Virtual Appliance

How to run PMM Server as a virtual machine.

Summary

• Download and verify the latest OVF file.
• Import it.
• Reconfigure network.
• Start the VM and get IP.
• Log into PMM UI.
• (Optional) Change VM root password.
• (Optional) Set up SSH.
• (Optional) Set up static IP.

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Most steps can be done with either a user interface or on the command line, but some steps can only be done in one or the other. Sections are labelled UI for user interface or CLI for command line instructions.

Terminology

• Host is the desktop or server machine running the hypervisor.
• Hypervisor is software (e.g. VirtualBox, VMware) that runs the guest OS as a virtual machine.
• Guest is the CentOS virtual machine that runs PMM Server.

OVA file details

Item	Value
Download page	https://www.percona.com/downloads/pmm2/2.39.0/ova
File name	pmm-server-2.39.0.ova
VM name	PMM2-Server-2023-08-09-N (N=build number)

VM specifications

Component	Value
OS	CentOS 7.9 (64-bit)
CPU	1
Base memory	4096 MB
Disks	LVM, 2 physical volumes
Disk 1 (sda)	VMDK (SCSI, 40 GB)
Disk 2 (sdb)	VMDK (SCSI, 400 GB)

Users

Default Username	Default password
root	percona
admin	admin

Download

UI

1. Open a web browser.
2. Visit the PMM Server download page.
3. Choose a Version or use the default (the latest).
4. Click the link for pmm-server-2.39.0.ova to download it. Note where your browser saves it.
5. Right-click the link for pmm-server-2.39.0.sha256sum and save it in the same place as the .ova file.
6. (Optional) Verify.

CLI

Download the latest PMM Server OVA and checksum files.

wget https://www.percona.com/downloads/pmm2/2.39.0/ova/pmm-server-2.39.0.ova
wget https://www.percona.com/downloads/pmm2/2.39.0/ova/pmm-server-2.39.0.sha256sum

Verify

CLI

Verify the checksum of the downloaded .ova file.

shasum -ca 256 pmm-server-2.39.0.sha256sum

VMware

Import

UI

1. Select File → Import.
2. Click Choose file….
3. Navigate to the downloaded .ova file and select it.
4. Click Open.
5. Click Continue.

6. In the Save as dialog:

   a. (Optional) Change the directory or file name.

   b. Click Save.

7. Choose one of:

   • (Optional) Click Finish. This starts the virtual machine.
   • (Recommended) Click Customize Settings. This opens the VM’s settings page without starting the machine.

CLI

1. Install ovftool. (You need to register.)

2. Import and convert the OVA file. (ovftool can’t change CPU or memory settings during import, but it can set the default interface.)

   Choose one of:

   • Download and import the OVA file.

     ovftool --name="PMM Server" --net:NAT=Wi-Fi \
     https://www.percona.com/downloads/pmm2/2.39.0/ova/pmm-server-2.39.0.ova \
     pmm-server-2.39.0.vmx
     

   • Import an already-downloaded OVA file.

     ovftool --name="PMM Server" --net:NAT=WiFi \
     pmm-server-2.39.0.ova \
     pmm-server.vmx
     

Reconfigure interface

When using the command line, the interface is remapped during import.

UI

1. If started, shut down the virtual machine.
2. In the VMware main window, select the imported virtual machine.
3. Click Virtual Machine → Settings….
4. Click Network Adapter.
5. In the Bridged Networking section, select Autodetect.
6. Close the settings window.

Start guest and get IP address

UI

1. In the VMware main window, select the imported virtual machine.
2. Click the play button or select Virtual Machine → Start Up.
3. When the instance has been booted, note the IP address in the guest console.

CLI/UI

1. Start the virtual machine in GUI mode. (There’s no way to redirect a VMware VM’s console to the host.)

   vmrun -gu root -gp percona start \
   pmm-server.vmx gui
   

2. When the instance has been booted, note the IP address in the guest console.

3. (Optional) Stop and restart the instance in headless mode.

   vmrun stop pmm-server.vmx
   vmrun -gu root -gp percona start \
   pmm-server.vmx nogui
   

VirtualBox

Import

UI

1. Select File → Import appliance….
2. In the File field, type the path to the downloaded .ova file, or click the folder icon to navigate and open it.
3. Click Continue.
4. On the Appliance settings page, review the settings and click Import.
5. Click Start.
6. When the guest has booted, note the IP address in the guest console.

CLI

1. Open a terminal and change the directory to where the downloaded .ova file is.

2. (Optional) Do a ‘dry run’ import to see what values will be used.

   VBoxManage import pmm-server-2.39.0.ova --dry-run
   

3. Import the image. Choose one of:

   • With the default settings.

     VBoxManage import pmm-server-2.39.0.ova
     

   • With custom settings (in this example, Name: “PMM Server”, CPUs: 2, RAM: 8192 MB).

     VBoxManage import --vsys 0 --vmname "PMM Server" \
     --cpus 2 --memory 8192 pmm-server-2.39.0.ova
     

Interface

UI

1. Click Settings.
2. Click Network.
3. In the Adapter 1 field, click Attached to and change to Bridged Adapter.
4. In the Name field, select your host’s active network interface (e.g. en0: Wi-Fi (Wireless)).
5. Click OK.

CLI

1. Show the list of available bridge interfaces.

   VBoxManage list bridgedifs
   

2. Find the name of the active interface you want to bridge to (one with Status: Up and a valid IP address). Example: en0: Wi-Fi (Wireless)

3. Bridge the virtual machine’s first interface (nic1) to the host’s en0 ethernet adapter.

   VBoxManage modifyvm 'PMM Server' \
   --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 'en0: Wi-Fi (Wireless)'
   

4. Redirect the console output into a host file.

   VBoxManage modifyvm 'PMM Server' \
   --uart1 0x3F8 4 --uartmode1 file /tmp/pmm-server-console.log
   

Get IP

UI

1. Select the PMM Server virtual machine in the list.
2. Click Start.
3. When the guest has booted, note the IP address in the guest console.

CLI

1. Start the guest.

   VBoxManage startvm --type headless 'PMM Server'
   

2. (Optional) Watch the log file.

   tail -f /tmp/pmm-server-console.log
   

3. Wait for one minute for the server to boot up.

4. Choose one of:

   • Read the IP address from the tailed log file.

   • Extract the IP address from the log file.

     grep -e "^IP:" /tmp/pmm-server-console.log | cut -f2 -d' '
     

5. (Optional) Stop the guest:

   VBoxManage controlvm "PMM Server" poweroff
   

Log into user interface

UI

1. Open a web browser and visit the guest IP address.

2. The PMM login screen appears.

3. Enter the default username and password in the relevant fields and click Log in.

   • username: admin

   • password: admin

4. (Recommended) Follow the prompts to change the default password.

You also can change the default password through SSH by using the change-admin-password command.

1. The PMM Home Dashboard appears.

(Optional) Change root password

UI

1. Start the virtual machine in GUI mode.

2. Log in with the default superuser credentials:

   • Username: root

   • Password: percona

3. Follow the prompts to change the password.

(Optional) Set up SSH

UI/CLI

1. Create a key pair for the admin user.

   ssh-keygen -f admin
   

2. Log into the PMM user interface.

3. Select PMM → PMM Settings → SSH Key.

4. Copy and paste the contents of the admin.pub file into the SSH Key field.

5. Click Apply SSH Key. (This copies the public key to /home/admin/.ssh/authorized_keys in the guest).

6. Log in via SSH (N.N.N.N is the guest IP address).

   ssh -i admin admin@N.N.N.N
   

(Optional) Set up static IP

When the guest OS starts, it will get an IP address from the hypervisor’s DHCP server. This IP can change each time the guest OS is restarted. Setting a static IP for the guest OS avoids having to check the IP address whenever the guest is restarted.

CLI

1. Start the virtual machine in non-headless (GUI) mode.

2. Log in as root.

3. Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

4. Change the value of BOOTPROTO:

   BOOTPROTO=none
   

5. Add these values:

   IPADDR=192.168.1.123 # replace with the desired static IP address
   NETMASK=255.255.255.0 # replace with the netmask for your IP address
   GATEWAY=192.168.1.1 # replace with the network gateway for your IP address
   PEERDNS=no
   DNS1=192.168.1.53 # replace with your DNS server IP
   

6. Restart the interface.

   ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0
   

7. Check the IP.

   ip addr show eth0
   

   8. Preserve the network configuration across reboots.

   echo "network: {config: disabled}" > /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg
   

Remove

UI

1. Stop the virtual machine: select Close → Power Off.

2. Remove the virtual machine: select Remove → Delete all files.

Contact us

For free technical help, visit the Percona Community Forum.

To report bugs or submit feature requests, open a JIRA ticket.

For paid support and managed or consulting services , contact Percona Sales.

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Last update: 2023-09-27