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  • Host system checks (hardware and software) to ensure the host platform meets the minimum CHARON-VAX installation requirements
  • Installation of any 3rd party material, for example, the utilities required for CHARON-VAX
  • Extracting CHARON-VAX RPM modules from the TAR.GZ archive and their individual installation
  • Installation of the CHARON-VAX license (hardware dongle or software license)
  • Configuration of the CHARON-VAX host system. It assumes creating a specific user, configuring the network, etc.

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Hardware Requirements

Number of CPU cores

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CHARON-VAX model

Minimal number of CPU cores

Recommended number of CPU cores

VAX 6610

2

4

VAX 6620

3

4

VAX 6630

4

6

VAX 6640

6

8

VAX 6650

8

12

VAX 6660

8

12

Other models22

When starting, the CHARON-VAX software checks the available number of host CPU cores. Currently, this check is based on the maximum number of VAX CPUs that can be emulated, not on the number of the actually configured VAX CPUs. Therefore the number of host CPU cores recommended for the maximum number of emulated CPUs - as shown in the right column of the table above - must be available. If the available number of host CPU cores is below this number, CHARON-VAX will issue a warning message even if the requirements for the configured number of VAX CPUs are fulfilled. The CHARON-VAX software will work despite this warning if the requirements for the configured number of VAX CPUs are fulfilled.

Note

Hyper-threading must be switched off completely. Disable hyper-threading in the BIOS settings of the physical host or, for a VMware virtual machine, edit the virtual machine properties, select the Resources tab then select Advanced CPU. Set the Hyper-threaded Core Sharing mode to None.

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Note

For VMware based CHARON hosts, it is mandatory to use "E1000" virtual network adapters. "E1000E" adapters are not supported.

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Software Requirements

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x, 64bit
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 - 6.9, 64bit
  • CentOS 7.x, 64bit
  • VMware ESXi 5.5 and 6.x up to 6.5 (requires a supported Linux operating system on top of a ESXi virtual machine)

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Note

For CentOS, a connection to the internet is required to install the glibc.i686 package which is not included in the Standard distribution DVD. If there's no connection available, please use the "Everything" distribution DVD.

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Host system preparation

Info

The automatic installation of updates must be disabled.  Updates to the CHARON host must be done only in specific service maintenance periods established by the system administrator. Before applying new updates one must shutdown the operating system running on CHARON and stop all the running CHARON instances and services.

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Info

If stricter firewall rules are required, it is possible to open the ports 30000-65535 and 1947 only for the "/usr/sbin/hasplmd" daemon.

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Before installation

  1. Login as the superuser ("root") on the host system. Because Sentinel HASP runtime relies on 32-bit compatibility libraries to run on Linux, the 32-bit compatibility libraries must be installed before continuing. If the emulator host has access to a package repository, either local or remote, use the following command:

    # yum install glibc.i686

    (info) Sometimes it is not possible to use an online repository for the installation of 32-bit glibc package. In this case the procedure described in the appendixes has to be used: glibc.i686 installation without Internet connection

    .

  2. Create a directory for the CHARON-VAX distribution, copy the TAR.GZ files there and change to this directory as shown in the following example:

    # mkdir /charon_dist
    # cp /tmp/charon-vax-4.9-19401.el74.tar.gz /charon_dist
    # cd /charon_dist


Warning
titleWARNING
  • If you plan to install CHARON-AXP on the same server, both products, CHARON-AXP and CHARON-VAX, will have to be the same build number.
  • If you upgrade from a previous version of CHARON-VAX, please stop all running CHARON virtual machines and uninstall CHARON products before proceeding with the installation steps described below.

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Distribution preparation

  1. Extract the content of the distribution TAR.GZ files to the current directory:

    # tar -xvzf charon-vax-<VER>-<BN>.<ZZ>.tar.gz

    where:

     

    Description

    VER

    Version of CHARON-VAX product, for example 4.9

    BN

    Build Number of CHARON-VAX product, for example 19401

    ZZ

    CHARON-VAX target operating system identifier.

    For CentOS 7.x 'ZZ' value is 'el74', for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x the value is 'el74' and for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 to 6.9 the value is 'el65'.

    Example:

    # tar -xvzf charon-vax-4.9-19401.el74.tar.gz 

    As result, a new directory "charon-vax-<VER>-<BN>.<VC>.<ZZ>" will be created.
     

  2. Switch to that directory:

    # cd charon-vax-<VER>-<BN>.<ZZ>

    Example:

    # cd charon-vax-4.9-19401.el74

         

  3. The distribution directory contains the following RPM files:

    File name

    Description

    charon-vax-VER-BN.ZZ.x86_64.rpmCHARON-VAX

    aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm

    HASP Run-time

    charon-license-VER-BN.ZZ.x86_64.rpm

    CHARON Libraries

    charon-utils-VER-BN.ZZ.x86_64.rpm

    CHARON Utilities

    Example:

    ls
    aksusbd-7.63-1.i386.rpm
    charon-vax-4.9-19401.el74.x86_64.rpm
    charon-license-4.9-19401.el74.x86_64.rpm
    charon-utils-4.9-19401.el74.x86_64.rpm
     
    CHVX for Linux installation

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Installation

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Info

Note that the "charon-utils" package has the following dependencies:

  • ethtool
  • bridge-utils
  • net-tools
  • iproute
  • NetworkManager

During "ncu" installation using "yum", these packages will be installed automatically if some of them are absent on the host system.

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CHARON-VAX home directory

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The most important at this stage is the "/cfg" directory since it contains template configuration files with examples of typical configuration parameters and comments. We will focus our attention on this subject in the next chapter.

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Specific user account creation

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Warning

The specific account created above does not allow to use physical consoles "/dev/tty<N>" as CHARON consoles. If you plan to map CHARON console to "/dev/tty<N>" use only "root" account for CHARON running.

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License installation

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Info

A "Provisional" (demo) license does not require collecting a fingerprint. For its installation start at step 3 in the sequence above

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sequence above

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License validity verification

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Info

It is also possible to leave several licenses available to CHARON-VAX at the same time but in this case they have to be specified in the configuration file.

Example:

set session license_key_id[0]=1877752571

It is also possible to have one "main" and one "backup" license in case the main license becomes unavailable:

set session license_key_id[0]=1877752571 license_key_id[1]=354850588

CHARON-VAX checks its licenses from time to time starting with main license. If it becomes unavailable, it attempts to access the backup license.

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Network configuration

In most cases CHARON will use a network. In this case CHARON requires one or more dedicated network interfaces with any other protocols including TCP/IP removed at the host level.

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cat offload_off_eth1.txt >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local

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Final steps

  • Reboot the host system
  • Login as user "charon"
  • Verify the offload parameters are effective

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Upgrade to new version

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  1. Ensure your license allows you to upgrade to that version. If not, please generate a C2V file and send it to STROMASYS for update. See CHARON-VAX for Linux utilities - 'hasp_srm_view' utility
  2. Prepare the new kit RPM files as it is described in "Before installation" and "Distributionpreparation" sections.
  3. Stop all running CHARON-VAX instances.
  4. Make sure that no template files (i.e. "mv3k6.cfg.template") have been used for your specific configuration otherwise copy those files to a dedicated folder.
  5. Login as "root" user.
  6. Remove the old CHARON-VAX version as described in the "CHARON-VAX for Linux deinstallation" chapter.
  7. Proceed with the same instructions on the new kit installation as described in the "Installation" section.
  8. Install the license for the new CHARON-VAX as described in the "License installation" section.

  9. Start all the CHARON-VAX services stopped at step #3.

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