Delphix Express installation

This post is part of a series

• Delphix Express: Installation
• Delphix Express: Virtualizing a database and web application
• Delphix Express: Setting up Jetstream
• Delphix Express: Using Jetstream

A couple of blog post ago I announced that there is now a free version of Delphix.  Here is a little more information about the installation of Delphix Express.

To get Delphix Express, the free version of Delphix, go to

and create an account, then log in. You should see a DelphixExpress folder. Click on it and you can download the OVAs.

Delphix Express

Delphix Express clones databases in minutes for almost not storage and will automates backing up you databases saving typically 30 days of backups down to the second in the size of the original database.

Delphix Express is a free version of Delphix limited to 25 GB of managed storage and 1 vCPU. Delphix Express is set up for small projects and not optimized for high throughput nor performance testing.

Landshark

Landshark is a set of 2 virtual machines consisting of a data source Linux VM and a target Linux VM. The source VM has Oracle XE preinstalled with a database and a web application installed that uses the database. The target VM has Oracle XE installed but no database and no web application. Landshark is set up to automatically register the two VMs with Delphix Express and to link the two data sources on the source VM. Once finished one can start provision a virtual database on the target machine as well as provisioning a virtual web application on the target machine

Delphix Express with Landshark Requirements

• 60 GB free disk space
• 6 GB of available memory
• internet connectivity *

Compatible Hypervisors

• VMware
  • ESX 5.0, 5.1, 5.5
  • Fusion 4,5,6,7
  • Workstation 8,8,10,11
• Virtualbox
  • 4.3

Installation time

Required install time : 15 – 30 minutes

Architecture

Delphix Express installs a virtual machine. Landshark installs as 2 virtual machines, a Linux Source and a Linux target. The source has an XE database and web application that uses that database. The target just has the XE binaries and no database nor web application. The target has scripts that run automatically and find Delphix Express and the source and autoconfigure. After the autoconfigure finishes, the Delphix Express is linked to the source database ans source web application meaning one can provision a thin clone or virtual database onto the target. Landshark is not required for using Delphix Express but if you have never used Delphix, then it is a quick and easy way to start seeing how to use Delphix.

Video example of the install

Installation

Detailed install instructions can be found on the Delphix documentation website.

Screenshots from install

When the Delphix Express VM comes up, the consol will have a blue background and orange status area as in this screen shot.

When the management stack comes up the status area will turn green, meaning we  can access Delphix Express Web UI.

Web UI URL is the IP address of the Delphix Express engine which you can see in the bottom left of the console screen. (if there is no IP address, then something is off with the network setup, see Network Setup Issues at the bottom of the post)

Screen 1 : password setup

accessing the Delphix Express URL looks like the following screen capture. You are requested to change the sysadmin password (by default the sysadmin password is sysadmin. I usually keep it that way for demo systems, i.e. systems I’m only going to demo on and not do any work on)

Screen 2 : Date Time and NTP Server

The defaults should work here generally , so I just hit next

Screen 3 : DNS and NIC setup

For VMware the NIC setup default should work. (for Virtualbox we will go into more detail later)

The important part to look at here is the DNS server. You want to make sure that the DNS server has a legitimate.

Screen 4 : Storage Setup

Just hit “Next”

Screen 5 : Web Proxy

If not using web proxy or SMTP just hit “Next”

Screen 6 : LDAP setup

If not using LDAP just hit “Next”

Screen 6: Registation

To use Delphix Express you have to register. To register you have to have a Delphix account. To create a Delphix account go to

http://accounts.delphix.com

and create an account.

Once you have an account, then put in your account email and password and click “Register”.  If you get a message about not being able to reach register.delphix.com, then make sure your DNS server on screen 3 is correct

Screen 6: Registation success

After successful registration, the screen will look like the following, now hit “next” 

Screen 7: Finish

Click “Finish” on this screen to save the configuration

After clicking “Finish” you will be asked to save the configuration. Click “yes”

Saving the configuration takes a minute or two :

After successfully saving the configuration, click “OK”

After click “OK”, Delphix Express management stack will reboot. This will take a few minutes. The console window status will turn orange, and once the stack is up, the status will turn green. At this point we go to the Delphix Express URL again

Login as delphix_admin password delphix

At your first login you will be asked to change the password.

IMPORTANT: change the password to “landshark”

The auto-configuration of source and target with Delphix Express only works if the password is “landshark”

When you first come into the main Delphix Express screen it will be empty and look like this:

In a few minutes the autoconfig will complete and you will see some example folders setup on the top left as well as the source XE database linked into Delphix Express as well as the web app on the source machine. The screen now looks like:

If the Delphix Express consol doesn’t populate with example folders and link to the data source, then you can check on the progress but logging into the target linux box as delphix , password delphix.

There is a file called

landshark_setup.log

and for starters you can tail the log to see the progress

$ tail -f  landshark_setup.log

The log is coming from the process

$ ps -ef | grep land

delphix   2078  2075  0 12:18 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh -c [ -f /home/delphix/setup/run_setup_on_boot ] && /home/delphix/landshark_setup.py

If that process is not running you can start it manually:

$ ./landshark_setup.py

Issues

The biggest source of issues are

• can’t register
• auto configuration doesn’t link in data sources into Express because of Network Issues

Can’t register

For the registration issues, make sure that the DNS server is correct on screen 3 and if you have a web proxy that it is set up correctly on screen 5.

Network issues 

Network setup is different on different hypervisors.

VMware setup is much easier than Virtualbox.

With VMware, you just need to make sure that each VM has it’s network set to NAT on windows or Linux and to “Share with my Mac” on Mac. Make sure that you can ping each of the the 3 VMs from the host operating system.  Setting up Delphix Express requires being connected to the network. A bad network connection, like wifi in a hotel or conference, can mess up the network setup.

On Virtualbox there are extra steps to take to set up the network. See the the docs on setting up Delphix Express for Virtualbox.

Manually Indicating Source and Engine IPs

If the target scripts don’t automatically find the source machine and Delphix engine, you can enter those IPs manually. To manually enter them, navigate to http://target_ip:8000

You will see something like the following image. Market in red underline is the source and engine IPs:

after making a change, click the “submit changes” button on the bottom of the page.