Before You Begin

This chapter describes the requirements and dependencies for installing Cisco BAC successfully.

Operating System Requirements

On Linux

For Linux, you must install Cisco BAC on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x or 6.4 using x86 and 64 bit hardware system with at least 4 GB of memory. The SELinux should be disabled. Also, ensure that before installing Cisco BAC, you install the sysstat package for the proper execution of the diagnostic scripts. This is an optional package which you might have not installed while installing Linux.

If the system has 64-bit libraries, you must also download and install 32-bit glibc and libgcc rpm packages on RHEL 6.1.
Download the two 32-bit packages, and install them using the below commands:

rpm –ivh glibc-32bit-2.14.1-14.18.1.x86_64.rpm

rpm –ivh libgcc47-32bit-4.7.1_20120723-47.1.x86_64.rpm

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Table 2-1 lists the minimum hardware requirements for the various Cisco BAC components.

 

Table 2-1 Minimum Hardware Requirements
Component
Model
RAM
CPU
Minimum Disk

DPE

Sun T5210

Linux 5.x or 6.4

4 GB

4 GB

1 with 4 cores

1 with 4 cores

2,15K rpm

RDU

Sun T5210

Linux 5.x or 6.4

16 GB

16 GB

1 with 8 cores

1 with 8 cores

2,15K rpm

RAID Array

Storage Tek 3320

512 MB

—

8,15K rpm

Two RAID 1+0 volumes

SSL Accelerator and Load Balancer

Cisco ACE 4710 or module for Cisco 7600

—

—

—

Deployment Requirements

This section details the minimum hardware requirements that you need to successfully deploy Cisco BAC in your environment. This section contains:

Smallest Fully Redundant Deployment

A smallest fully redundant deployment of about 500,000 devices can be configured with one provisioning group that has two DPEs. This setup requires:

  • Two RDU servers
  • One RAID unit
  • Two DPE servers
  • One PAR server
  • Two Cisco ACE units
  • Two Cisco Network Registrar servers
  • CMHS server

Incremental Scaling

For every additional 500,000 devices that you add, you need two DPEs configured in a new provisioning group. A single deployment can handle up to eight million devices.

A single pair of load balancers can handle DPEs in multiple provisioning groups. We recommend that you determine the number of load balancers, based on the network configuration of your service provider.

Types of Installation

This section describes how to install individual Cisco BAC components. The installation program enables you to install one or all components of Cisco BAC; that is, RDU, DPE, Cisco Network Registrar Extension Points, and Cisco Access Registrar Extension Points.

Note This release does not feature a lab installation, but you can perform its equivalent by installing all components on a single machine. To perform the activity, we recommend that you have at least 500 MB of disk space available.

You can install RDU, DPE, Cisco Network Registrar, and Cisco Access Registrar through the CLI. For details on Cisco BAC components installation, see Installing and Uninstalling Cisco BAC on Linux.

Before you install Cisco BAC, familiarize yourself with the installation startup processes and checklists described in Before You Begin.

See Installation Worksheet, for information on Cisco BAC installation parameters.

Installation Checklist for Linux

Before you install Cisco BAC, review the checklist in Table 2-2 .

 

Table 2-2 Installation Checklist for Linux

Task
Checkoff

1. Verify whether your system meets the minimum system hardware and software requirements described in Chapter1, “Introduction”

 

2. Ensure that you have access to the computers on which you intend to install Cisco BAC components.

 

3. Save your license file on the system from which you intend to launch the Cisco BAC administrator user interface through a web browser. You need a valid service license file to configure Cisco BAC licensing.

 

4. Determine the home directory ( <BPR_HOME>) in which you want to install the Cisco BAC component or components. The default directory is /opt/CSCObac. Ensure that the target installation directory has enough disk space.

We recommend that you have at least 500 MB of disk space available; otherwise installation will not take place.

 

5. Verify that you have at least 512 MB of free space available in the /tmp directory for successful installation.

 

6. For the RDU, determine where you want to install the data directory <BPR_DATA> and the database logs <BPR_DBLOG>. The default directory is /var/CSCObac. Ensure that the target installation directory has enough disk space.

We recommend that you locate the data directory on a different physical disk than the home directory; for example, /var/disk0/CSCObac. The disk should have at least 1 GB of free space.

The installation program, by default, installs the data directory, the database transaction logs directory, and the logs directory in the same location.

We recommend that you locate the database transaction logs directory on the fastest disk on the system. Also, ensure that 1 GB of disk space is available.

 

7. For the RDU, determine the listening port number. The RDU uses this interface to communicate with the other Cisco BAC components, such as DPEs and Cisco Network Registrar extension points. The default port is 49187.

 

8. For the RDU, determine the shared secret password that Cisco BAC servers on your network use, as a token to authenticate communication with one another. The shared secret password should be the same for all Cisco BAC servers on your network.

 

9. For the RDU, determine the ports through which you will access the administrator user interface, using HTTP. The default port for HTTP is 80.

 

10. For the DPE, ensure that 2 GB of disk space is available in the data directory.

 

11. Ensure that Cisco Network Registrar 7.2 (and above) is installed and running on the servers on which you are installing Cisco BAC extensions.

 

12. For the Cisco Network Registrar extensions, determine the name of the provisioning group to which the Cisco Network Registrar server belongs.

 

13. For the Cisco Network Registrar extensions, determine where you want to install the data directory <BPR_DATA>. The default directory is /var/CSCObac. Ensure that 200 MB of disk space is available.

 

14. Modify the config file to disable SELinux using the following command:

# vi /etc/selinux/config
 

config—File that controls the state of SELinux on the system. In this file, set the value of SELINUX to disabled and SELINUXTYPE to targeted.

 

15. Disable iptables using the following command:

# chkconfig iptables off
 

Note The Admin UI page will not open if iptables is in enabled state on the system.

 

16. Reboot the Prime Cable Provisioning host using the following command:

# reboot

 

17. Wait for 30 seconds and re-login to continue with the installation.

 

Database Requirements

Before you install Cisco BAC, check the following:

File System Block Size

On Linux, block size is selected at the time of high-level formatting. If the mke2fs (i.e.,make ext2 filesystem) command is used to create the filesystem, valid block size vales are 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes. The block size for any existing ext2 or ext3 file system (the most common file system types on Linux) can be obtained by using the dumpe2fs command with the device name as an argument.

The installation program prompts you to specify a directory in which you prefer to install database files and database transaction log files. These directories are identified in Cisco BAC with system variables BPR_DATA and BPR_DBLOG, respectively.

To verify that a directory resides on a file system with a minimum block size:

Step 1 Run the UNIX mount command without any parameters to determine on which file system device the directory resides. The default directory is /var/CSCObac.

For example:

# mount

/var on /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4 read/write/setuid/intr/largefiles/onerror=panic/dev=2200004 on Mon Nov 26 08:07:53

In this example, the file system device is /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4.

Step 2 To determine the block size of the file system, use the df command.

For example:

# df -k.
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 16246460 3248448 12159420 22% /
# /sbin/dumpe2fs /dev/sda2 | grep 'Block size'
Block size: 4096
 

In this example, the block size is 4096 bytes, which is 4 KB.

 

 

Support for Large Files

Ensure that the file system in which you place database files is configured to support files larger than 2 GB.

To verify large file support:

Step 1 Run the UNIX mount command without parameters.

Step 2 Note whether the intended file system contains the keyword largefiles.

For example:

# mount

/var on /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s4 read/write/setuid/intr/largefiles/onerror=panic/dev=2200004 on Mon Nov 26 08:07:53

In this example, the output contains the keyword largefiles. This file system, therefore, can support files greater than 2 GB.

 

Required Port Information

Before you install Cisco BAC, determine the ports on which the Cisco BAC components, the RDU, the DPE, CNR extensions and CAR extensions, listen during communication to one another or to the CPE.

The installation program checks for the availability of all ports: both configurable and nonconfigurable.

If the port that you have specified is unavailable, the installation program displays a message; otherwise, the message similar to the following, appears:

Not a valid port number
 

In the case of a nonconfigurable port, the installation program notifies you and exits the program without making any changes to the system.

Table 2-3 lists the required external inbound ports and their default values.

 

Table 2-3 Default External Inbound Ports Used by Cisco BAC Components

Component
Default Port Number
Protocol
Configurable
Used by

RDU

161

UDP

No

SNMP Get

RDU

49187

TCP

Yes

DPE and API access

RDU

80

TCP

No

Admin Web UI HTTP

DPE

49186

UDP

Yes

CPE Prov Group locator

DPE

2323

TCP

Yes

DPE CLI

DPE

7547

TCP

Yes

TR-069 CWMP 1

DPE

7548

TCP

Yes

TR-069 CWMP 2

DPE

7549

TCP

Yes

HTTP File Service 1

DPE

7550

TCP

Yes

HTTP File Service 2

CNR-EP (Listening port)

68

UDP

Yes

Lease Query

PAR-EP

7551

HTTP

Yes

FAS

Table 2-4 lists the external outbound ports and their default values.

 

Table 2-4 Default External Outbound Ports Used by Cisco BAC Components
Component
Number
Protocol
Configurable
Used by

RDU

162

UDP

No

SNMP Traps

DPE

49186

UDP

Yes

CPE Prov Group locator

DPE

162

UDP

Yes

SNMP Traps

CNR-EP (Server port)

67

UDP

Yes

Lease Query

PAR

1645, 1646

UDP

Yes (in PAR)

FAS (RADIUS)

Table 2-5 lists the internal ports and their default values.

 

Table 2-5 Default Internal Ports Used by Cisco BAC Components
Component
Number
Protocol
Configurable
Used by

RDU

49887

TCP

Yes

Internal watchdog and SNMP agent communication

DPE

49887

TCP

Yes

Internal watchdog and SNMP agent communication

RDU

8001

SNMP

(UDP)

Yes

SNMP Internal

DPE

8001

SNMP

(UDP)

No

SNMP Internal

Installation Worksheet

This section describes the basic configuration information required for successful installation of Cisco BAC. Table 2-6 provides the worksheet that you can use to record the information specific to the installation.

 

Table 2-6 Cisco BAC Installation Parameters

Prompt
Description
Default Value

Home directory

Root directory to install Cisco BAC.

/opt/CSCObac

Data directory

Root directory that stores the Data directory for the Cisco BAC components.

/var/CSCObac

Database logs directory

Root directory that Cisco BAC uses to install the database transaction logs for Cisco BAC components.

/var/CSCObac

Logs directory

Root directory to install the general transaction logs for Cisco BAC Components.

/var/CSCObac

RDU port number

Port number that the RDU uses to communicate with the other Cisco BAC Components.

49187

Port number of administrator user interface for nonsecured access

Port number that you use to access the Cisco BAC administrator user interface using HTTP.

80

Default Cisco BAC administrator

Username that you use to access the Cisco BAC administrator user interface.

bacadmin

Default administrator password

Password to access the Cisco BAC administrator user interface.

changeme

Installation password

Password that you use to install Cisco BAC from the CLI.

secret

Default DPE CLI password

Password that you use to access the DPE CLI.

changeme

CNR extension points provisioning group name

Name of the provisioning group for CNR extensions.

None

Shared secret

Shared secret password for UDP connection request authentication.

secret