Cisco Business Dashboard is distributed as a virtual machine image, packaged in both the Distributed Management Task Force’s Open Virtualization Format (OVF), suitable for import into VirtualBox. The virtual machine image also contains the Cisco Business Dashboard Probe application, allowing a single VM to act as both Dashboard and Probe for a particular site. To obtain the virtual machine images or the Linux installer, navigate to https://www.cisco.com/go/cbd-sw.

The virtual machine image has been cryptographically signed by Cisco to ensure that the software has not been tampered with. Open Virtualization Format images have a well-defined mechanism for cryptographic signing, and the majority of hypervisors will validate the signature as part of the import process. If the signature is not valid, an error will be generated and the import will fail.

To manually validate the signature before importing, you can use a tool such as the VMWare OVF Tool. To validate the image with the OVF Tool, use the command ovftoolimage_filename. The tool will generate an error if the signature is not valid.

Once you have obtained and verified the Cisco Business Dashboard software, install it using the following steps:

1. Ensure that you have a working VirtualBox installation available to host the virtual machine. For assistance in setting up VirtualBox, refer to the VirtualBox documentation at https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/.

2. Open VirtualBox and select File > Import Appliance...

3. Follow the prompts and make sure you have selected the downloaded file for the appliance to import.

4. Check that network adapter 1 is enabled and bridged to the correct physical interface on the host machine.

5. Start the virtual machine.

The virtual machine will boot and automatically start the Cisco Business Dashboard application. Refer to the Cisco Business Dashboard Quick Start Guide for details on how to access the application and perform the initial setup.