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Cisco Prime Network Registrar 8.3 Administration Guide

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Cisco Prime Network Registrar 8.3 Administration Guide

Chapter Title

Introduction to Cisco Prime Network Registrar Virtual Appliance

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Updated:
March 6, 2018

Chapter: Introduction to Cisco Prime Network Registrar Virtual Appliance

Introduction to Cisco Prime Network Registrar Virtual Appliance

The Cisco Prime Network Registrar virtual appliance aims at eliminating the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with running Cisco Prime Network Registrar on a local system. It also guarantees portability and thus reduces the risk in moving Cisco Prime Network Registrar from one machine to another.

You must get a license of Cisco Prime Network Registrar virtual appliance, and download the virtual appliance from Cisco.com. Upon initializing the virtual appliance, you have to add the license file. Cisco Prime Network Registrar will then be up and running, available to be configured. This is applicable for both the local and regional appliance.

This is different from just downloading a copy of Cisco Prime Network Registrar and installing it on a server or virtual machine provided by the customer, in that the operating system on which Cisco Prime Network Registrar runs is also provided in the virtual appliance.

The Cisco Prime Network Registrar virtual appliance supports VMware ESXi 5.0 or later platforms.

To know about the difference between vApp and a virtual appliance, see the User’s Guide to Deploying vApps and Virtual Appliance s.

How the Cisco Prime Network Registrar Virtual Appliance Works

The virtual appliance consists of a virtual machine in the OVF format, which contains a runnable guest OS (CentOS 7.4 in CPNR 8.3.6 and CentOS 6.x in pre-8.3.6 releases) and Cisco Prime Network Registrar installed on that OS. When the virtual appliance is installed, Cisco Prime Network Registrar is already installed and is started by the virtual machine power-up like in the case of any regular server power-up.

How to Download the Cisco Prime Network Registrar Virtual Appliance

Do the following to download the Cisco Prime Network Registrar virtual appliance:

    Step 1   You have to point the ESXi systems at a Cisco web-site and download an OVF format virtual appliance containing the guest operating system and a running version of Cisco Prime Network Registrar and power up the virtual machine/appliance.
    Step 2   Set a root password for the virtual appliance when you are prompted to. There is no default password. For more details on deployment the virtual appliance and configuration on first boot, see Cisco Prime Network Registrar Installation Guide .

    Two virtual appliances will be created, one for a local Cisco Prime Network Registrar cluster and one for a regional cluster. Each of these will have the security kit installed.

    Invoking Cisco Prime Network Registrar on the Virtual Appliance

    You can invoke the Cisco Prime Network Registrar application directly by using the URL http://hostname:8080. The secure https connection is also available via the URL https://hostname:8443.

    Monitoring Disk Space Availability

    To view the disk space availability, do the following:

      Step 1   In the vSphere Client window, select the host/server on which the virtual Cisco Prime Network Registrar appliance resides.
      Step 2   Click Storage Views to see the list of the machines hosted by the server and the details about the space currently used by each machine.

      Also, you can go to the Virtual Machines tab to view both the Provisioned Space and the Used Space by machine.

      Step 3   Click Summary.

      The Resources area of the Summary tab, displays the capacity of the disk and the CPU and memory used.

      Step 4   Select the virtual machine and click the Summary tab.

      The Resources area of the Summary tab displays the disk space details for the machine.

      Monitoring Disk Space Availability (Using the Console)

      To monitor the disk space availability using the console, do the following:

        Step 1   Select the virtual machine in the vSphere Client window and either click the Console tab on the right pane or right-click the virtual machine name and choose Open Console.
        Step 2   Log in as root and type df -k. The disk space details are displayed.

        If the disk space on the disk mounted on /var/nwreg2 is not enough, then you should increase the size of the disk (see Increasing the Size of Disk).

        Increasing the Size of Disk

        The cnr_growfilesystem script causes the data partition, /dev/sdb1 to grow to be the size of the entire data disk. It is trivial to expand the size of the data disk that the operating system sees, using VMware. To ensure that the operating system recognizes the bigger disk, you have to restart the VM and run the cnr_growfilesystem after increasing the size of the disk.


        Note
        Before running the cnr_growfilesystem script, ensure that you backup the entire /var/nwreg2/ data and that it is not stored anywhere in the file system under /var/nwreg2. Running the cnr_growfilesystem script after restarting the VM ensures that the filesystem uses all the space in the partition.

        If you need a bigger disk, do the following:

          Step 1   Stop the VM.
          Step 2   Increase the size of the disk by changing the size in the Virtual Machine Properties window. To open the Virtual Machine Properties window, you have to select the host name, right-click, and choose Edit Settings.
          Step 3   Restart the VM. This ensures that the partition for the Cisco Prime Network Registrar data covers the entire disk.
          Step 4   After the VM is up and running, log in as the root user and run the cnr_growfilesystem script: 
          /opt/nwreg2/local/usrbin/cnr_growfilesystem

          This script will:

          • Stop Cisco Prime Network Registrar

          • Unmount the data partition

          • Increase the size of the partition to be the size of the disk

          • Turn the ext3 filesystem into an ext2 filesystem

          • Expand the filesystem to be the size of the partition (which is now the size of the disk)

          • Turn the ext2 filesystem back into an ext3 filesystem

          • Remount the disk

          Troubleshooting

          If you experience any issues while working with the Cisco Prime Network Registrar virtual appliance, we recommend you to do the following:

          Examine the log files in /var/nwreg2/{local | regional}/logs. Look particularly for errors in the log files as these signal exceptional conditions. If you are unable to resolve the problem and you have purchased Cisco support, then submit a case to Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) regarding the problem.

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