NxTop Center Installation Guide

Revision 1 May 8, 2012 NxTop Center Version 4.0

Virtual Computer |

Table of Contents
About this Guide ........................................................................................................................ 3 Hardware, Software and Browser Requirements ....................................................................... 3 BIOS Settings .............................................................................................................................. 3 Adding Hyper-V to Windows 2008 Server .................................................................................. 4 Disable Enhanced Internet Explorer Security During Installation ............................................... 5 Enable RDP ActiveX Control ....................................................................................................... 6 Open Ports on firewalls .............................................................................................................. 7 Removing Existing Applications.................................................................................................. 7 Installing NxTop Center .............................................................................................................. 8 Installing NxTop Center as a Virtual Appliance ......................................................................... 19 Prerequisites ......................................................................................................................... 19 Prepare the virtual machine .................................................................................................. 19 Install as a Virtual Appliance.................................................................................................. 20 Configuring NxTop Center ..................................................................................................... 20 License Installation................................................................................................................ 20 Active Directory Configuration .............................................................................................. 22 Active Directory Set-up ......................................................................................................... 22 Adding SSL Certificates .......................................................................................................... 22 Import the AD Users into NxTop Center ................................................................................ 26 Next Steps ................................................................................................................................ 27

Virtual Computer NxTop Center Installation Guide Copyright 2012 Virtual Computer Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be copied or reproduced in whole or part, including any part of text, diagrams, illustrations or art thereof by any means including translation for any purpose whatsoever, without express written permission from Virtual Computer Inc. Trademarks NxTop is a Registered trademark of Virtual Computer, Inc. Virtual Computer is a trademark of Virtual Computer Inc. Any references made herein to other companies or products represent the trademarks of the respective owners of those trademarks, including Microsoft and Xenocode.

Virtual Computer | About this Guide

About this Guide

This document serves as a guide for the installation and configuration of NxTop Center, the administrative half of the NxTop solution. The instructions in this document describe how to install and prepare NxTop Center for use.

Hardware, Software and Browser Requirements

The host must be a stand-alone (physical) server or a virtualized machine. Processor Intel Xeon Dual Core 2.0 GHz Hard-drive 200 GB (recommend 8GB) 10K RPM Memory 6GB RAM Networking Single Port 1Gbps Ethernet NIC

The NxTop Center Server must have the following operating system and supporting software installed before installation: Windows Server 2008 R2 (required for virtual appliances) Microsoft Hyper-V (6.0.6002.18005 or higher)

If Microsoft Hyper-V is not found, installation will halt and prompt you to install it. The required version is bundled with the operating system. Once installed, access NxTop Center through a Web browser (Internet Explorer 7or 8 supported). Browser requirements include: Windows XP with SP3, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 2008 Server OS Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed RDP Active X control enabled

Virtual Computer makes it easy to determine if your computer will work with NxTop Engine. Access the NxTop Compatibility Tool on the Virtual Computer Web site to verify if your existing Windows machine supports the virtualization required to run NxTop Engine.

BIOS Settings
For Hyper-V to operate correctly, the server must have the following BIOS settings enabled: Virtualization: VT: Trusted Execution: For Lenovo computers: Timer wake with battery: enabled Virtual Computer | About this Guide 3 enabled (checked) enabled (checked) off (unchecked)

You need to restart the computer for changes to the BIOS to take effect. On some systems, it may be necessary to power-down the computer for a few minutes, and then restart.

Adding Hyper-V to Windows 2008 Server

If Microsoft Hyper-V is not found, NxTop Center installation will stop and you are prompted to install it. Use the Microsoft instructions to install (add the role of) Hyper-V to the server. See the Windows Reference page for Hyper-V Install and Enable on Windows Server 64-bit: http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-server-2008/hyper-v-install-enable-on-windows-server2008-64-bit/ Hyper V Prerequisites: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731898.aspx When you create a Virtual Network, select a physical network adapter as its connection, and name the virtual network External Network. Hyper-V Installation will warn you if the required BIOS Settings are not enabled. You can also add a Virtual Network after the initial installation of Hyper-V: 1. Open the Server Manager, and expand the Roles to show the Hyper V Manager, and select it.

2. On the right panel, select the Virtual Network Manager.

Virtual Computer | Adding Hyper-V to Windows 2008 Server

3. Select External as the type, and click the Add button.

4. Enter External Network as the name of the Virtual network. Select the (physical) controller to connect to, and click OK. Note: The name External Network is a NxTop requirement.

5. When prompted, complete the Hyper-V installation by rebooting the server.

Disable Enhanced Internet Explorer Security during Installation

It is recommended that you turn off Enhanced Internet Explorer Security during installation of NxTop Center. Turning this feature off prevents messages from being displayed during installation, which greatly slows the installation process.

Virtual Computer | Disable Enhanced Internet Explorer Security during Installation

Disable the Enhanced Internet Explorer Security Windows Component by clearing the checkbox: 1. In the Server Manager tree, expand the roles to display options associated with the Hyper-V Manager. 2. In the Server Manager window, select the Configure IE ESC link. 3. Find and clear the checkbox for Enhanced Internet Explorer Security. When you start Internet Explorer, it warns you: Caution: Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration is not enabled After installation, enable Enhanced internet Security by following these same steps and filling the checkbox.

Enable RDP ActiveX Control

If the computer running the browser used to connect to NxTop Center uses Windows XP, ensure that the RDP ActiveX control is enabled. Otherwise, NxTop Center will not function properly. It is disabled by default. Even if the browser is not running Windows XP, the RDP ActiveX control might still be set to Disabled. If you experience a "Cannot install RDP ActiveX control" message, the control may be disabled. 1. In the browser, click on Tools > Manage Add-ons. Virtual Computer | Enable RDP ActiveX Control 6

2. In the dialog box, find Microsoft RDP Client Control and make sure that it is Enabled (Status column). 3. If you cannot find the RDP ActiveX control in the Manage Add-ons dialog, see http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/error-remote-desktop-web-connection-activexcontrol-could-not-be-installed-after-installing-windows-xp-sp3/ to fix a known issue with this control on Windows XP. For convenience the information is provided below: a. Click Start> Run. b. Enter Regedit.exe. c. Navigate to the following branch HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft \Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Settings. d. Double-click Settings to expand the branch. e. Right-click {7584c670-2274-4efb-b00b-d6aaba6d3850} and choose Delete f. Click Yes when asked for confirmation. 4. If your browser does not have the RDP ActiveX Control, please use Windows Update to install it.

Open Ports on firewalls

If you are installing on a server with a firewall, ensure that the following ports are available. If not, create a rule manually to open these ports. The NxTop Center installer does not create a firewall rule to open the ports used by NxTop Center. Port 443 Use Used by NxTop clients to communicate with NxTop Center. If not open, clients cannot register or otherwise communicate with NxTop Center.

8443 Used by Administrator to communicate with NxTop Center UI. 2179 Used by Hyper-V Management Service Console (RDP) 1433 SQL database port; this port should be open between the remote and central NxTop Center
servers.

Removing Existing Applications

In addition, the following applications or services must not be installed or have been previously running on the Windows 2008 64bit server: Apache Tomcat Server Microsoft SQL, MySQL or SQLEXPRESS Database Server/Services Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

If these are installed, NxTop installation includes tools to remove them cleanly. Back up any data within these applications that you want to preserve. Virtual Computer | Open Ports on firewalls 7

Installing NxTop Center

The following section details the steps required to install NxTop Center on a physical server. NxTop Center relies on a number of components to be installed to work successfully. As part of the installation process, the installer sets up the following applications: Apache Tomcat Server 6.0 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express (unless using database on another server) Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.6.0_13 Xenocode sample pack of Virtual Applications (optional)

The NxTop Center application requires administrative privileges to install successfully onto the Windows 2008 Server operating system. Start the NxTop Center installation using the installation kit. The kit may be local on the server or available over your network. 1. Run the NxTop installer. The installation begins with a welcome screen:

Virtual Computer | Installing NxTop Center

2. Click Next to continue. The next screen shows the End User License Agreement for NxTop Center.

3. Please read thoroughly and only choose I Accept the agreement if you understand and agree with the license. Click Next to accept the agreement and continue the installation. 4. The Server Type screen appears. Select either the Central Server or Remote Server radio button. For Central Server installations, you manage your virtual machines and assign them to users and groups. For Remote Server types, the NxTop Server offloads a Central Server from deploying virtual machines and managing backups for a subset of users and their groups.

Virtual Computer | Installing NxTop Center

5. The Server Information screen appears. Enter the Central Server Name, and browse to the location of the folder where the database files reside.

The default Installation folder is displayed: C:\Program Files (x86)\Virtual Computer\NxTopCenter Both NxTop Center and Tomcat have a /bin folder. Do not install them in the same location. 6. The installer checks that the host is suitable:

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It checks the OS. If the host runs Windows Server 2008 R2 without a Hyper-V role, the installer interprets this as installing into a virtual machine. It displays an information pop-up telling you that it will perform a virtual appliance installation. This pop-up does not appear if you are installing on a physical server and Hyper-V is configured.

If the host runs Windows Server 2008 SP2 with a Hyper-v role, the installer displays a pop-up asking you to install Hyper-V before continuing. It checks that the server has adequate memory (at least 6GB, preferably 8GB) and storage space (at least 200 GB). A warning message is displayed if this is not available. ) to select another folder.

7. Click on Next to install into this folder, or click the folder icon (

8. Click OK to close the warning message. Virtual Computer suggests freeing up enough disk space or selecting another server with adequate RAM. 9. Select the NxTop Center components to be installed on this server. Click on a component for information about it.

Xenocode Samples is a set of Xenocode virtualized applications that can be assigned to NxTops, groups or users. Installing them is optional. If the check box is filled, the Virtual Applications are copied to the NxTop Center file import folder, where they can be imported into the NxTop Center Software Library. At this time, all components must be installed on the same server. Click Next to continue.

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10. The installer collects information used to install the Apache Tomcat 6.0 server. Most of NxTop Centers disk space consumption is stored within the Tomcat directory.

Enter username, password and listening port for Tomcat. Additionally set the following information: Tomcat Installation directory: use the default of click the folder icon ( ) and browse to select another directory Tomcat Administrator Username Tomcat Administrator Password (enter and verify) Tomcat Port for NxTop Center: 8443 (default) Port used by NxTop Engines and administrators to connect to NxTop Center. Tomcat Port for NxTop clients: 443 (default) Port used by NxTop Center to send NxTop virtual machines and queries to NxTop engines.

11. Click Next to continue. Both NxTop Center and Tomcat have a /bin folder. Do not install them in the same location.

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12. The installer collects information for the Servers SSL Certificate:

Enter the following for the SSL Certificate: Fully qualified domain name; use IP address if the name is not available. Organization or company name. Do not include punctuation in the name. City State or Province Select Country from the dropdown list

The installer creates a self-signed certificate to enable SSL on the NxTop Center. You may install your own certificate obtained from RSA or other certificate authorities as described here: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/ssl-howto.html 13. Click Next to continue.

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14. The installer collects information for the Hyper-V Virtual Server:

Enter user name and password for the Hyper-V administrator account: Username Password (enter and verify)

The account must have a local Administrator authority on the server. This Administrator name/password combination will be used to login to NxTop Center. The installer checks that the account and password exist the account has local administrator rights

If one or both of these validations fails, an appropriate warning message is displayed.

Click OK and correct any problems with the account before continuing. Click Next to continue.

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15. Select a location for the database. NxTop Center supports two database options; you can install Microsoft SQL Express, or use an existing Microsoft SQL Database Server. In the Database Option screen, select the radio button for the database location; click Next.

16. For SQL Express on the host, the Installer collects information, including the database Administrator username and password. Enter the database administrator username and password. The database administrator password must be sa.

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17. To use an existing SQL database server:

If the database will be created in a remote SQL engine, enter information about the location: host name (DNS name) database port database instance name database name DBA password (and confirmation). The DBA name is expected to be sa.

The Installer verifies connectivity to the host, and that the host accepted the username and password before continuing. If an issue is reported, correct it before continuing. Click Next to continue.

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18. The Summary screen appears, listing all the information used to load NxTop Center and its supporting components:

Review the information displayed carefully. If you wish to change any of the values entered for configuration, click Back to browse to the appropriate screen, change the values, and then click Next until you return to this screen. 19. Click Next to start the installation; to cancel the installation, click Cancel. The components and the NxTop Center are then installed on the server. Progress is displayed as each component completes.

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The installation progress for the Microsoft SQL server is also displayed:

In the event of a failure during installation, correct the reported error. Then, continue the installation from the point where it failed by restarting the installer. Installed components do not need to be reinstalled.

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20. When the software is installed, click Finish. The installer window will close.

21. To complete Installation, you must restart the server. The installer displays a pop-up box to restart.

Click OK at the restart prompt to restart the server. After the server restarts, an icon for NxTop Center Management Console appears on the server desktop.

Installing NxTop Center as a Virtual Appliance

In addition to installing NxTop Center directly on a server, you can install it on a virtual machine. This chapter describes the additional steps used for Virtual Appliance installation.

Prerequisites
Use a Windows Server 2008 R2 system as the host. The Hyper-V host must define an external network named External Network.

Prepare the virtual machine

To prepare the virtual machine:

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1. Prepare a Windows 2008 Server R2 virtual machine in Hyper-V. Give the R2 VM 2 CPUs Ensure the R2 VM's disk is sized large enough to contain NxTop virtual machines (several hundred GB) Join the R2 VM to the same Windows domain as the Hyper-V host. 2. Apply all Microsoft updates to the R2 VM 3. You must manually add the R2 VM computer account to the local administrator group on the Hyper-V host. This can be done either using the command line: net localgroup administrators "DOMAIN\R2_VMhostname$" /add using the "Local Users and Groups" tool in Server Manager

Install as a Virtual Appliance

To Install NxTop Center as a virtual appliance: 1. Install NxTop Center into the R2 VM using the installer.exe. The installer detects a Windows Server 2008 R2 host without an installed Hyper-V, which it interprets as installing into a virtual machine. It displays an information pop-up telling you that it will perform a virtual appliance installation. 2. Once installed, import a license (see License Installation later in this document).

Configuring NxTop Center

After installing NxTop Center as virtual appliance, use the following procedure to activate it: 1. In the NxTop Center navigation panel, select Overview >NxTop Center > Configuration. 2. Click on the Hyper-V tab and check the information: Ensure that the Host Hyper-V Server field is correctly set to the Hyper-V host name. Ensure the Hyper-V User is a domain user, for example "DOMAIN\Administrator" 3. Click on the Virtual Appliance tab and check the information: Ensure the 3 UNC paths all contain the computer name of the R2 VM. Use the Modify action to add any missing values. 4. Click the Activate Appliance action. NxTop Center is installed on the VM and is now ready to operate.

License Installation
Once installed and before you use NxTop Center, you must import a NxTop license. The NxTop license not only allows you to operate the NxTop Center, but it also defines how many laptops your NxTop Center can support. If NxTop Center does not have a valid license, the following dialog appears:

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The license is an XML file delivered by email. Copy it into the NxTop Center import folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\Virtual Computer\ NxTopCenter\File Import) or a network location that can be reached by the computer browsing NxTop Center.

1. Log into NxTop Center using the Administrator name and password used on the Hyper-V
installation panel.

2. In NxTop Center, Click Overview in the Navigation panel. 3. Click

(Import License) in the Actions panel. The import license window appears:

4. Location select from the dropdown list:

Import from local system (where your browser is running) or Import from Server (in the File Import folder under the NxTop Center). 5. Specify the file: From local system: Browse to the file location and highlight the file. From server: select from the dropdown list of files in import folder. 6. Click Finish. Virtual Computer | Installing NxTop Center as a Virtual Appliance 21

The license is installed. The number of registered computers and the number available by license are listed on the Summary tab of the Overview. You can add additional licenses to support more laptops. Contact Virtual Computer support for more information about additional or upgraded licenses.

Active Directory Configuration

Enter your Active Directory (AD) environment settings into NxTop Center to import the users and groups already defined for your organization. NxTop Center includes a panel used to add or update this information. Once the AD location has been set, import the AD information into NxTop Center, bringing the defined structure of users, groups, and computers. Update this information periodically so NxTop Center maintains current information. These steps are described below. When creating a base NxTop virtual machine image whose users are defined in Active Directory, join the base image to the domain.

Active Directory Set-Up

To configure NxTop Center to import and use your Active Directory database, follow these steps. You can use AD Explorer to help collect the data from your AD database.

1. Click Overview >NxTop Center in the Navigation panel. The menu tree expands to display
configured roles for the Central Server. Select the Central Server node to display the Active Directory tab in the workspace.

2. Click the Active Directory tab.

The Active directory data panel appears.

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3. Complete the Active Directory panel:

a. Enter the Domain server IP Address. b. Enter the Domain server port. If not using SSL, default port = 389 If using SSL, default port = 636 c. If using SSL, fill the Use SSL checkbox. d. Enter the Domain Root distinguished name (DN) elements (for example DC=companyname,DC=com) e. Enter the Principal User distinguished name (DN) f. Enter and verify the Password for the Principal User. g. Enter the User Base DN (the source of users to be imported). h. Enter the Group Base DN (the source of groups to be imported). i. Enter the Computer Base DN (the location of computer definitions).

4. If your organization uses more than the basic AD configuration, fill the Advanced Settings
checkbox and enter any of the values needed. Check with your AD administrator for more information.

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a. b. c. d.

Enter the Computer Object Category. Enter the User Name Attribute. Enter the Group Name attribute. If you require SSL Certificate validation with the Active Directory server, fill the Validate Certificate checkbox.

If you fill this checkbox, you need to add the ADs SSL certificate to the Java Key Store. See Adding SSL Certificates below for more information.

5. Click Save (

) to apply the changes.

6. Click Test Active Directory in the Configuration Actions panel. It checks that the connection
data is valid. It displays messages describing issues if any problems are found. Once the AD connection is validated, NxTop Center is prepared to use the existing Active Directory information.

Adding SSL Certificates

If you need to add the Active Directorys SSL certificate to the Java Key Store, use the following command from a Windows command line: keytool -import -alias domain -file "AD_SSL_cert.crt" -keystore C:/Program Files (x86)/Java/ jdk1.6.0_13/jre/lib/security/cacerts where

domain is the domain where the Java Key store resides AD_SSL_cert.crt is the certificate file, usually named <dns name of ca>_<name of cert>.crt

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Import the AD Users into NxTop Center

After restarting Apache, launch the NxTop Center management application. 1. Click on the Groups and Users navigation tree. The Import icon appears if the config.properties file has been read by Apache. If you fill this checkbox, you need to add the ADs SSL certificate to the Java Key Store. See Adding SSL Certificates below for more information. 2. Click the (Import) icon in the User and Group Actions panel. The Import AD Users and Groups opens.

3. Select the Auto Reconcile checkbox. This automatically incorporates all changes from the import process; you can manually perform reconciliation by selecting the Imports folder in the Groups and Users navigation panel. 4. Enter a user filter and/or a group filter.

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5. Click Finish. A comparison between the AD and the listed users appears:

This first time, all groups and users will be new. 6. Select the groups and users to import: To automatically import all users and groups from the AD into NxTop Center, fill the Auto Import checkbox and click Finish. To select from the Groups and Users in AD: a. Leave Auto Install unchecked and click Finish. b. Click the Imports branch under Groups and Users. c. In the workspace, select the New Groups tab and the New Users tab, fill the checkboxes for those groups/users you want to import. d. Click Save ( ) to import any selected groups and users.

The Users, Groups, and Computers defined on the Active Directory are listed in NxTop Center. Users and Groups are listed with blue icons, as opposed to local (defined directly on the server) users and groups that have orange icons. Repeat this process periodically to keep NxTop Center synchronized with your Active Directory. See Importing Users and Groups from Active Directory in on-line help for details.

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Next Steps
At this point, your NxTop Center is ready for use. The next steps to take advantage of the NxTop solution are:
Step 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Create one or more NxTop virtual machines on the NxTop Center Publish the NxTop virtual machine for use Create Users (of the laptops) on your NxTop Center Install the NxTop Engine on one or more laptop computers Assign the NxTops to users Assign a NxTop On Welcome tab Create a NxTop Publish a NxTop Create Users and Groups

When a user logs into the NxTop Engine, NxTop Center downloads the NxTop virtual machine to the laptop. The user can select the virtual machine and it starts up. If you have issues using NxTop Center or the NxTop Engine, visit the support site at http://www.virtualcomputer.com/customer-portal. Access to the Virtual Computer Support Site requires a login. If you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one to access the site.

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