QNAP IT Management Station powered by Mandriva Pulse

© 2014 QNAP Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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QNAP IT Management Station

powered by Mandriva Pulse

User guide

April 2014


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QNAP IT Management Station powered by Mandriva Pulse

About Mandriva

Mandriva SA is a French open source software editor providing innovative and easy-to-use enterprise and server

solutions. Founded in 1998, the company is head quartered in Paris with development centers in Curitiba, Brazil

and in Metz, France. Dedicated to making open source technologies accessible to enterprises, the company offers

products and solutions targeting enterprises, government organizations and the education sector. Mandriva

products are available online in multiple languages and sold through direct and indirect channels in many countries

around the world. More information is at http://www.mandriva.com

QNAP Turbo NAS with Mandriva Pulse Solution

The joint solution QNAP / Mandriva allows a combination of good software and a good hardware.

QNAP Systems, Inc., as its brand promise "Quality Network Appliance Provider", aims to deliver comprehensive

offerings of cutting edge network attached storage (NAS) featured with ease-of-use, robust operation, large

storage capacity, and trustworthy reliability. QNAP integrates technologies and designs to bring forth quality

products that effectively improve business efficiency on file sharing, virtualization applications, storage

management and surveillance in the business environments.

Audience

This document is intended to help understand the IT Management Station from a technical point of view (requires

some IT knowledge), and its benefits from a user point of view. It includes an installation description and a starter

guide. A test environment is used in this document to illustrate some of the possibilities of the IT Management

Station.

Disclaimer Disclaimer: As with all Best Practices, not every recommendation can – or should – be applied. Best Practices are

general guidelines, not hard, fast rules that must be followed. As such, you should carefully review each item to

determine if it makes sense in your environment. If implementing one (or more) of these Best Practices seems

sensible, great; if it doesn't, simply ignore it. In other words, it's up to you to decide if you should apply these in

your environment.


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Contents 1. IT Management Station (Mandriva Pulse) overview............................................................................... 4

1.1. What does it do? .................................................................................................................... 4

1.2. Benefits ................................................................................................................................ 4

2. Installation.................................................................................................................................... 5

2.1. Solution Architecture ............................................................................................................... 5

2.2. Pre-requirements ................................................................................................................... 5

2.3. Pre/Post installation Requirements ............................................................................................. 5

2.4. Installation ............................................................................................................................ 6

2.4.1. Verify the pre-requirements .................................................................................................. 6

2.5. Configuration ....................................................................................................................... 12

2.5.1. Open Pulse interface .......................................................................................................... 12

3. Starting to use IT Management Station (Pulse) .................................................................................. 24

3.1. Pulse User Manual ................................................................................................................ 24

3.2. Add the first computer ........................................................................................................... 25

3.3. Check the computer inventory ................................................................................................ 27

3.4. Configure file backup and restore ............................................................................................ 28

3.5. Restore files from the backup ................................................................................................. 30

3.6. Create a complete image over the network ............................................................................... 31

3.7. Restore an image from the network ......................................................................................... 34

3.8. Deploy a software to all computers .......................................................................................... 35

3.9. Manage Windows Updates ...................................................................................................... 36

3.10. More features and options available ......................................................................................... 38

3.11. Tutorial Videos ..................................................................................................................... 38

4. Good to know .............................................................................................................................. 39

4.1. Change MySQL Password ....................................................................................................... 39

4.2. How to activate LDAP Server .................................................................................................. 43

4.3. Licensing............................................................................................................................. 44

4.4. Technical Support ................................................................................................................. 44

4.5. Additional links..................................................................................................................... 44

5. References .................................................................................................................................. 45


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1. IT Management Station (Mandriva Pulse) overview

1.1. What does it do?

IT Management Station (powered by Mandriva Pulse) is designed to simplify daily tasks and IT asset management

for businesses of all sizes. Administrators can benefit from the IT Manager Station to centralize their management

of multi-OS and multi-site IT assets. Pulse extends the Turbo NAS business applications by supporting the following

key features:

With the IT Management Station, the Turbo NAS extends its business applications by supporting the following key

features:

• Web interface: Supervise large scale sites through a single web interface console

• Comprehensive inventory: Perform hardware and software inventory checks

• Software deployment: Deploy new software and security updates on all your IT assets

• Imaging: Create and deploy hard disk images of your computer directly from the network (using PXE)

• Remote control: Perform remote management & support

• Backup and restore: Supports full backup & daily incremental backup to protect an organization’s IT

assets

• Patch Management: Centralized software updates and control of your endpoint security

• License Management: Optimize your software assets usage

• Reporting: Generate IT asset reports

• Pull Mode: Increase the compliance of your roaming devices

• Software convergence: Automated software deployments

1.2. Benefits

The main features of Pulse are grouped according to four dimensions: flexibility, industrialization of IT,

management/supervision and security.

Flexibility: Pulse is an application that perfectly fits the needs of users and their existing IT computer systems and

allows managing heterogeneous systems and multi-platform with variable time range. Pulse is its ability to adapt to

user activity, by using dynamic groups which provide intelligent management, customized network booting for

managed IT systems and ACL for each feature.

Industrialization of IT: Pulse allows process automation for deployment and homogenization of all IT assets with

management packs, wizard, imaging. Automated processes reduce time and effort.

Management & Surveillance: Pulse allows constant monitoring with dashboard, log activities and system history.

Remote actions and tasks are easily done to administrate or provide remote access for technicians to help users.

Security: Pulse provides tools to ensure the safety of machines connected to the network by using secured

connections, encryption and recovery tasks. ACL and LDAP support offers a granularity of access control. Backups

can be done through imaging and incremental backup function.


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2. Installation

2.1. Solution Architecture

Pulse, hosted on QNAP Turbo NAS, will be the center of your managed environment, and will be able manage,

monitor, back up all of your IT assets:

Figure 1

2.2. Pre-requirements

Some requirements are necessary to install and use IT Management Station (Pulse):

- The Turbo NAS must be connected to the Internet: the installer will download additional packages for

installation

- Optware App Installed from the App Center

- DNS Server available on the network

Supported hardware

- QNAP Turbo NAS, Business Series with firmware QTS 4.1 (and later versions)

- Turbo NAS Series: TS-x80, TS-x79, TS-x79U-SAS, SS-x79U-SAS, TS-x70, TS-x69.

- For other Turbo NAS models1, please refer to the solution page at: http://www.qnap.com/i/station/en/it-

management.php

Additional shared folders will be created during the installation of Pulse for: computers, imaging, isos, masters,

packages, postinst, pulse.

2.3. Pre/Post installation Requirements

The following requirements can be done after the installation from the App Center. The configuration wizard will

guide you through the setup of those functions:

- A DHCP server is required for PXE boot (imaging and mastering feature)

o To use the Turbo NAS DHCP Server :

Fixed IP on the Turbo NAS (on Ethernet 1 ) : to enable DHCP server on the Turbo NAS

DHCP Server enabled on Turbo NAS (on Ethernet 1 ): allows PXE boot and provides

network backup, imaging and diskless environments from management

o To use an external existing DHCP server the setup wizard will guide you for its configuration.

- An LDAP Server installed and configured (It can be the one on the Turbo NAS, or an external LDAP Server)

- MySQL Server installed and configured

- TFTP Server installed and configured

- NFS Server installed and configured

http://www.qnap.com/i/station/en/it-management.php



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2.4. Installation

2.4.1. Verify the pre-requirements

Login to QTS


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Verify the Turbo NAS has a fixed IP

The Turbo NAS requires a fixed IP. In this tutorial we are using a class C (192.168.168.0/24) as example only.

The DNS server and default gateway must be setup correctly.

Δ The Turbo NAS Fixed IP must be in a different range than the DHCP server range to avoid an IP conflict.


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Verify the DHCP Server is enabled on the Turbo NAS (Optional)

If you plan to use the Turbo NAS DHCP Server, please make sure it is configured as below. Do not enable the

Turbo NAS DHCP Server if you already have one in your network environment.

If you plan to use an external DHCP Server, you can skip this setting.

The configuration wizard will guide you later to configure your DHCP Server.

- You can enable DHCP server on the Turbo NAS. The Turbo NAS will provide IP addresses to all the

computers being managed by Pulse.

- Choose the DHCP range according to your network configuration.

- WINS server is optional.

- DNS Suffix must be the domain you will use for LDAP domain.

- The TFTP Server IP address is the IP address of the Turbo NAS.

- Boot file must be “pxe_boot”

Δ The DHCP server is a requirement and allows PXE boot. This provides network booting, backup and imaging over

the network, and diskless environment for management,

Δ The DHCP range chosen must be used only for DHCP. Fixed IP addresses must be outside this range. In this

example, we respect this requirement:

- the Turbo NAS IP is 192.168.168.168

- the DNS server IP is 192.168.168.254

- The gateway IP is 192.168.168.254

- The DHCP range is 192.168.168.100 to 192.168.168.150


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Install Optware App

The installation Optware is mandatory. You must install this App from the App Center before installing IT

Management Station.


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Install IT Management Station from the App Center

The installation may appear to pause at 45% for 10-45 minutes, depending on your location and network traffic.

During this phase, additional installation data is downloaded.


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Finish the installation

Once the installation is completed, IT Management Station, Mandriva Pulse, will be available from the App Center,

the desktop and the main menu.


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2.5. Configuration

2.5.1. Open Pulse interface

You can open the Pulse Administration page from the desktop icon, the main menu or the App Center.

The first step is the configuration verification. The wizard will verify all of the necessary components and their

settings. If some settings are incorrect, a warning will appear. The “question mark” icon will display a picture of the

correct settings that need to be changed. (See the following page).


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By clicking the “question mark” icon, the screenshot with correct settings will be displayed.


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If you wish to use an external DHCP Server or LDAP Server, you can click on the warning message at the bottom of

the configuration page to display a guide:

- How to configure the external DHCP Server

- How to configure the external LDAP Server

For an external DHCP server:

- For a Windows DHCP server, you need to configure the options 66 and 67:

o Option 66, input the Turbo NAS IP Address.

o Option 67, the boot filename is : /bootloader/pxe_boot

- For a Linux dhcp server, edit dhcpd.conf and add those 2 lines in the correct section:

filename "/bootloader/pxe_boot";

next-server ip.du.serveur.pulse;

In any case, please refer to your system’s dhcp server configuration manual.

Δ The DHCP Server configuration can be done after the installation of Pulse is complete. The DHCP Server

configuration is necessary to benefit the PXE boot that allows imaging over the network and OS deployments over

the network.


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Follow all of the steps to enable each component.

The only available option is “Recheck the settings” until all conditions are correct.


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All settings for required components are correct

When all settings are completed, it is possible to click “Configure” to configure automatically Pulse itself.

If you use an external DHCP Server or LDAP server, it is also possible to click “Configure” to continue the

configuration process.

Click “Configure” and wait for the configuration to end. This step can take a few minutes.

Δ It is advised to change the default passwords on the Turbo NAS and MySQL Server. The default

passwords are:

- NAS: admin/admin

- MySQL: root/admin

- LDAP: there is no default password. The password is chosen when the LDAP Server is activated.

To change the password on MySQL, please refer to section 4.1 Change MySQL Password on page 39.


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Enter passwords for the configuration process

MySQL :

Default MySQL password is:

user : root

password : admin

If you have changed the password, enter the password for the root user that you have set in your MySQL server.

Do not check “reset Pulse database”. This option is used to reset and empty the Pulse database. It is used only in

case of reinstallation without keeping existing data in the Pulse database.

LDAP :

Enter the password for your LDAP Server.


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Wait for the configuration to complete.

The configuration can take a few minutes.


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Activate Mandriva Pulse

In order to complete the installation, Pulse needs to be activated.

A free Demo License is available for up to 5 managed computers.

You can choose to activate the software offline (not described here) or online as in the following description:

Select “Activate Online”

Select your Language and Country


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The next step requires you to login with your existing Mandriva account.

If you do not have a Mandriva account, you can register and create one at: http://store.mandriva.com/

(Also accessible via http://www.mandriva.com/en/ then “ServicePlace”)

Once on the ServicePlace, click “Register” and enter the required information.

After you account is created, on the Pulse configuration wizard, you can now login to activate your product:

http://store.mandriva.com/

http://www.mandriva.com/en/


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If you did not purchase any license yet, you will be able to select only 5 demo licenses, fully functional. If you have

already purchased additional licenses, you should be able to see them on the list:

Select the license you want to use and click “Activate product”.

Click “Access Pulse Homepage”.


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Configuration completed.

Once the configuration is complete, a welcome page will appear.

Click “Pulse Main Interface” to open the Pulse web console.

Agent Pack for Windows: Download the Agent program that needs to be installed on the managed computers.

Pulse Main Interface: The Pulse administration interface.

Pulse User Manual: The user manual.


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Main Interface

To login to the Pulse Main Interface, use the username “root” (the root user of your LDAP Server), and the

password is the password of your LDAP Server.

Once the main console is open, the software is ready to be used.


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3. Starting to use IT Management Station (Pulse) This section of the document will describe how to start using Pulse. It will not describe all the functionalities or the

complete detailed steps.

However, it is possible to see how easy it is to use and all the benefits it can bring.

3.1. Pulse User Manual

The first step is to download the user manual, available from the Pulse homepage. It contains all function

description and examples.


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3.2. Add the first computer

Login to the first computer you want to manage.

Open your web browser, login to the Turbo NAS Administration console, and click on “Mandriva Pulse” icon to open

the Pulse homepage: (Or open the homepage directly: http://<Turbo NAS IP>:81/pulse2-homepage )

Click on “Agent Pack for Windows” and install the agent pack.

It will install the necessary agent on the client computer.


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Once installed, you can open the Pulse management interface.

After few minutes, you will see the newly added computer in the Computers section.


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3.3. Check the computer inventory

On the computer list, choose the computer you want to check and click on the Inventory icon.

We will see a list of components regarding this computer.


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3.4. Configure file backup and restore

Click the Backup status icon.

As it is the first time you are backing up this computer, you will need to configure it. Click Configure.


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Select your backup options:

When finished, click Confirm

You can start the first full backup now if you want to.


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After the first backup is complete, from the Backup Tab, you can see the status, configuration and even search for

files:

3.5. Restore files from the backup

To restore files from the backup, navigate to the Backup menu, select the computer where you want to restore files,

and click on the Browse icon:

You can now browse to select files/folders you want to restore.

To restore, click “Download selected (zip)” to download a zip file, or click “restore to host” to restore the files to the

host.


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3.6. Create a complete image over the network

Verify that the Turbo NAS imaging server is properly registered. If not, in the Imaging menu, click Actions “+” to

register the Turbo NAS imaging server:

Register your computer to the imaging system:


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Boot your computer from the network using PXE boot.

Note: Without registering the computer, it will not be able to perform network backup and the “Create a Backup”

Option will be missing.

Wait for the backup to complete:


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3.7. Restore an image from the network

To restore a complete system image, from the Computers Tab, choose the computer you want to restore, click on

the imaging icon.

All existing image will be listed below:

Click on the “Add image to boot menu”. It will add the

selected image to the boot menu making available the

restore function for this particular image:


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3.8. Deploy a software to all computers

It is possible to deploy software directly from Pulse.

To do so, create a package in Packages tab:

(You can see a detailed tutorial video at http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/Pulse/videos/ )

Select the computer on which you want to deploy the package and click the Software Deployment icon:

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/pulse2/videos/


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Click on the installation button:

The package will then be deployed.

3.9. Manage Windows Updates

Pulse is able to manage Windows updates and have an overview of all necessary updates.

To use this feature, start to deploy the Pulse Secure Agent for Windows Update on the computer on which you

want to manage updates, referring to “3.8 Deploy a software to all computers”.

Once the agent is deployed, it can report the updates needed.


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The status can be seen in the updates menu:

It is possible to force refresh by using the quick action “Pulse Update Manager” in the software deployment menu:


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3.10. More features and options available

Mandriva Pulse offers many more functions for better IT asset management and deployment. Please visit

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/Pulse/ for more information about Pulse.

3.11. Tutorial Videos

Tutorial Videos for Pulse can be viewed from:

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/Pulse/videos/

They describe and demonstrate key functions:

- Backup and Restore

- Agent installation

- Client registration

- How to create a master image

- Software package creation

- Desktop installation from a windows 7 sysprep image

- Creation of a Windows 7 sysprep image

- How to take control of a machine remotely using VNC

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/pulse2/



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4. Good to know

4.1. Change MySQL Password

In order to easily change the password, it is possible to install an additional App from the App Center: phpMyAdmin.

This App allows administrating MySQL databases.

- Enable the Web Server in QTS. phpMyAdmin requires the web-server to display the administration console.


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- Install phpMyAdmin into QTS from the App Center

Once the App is installed, open phpMyAdmin from the desktop, from the main menu or from the App Center.


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- Login to phpMyAdmin using your current database login/password.

o The default login/password in QTS is : root/admin

-


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- Click once on “Change Password” to change the password:

-

The MySQL database now has a new password.


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4.2. How to activate LDAP Server

Login to the Turbo NAS administration interface with user admin, navigate to Control Panel > Applications > LDAP

Server.

Enable LDAP Server and enter your full domain name, and your password, then click “Apply”.

The LDAP Server is now running.

Δ You can choose your LDAP domain freely. However, it should be a resolvable domain by your DNS server.


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4.3. Licensing

IT Management Station powered by Mandriva Pulse is provided with 5 free licenses2.

Additional licenses3 are available to purchase from the dashboard.

4.4. Technical Support

Technical support regarding Pulse functionalities is provided by Mandriva.

Contact information can be found on the IT Management Station dashboard, under “Subscription info”.

Depending on your license mode, you will have the corresponding support contact information.

Technical support regarding the Turbo NAS is provided by QNAP at: http://www.qnap.com/support

4.5. Additional links

Other direct access:

Pulse homepage: http://nas:81/pulse2-homepage

Pulse administration page: http://nas:81/mmc

http://www.qnap.com/support

http://nas:81/pulse2-homepage

http://nas:81/mmc


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5. References

QNAP Mandriva Solution:


QNAP Technical Support:


Mandriva Official Website:


Mandriva Pulse Overview:

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/Pulse/

Video Tutorials:

http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/Pulse/videos/

Mandriva Technical Support

Available from the IT Management Station dashboard.

Mandriva Service Place Account

http://store.mandriva.com/my/account/

Mandriva Service Place


1 Supported Models are subject to change without prior notice. 2 Free Licenses are subject to change without prior notice. 3 License and pricing is provided by Mandriva SA.




http://www.mandriva.com/en/products-services/pulse2/


http://store.mandriva.com/my/account/


Documents

QNAP IT Management Station powered by Mandriva Pulse