenoss/perf.

The Zenoss installation guide contains installation instructions for RHEL5 and RHEL6.  I am going to install CentOS 6.4 as that is the latest version to date.

Prerequisites for CentOS 6 according to the installation guide:

• SELinux is disabled (I don’t like this.)
• Directory /opt/zenoss is not a symlink to another location
• umask is set to 022
• /home directory is writable by root (or /home/zenoss exists as user zenoss’s home directory)
• connected to the internet
• DNS is available

Software prerequisites for CentOS 6 according to the installation guide:

Prerequisite	Version
Oracle Java	1.6 Update 31 (NOT 1.7)
RRDtool	1.4.7 or later
MySQL Community Server	5.5.25 through 5.5.28
RabbitMQ	2.8.6 or later
Nagios Plugins	1.4.15 or later
Erlang	R12B

Further into the guide, there are detailed information on how to install Oracle Java, RRDtool, MySQL Community Server, and RabbitMQ.  However, nothing was written about Nagios Plugin or Erlang,

A quick google search reveals that nagios-plugins can be installed using yum, but it will involve a third-party repository, which I am uncomfortable doing.  Erlang looks like it will be installed together with RabbitMQ, but I cannot be certain at this point.

I am quite disappointed with the installation guide, but hey, that’s what you get with free things.

This hiccup brings me back to the Zenoss website.  Hey what’s this?  An auto-deploy script?  Ok, let’s use this instead.

This will be continued on the next post.