How to use the Amazon EC2 AMI for GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1

GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 bundled with RedHat in the Amazon Cloud (EC2)

Last updated: February 4th 2014
GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 Enterprise is available as a ready-to-run 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI) bundled with RedHat 6.5. It is already licensed with a 50 device CORE license.

Quick-start information

If you're an experienced EC2 users this the information you'll need:
AMI name: ami-678ab80e.
Minimum instance size: Large
Recommended instance size: Large
Administer your instance using the web interface:e.g. http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com/
The instance uses EBS for persistent storage. Amazon EBS I/O and storage charges apply in addition to CPU time. Amazon charges apply to the RedHat OS
Application login user name/password: admin/admin
Operator login user name/password: operator/operator
PostgreSQL postgres password: postgres
Set the address for GroundWork GWAddress

Getting Started With GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 and Amazon EC2 Cloud

This guide walks through getting started with GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 in the Amazon EC2 cloud with a completely hosted, private copy.

Get an Amazon Account

If you have not already created an account on Amazon's EC2 service please do so now. Amazon will charge your account for the resources you consume on their service; GroundWork Open Source Inc does not receive any of this money.
You can sign up for a new account at:
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

Get the AMI

The GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1 EC2 AMI image is an Instance Store AMI you purchase from Amazon. You can, of course, launch it, modify it, and bundle it into your own copy.

  • The instance has been left essentially as a clean, patched install of GWMEE 7.0.1. The Network Notification service is ON, and will submit anonymous usage data back to GroundWork when launched. A valid license is required for use and is preinstalled.
  • As with all EC2 instances, this one should be launched with your keys, which will give you root access to the console. See Amazon documentation for key setup.
Locating the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 7.0.1 AMI
  • Log in to your Amazon account
  • Choose the Region where you wish to launch
  • Go to aws.amazon.com
  • Select the AMI and Launch an instance.
  • Configure the instance to be created:
    In particular the following choices are recommended:
  • Create a single instance
  • Select an availability zone
  • Instance type is Large (m1.large 7.5GB)

Follow the on screen instructions. Default values are fine.

Create Key Pair:
  • A user can use an existing, previously created key pair, create a new pair, or proceed without a key pair.
  • To configure the EC2 instance a user must have access to the console. At this point the user has to create the  SSH keys if they don't exist already. Please follow the onscreen instructions on how to create a key and use it.
  • User can create Security Groups defining access to the EC2 instance. Access should be configured so that SSH (port 22), HTTP (port 80), HTTPS (port 443) and Ntop Web (port 82) are open.
  • The instance is configured with the RedHat firewall (iptables) running with these ports open. You may wish to adjust "iptables" depending on your needs after you have launched the instance and connected via SSH.
Launch the Instance

Press the "Launch" button
Click on "Instances" in the left side Navigation panel to check the instance creation process:
After a few minutes the status will change from "starting" to "running". Linux and the GroundWork application will then launch for the first time. This process takes a few minutes.

Configuring the Address for the GroundWork portal

YOU MUST DO THIS STEP! If you fail to do this step you will NOT have access to GroundWork through the portal!

The AMI instance has a private IP Address and a Public DNS. The Public DNS is often used to access the GroundWork Monitor portal. Make sure the GroundWork Monitor web portal IS configured with the Public DNS name by the following steps before you try to access the portal.

Using the key you generated, access the instance with an SSH session: 
ssh -i <path to the key you generated> [email protected]

You will be prompted to answer yes to connect to the instance.
Next, become the root user:

sudo su -

Now decide which of the names or IP addresses you want GroundWork to use. Just be sure your choice is available to you from your browser. First verify this by executing the following from the machine where you are opening your browser:

nslookup <the name or ip address>

Alternatively use "dig" or "ping":

dig <the name or ip address>
ping <the name or ip address>

If the tests do not indicate success you must work out the problem before proceeding.

If it is ok you can set that name into GroundWork. As root, execute the following script to configure GroundWork to use the Public DNS name. Replace the ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com argument with your instance name. If you are going to use this in a Virtual Private Cloud, the argument would be the private address, or Private DNS name. 
/usr/local/groundwork/gw-config --machine_hostname ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.z-2.compute-1.amazonws.com

Then, restart GroundWork using the command

/etc/init.d/groundwork restart

When the root prompt comes back you are ready to use the instance.

Access GroundWork Monitor.

Open a new browser tab at the "public DNS" address of the newly created instance.
Login using the default administrator credentials:

Username: admin
Password: admin

You're now ready to explore GroundWork Monitor 7.0.1

Be sure to change the password for the admin user, and to either disable or change the other default web accounts (User and Operator).
Changing the default passwords is highly recommended. Do so as the Admin user. From the main portal screen choose (Group -> Organization -> Users and Groups Management)
This is the panel you will see, click on the User Management, Account Info tabs and check the box for Change Password
You can now configure monitoring of your cloud and web resources, or any hosts or applications reachable from your EC2 instance.
The AMI we produced is set for the most popular Time Zone, on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. We applied the timezone adjustment to PHP referred to in technical bulletin 6.3-3 Timezone for php must be set in 6.3 so that the ami will work when launched in the Eastern US availability zones, but you may adjust this parameter for whatever time zone you launch the AMI in. Follow the instructions in the technical bulletin if you need to launch the ami in another time zone.
Learning about GroundWork Monitor

Check out the "Getting Started with GroundWork Monitor" training course on our web site .
Need to justify a monitoring investment?  Try our whitepapers http://www.groundworkopensource.com/resources/white-papers/

Note about the address setting

These are the files updated by running "gw-config". 

/usr/local/groundwork/config/josso-agent-config.xml
/usr/local/groundwork/config/ntop.properties
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/conf/groundwork/apache2-noma.conf
/usr/local/groundwork/config/configuration.properties
/usr/local/groundwork/apache2/conf/groundwork/foundation-ui.conf
/usr/local/groundwork/noma/etc/NoMa.yaml

After you make changes to these files with our script you must restart GroundWork:

/etc/init.d/groundwork restart
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