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Acano solution
Acano X Series Server 1.7
Installation Guide
May 2015
76-1002-07-C
Contents
Contents
1
Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Before You Start....................................................................................................... 4
1.1.1 Safety information .......................................................................................... 4
1.1.2 You will need the following equipment ........................................................... 4
2
The Acano Server ............................................................................................................. 5
2.1 PIN Outs for Console Port ........................................................................................ 6
2.2 Status Light Descriptions.......................................................................................... 6
2.2.1 Front panel LEDs ........................................................................................... 6
2.2.2 Back panel LEDs ........................................................................................... 6
3
Hardware Installation......................................................................................................... 8
4
Configuration ................................................................................................................... 11
4.1 Creating an Administrator Account ......................................................................... 11
4.2 Setting up the Network Interfaces for IPv4 ............................................................. 12
4.3 Creating the Web Admin Interface Certificate ......................................................... 13
4.4 Configuring the Web Admin Interface for HTTPS Access ....................................... 17
Appendix A DC Power Option – Wiring and Safety ............................................................... 19
Location .......................................................................................................................... 19
Wiring .............................................................................................................................. 19
Overcurrent protection..................................................................................................... 19
Figures
Figure 1: Acano solution installation and deployment documentation .......................................... 3
Figure 2: Acano server front panel .............................................................................................. 5
Figure 3: Acano server back panel with power units installed ...................................................... 5
Figure 4: Fitting inside rail components to the Acano server sides .............................................. 8
Figure 5: Cage nut locations for the rack rails .............................................................................. 9
Figure 6: Location of the red button ........................................................................................... 11
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Introduction
1 Introduction
Follow this guide to fit the Acano X series server (the Acano server) into a rack, fit the power
supplies, connect the cables, and power up. It also tells you how to achieve basic network
connectivity with the Acano solution Release 1.7 software. Then go on to one of the Deployment
Guides for other set up and configuration information – see the figure below.
Figure 1: Acano solution installation and deployment documentation for R1.7
In addition to this guide, the material shown in the figure above can be found at the Acano
Documentation & software page. If you need any technical assistance with the configuration, or
you want to report a suspected bug, email [email protected].
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Introduction
1.1 Before You Start
1.1.1 Safety information
WARNING: Read the information at www.acano.com/safety. There you will find
essential safety information to protect you and the equipment.

The Acano server weighs approximately 23 kg / 51 lbs.
Do not attempt to lift it on your own at any time.
Do not place it on top of any other equipment.
Do not support it on the rack ears alone; they are not designed to be load-bearing.

The power units do not have an on/off switch; the server will power on as soon as power is
connected. Therefore do not do so until instructed.

DC power option only: See Appendix A for additional safety information.
1.1.2 You will need the following equipment
The Acano server comes with most of the components you need.
The shipping box contains:

One Acano X3, X2 or X1 server

A box containing two power supplies

A box containing a serial cable, two rack ears and accessories; and in some countries,
power cables and their retaining clips
Note: If you are using AC power and none of the supplied power cables are approved for
your location or no cables are provided, you will need to provide them.

Two rack rails. (These rails are not left- or right-handed but are packed in the correct
installation orientation relative to the Acano server so be sure to maintain the correct
orientation from back to front.)
However, you must provide the following:

A 2U space in a 4-post rack

Up to five Ethernet patch cables. The cabling required depends on your network speed and
the length of the cable run: 10GBASE-T: Cat 6 (patch) or Cat 6A, 1000BASE-T: Cat 5e, Cat
6 or Cat 6A, 100BASE-T: Cat 5e, Cat 6 or Cat 6A

A selection of Philips and flat blade screwdrivers
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The Acano Server
2 The Acano Server
The front and back of the Acano server are shown in the figures below. Not all the connections
are required during installation.
OK and
Warning
status lights
Console port
Power units’
status lights
Figure 2: Acano server front panel
Power unit locations A
and B
Network interfaces A to
D, each with two status
lights
ADMIN
interface
Expansion interface
(not currently used)
Figure 3: Acano server back panel with power units installed
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The Acano Server
2.1 PIN Outs for Console Port
The PIN outs for the Console port on the front of the Acano server are:
Connector
Description/Use
1
No connection
2
DTR (connected to pin 7)
3
Transmit data
4
Ground
5
Ground
6
Receive data
7
DSR (connected to pin 2)
8
No connection
2.2 Status Light Descriptions
This section describes the behavior of the Acano server status lights (LEDs).
2.2.1 Front panel LEDs
There are four LEDs on the front of the Acano server: OK, Warning, Power Supply A and Power
Supply B. They have the following behavior.
OK

Blue: normal operation
Warning

If on (red), check the cause urgently in the Web Admin Interface Status > General page.
Supply A/B

Blue: power supply is operating normally

Flashing quickly: power supply is present but not functioning (i.e. not plugged in)

Flashing slowly: power supply is not present
Note: If either power supply LED is flashing; check the cause urgently in the Web Admin
Interface Status > General page.
2.2.2 Back panel LEDs
All five Ethernet ports (ADMIN and A to D) have the same LED behavior:
Left

Green: Link at 10G
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The Acano Server

Amber: Link at 1G

Off: Link at 10/100M
Right

Green: Link up

Blinking: Activity on link

Off: Link down
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Hardware Installation
3 Hardware Installation
Note: The Acano server ships with two rack rails – and this guide reflects that. The rack rails are
not available for older Acano servers (before November 2013): if you need an older version of
the Installation Guide contact [email protected].
1. Check that the rack sides are parallel and adjust them if necessary.
2. Open the Acano server packaging; remove the two small boxes and then with another
person, using the handles provided, lift the server out of the box and onto a strong flat
surface.
3. Open the accessories box and find:

12 x M4 screws for fixing the ears and rails to the server
 12 x M5 cage nuts and 12 x M5 screws for fixing the rails and ears into the rack
4. Lift the rack rails out of the packaging, noting the orientation in each case; that is, which end
goes at the front of the server.
5. Adjust the length of the rack rails to fit the depth of your rack. This may require repositioning
the two screws holding the rear bracket on each rack rail. Tighten the screws securely.
6. Separate the rack rail inner section (which fits to the server) from the rack rail outer section
using the release latch.
7. Screw one rack rail inner section to the appropriate side of the Acano server using the
supplied M4 screws (see figure 3). Repeat for the other side.
Figure 4: Fitting inside rail components to the Acano server sides
8. Using a Philips screwdriver fit the rack ears, one on each side of the server at the front using
the remaining M4 screws (see figure 3).
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Hardware Installation
9. Attach the outer rail section to the sides
of the rack using the supplied M5 screws
and cage nuts (see figure 4). Use two
screws at the back and two screws at
the front of each rail (eight in total).
10. With another person, lift the server up to
the rack and slide the two rail sections
together on each side.
11. Secure the server in the rack with the
rack ears using two M5 screws for each
rack ear.
Note: Do not support the Acano server
on the rack ears alone.
Figure 5: Cage nut locations for the rack rails
12. Unpack the box containing the two power supplies. They are identical.
13. Move to the back of the rack and slide the power supplies fully into the Power A and B slots
in the back of the server until they latch (see Figure 2).
Notes:
Do not connect power to the server at this time.
DC power option only: See Appendix A for DC wiring instructions. Do not switch on the
power at this time.
14. Connect a network cable to the ADMIN interface and to your administrator network.
This interface is used for various administrative functions and to upgrade the software
version. (Both are outside the scope of this Installation Guide.) Connections to the ADMIN
interface are via SSH or SFTP and possibly HTTPS depending on configuration.
15. Connect a network cable to the A interface and to your production or testing network.
Depending on configuration, this media interface could also be used for access to the Web
Admin Interface. An HTTPS connection is required – attempting to connect using HTTP will
fail. A certificate is required – as explained in later sections.
Note: Interfaces A to D will operate at the speed of the network switch that they are
connected to. If you are using a speed of 10G be sure to use the appropriate cable for the
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Hardware Installation
speed and cable length. The interface LEDs show which speed is in use. See the section,
LED descriptions.
16. If required, connect the other interfaces (B to D).
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Configuration
4 Configuration
4.1 Creating an Administrator Account
17. Connect power:

AC power option: connect both power units to the AC mains using the appropriate power
cables and cable retaining clips for your location. There are no on/off switches; therefore
the Acano server powers up immediately

DC power option: switch on the DC power to the Acano server
18. Moving to the front of the server (see Figure 2), you see the two power unit status LEDs and
the server status LED are on, indicating that the Acano server is powered and operational.
19. Connect the Acano server Console port to a terminal emulator using the serial cable
supplied in the box. Use baud rate 115200, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit
Note: Be sure that the login prompt is displayed before proceeding, otherwise the server
may still be booting up.
20. Using a Philips screwdriver loosen the two screws on the top front service hatch and hinge
the cover upwards.
You see the fan module on the left and a smaller area on the right with cables and
connectors. In this area and behind the front grill are two small buttons: one red (labeled
reset) and one black.
Figure 6: Location of the red button
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Configuration
Note: The Acano server ships with no pre-configured admin account, this is a security
feature. Follow the steps below to create the Admin account.
21. Carefully press the red (reset) button only.
22. Within 4 minutes of pressing this button log into the Acano server using the terminal
emulator: user account is “admin”, no password will be requested.
23. Set up your admin account using the following command.
user add admin admin
24. You will be prompted for a password which you must enter twice.
25. Close the hatch and push the screws down to secure the hatch, no screwdriver is needed.
Note: When you log in subsequently, either via the Console port or ADMIN interface, using the
admin account you will be asked for this password.
4.2 Setting up the Network Interfaces for IPv4
26. Configure the Network Interface speed
To set network interface speed, duplex and auto-negotiation parameters use the iface
command e.g. to display the current configuration on the Admin interface, type:
iface admin
In the examples below “admin” can be substituted by “a” (the A interface) to re-use the
commands to configure that interface.
To set the ADMIN interface to 1GE, full duplex type:
iface admin 1000 full
and to switch auto negotiation on or off, type:
iface admin autoneg <on/off>
We recommend that the network interface is set to auto negotiation unless you have a
specific reason not to.
27. Configure the IP settings:
a. Go on to step c if you are using static IP addresses.
b. Configure to use DHCP
To enable dhcp on the ADMIN interface type:
ipv4 admin dhcp
Note: There is a similar set of commands to use if you are using IPv6. See the MMP
Command Reference for a full description.
Then to find out the dhcp configured settings, type:
ipv4 admin
ipv4 a
Go on to step 28.
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Configuration
c.
Configure to use static IP addresses (skip this step if you are using DHCP)
Use the IPV4 add command to add a static IP address to the interface with a specified
subnet mask and default gateway. For example, to add address 10.1.2.4 with prefix
length 16 (netmask 255.255.0.0) with gateway 10.1.1.1 to the MMP, type:
ipv4 admin add 10.1.2.4/16 10.1.1.1
To remove the IPv4 address, type.
ipv4 admin del 10.1.2.4
28. Set DNS Configuration:
a. To output the dns configuration, type:
dns
b. To set the application DNS server, type:
dns mmp add forwardzone <domain name> <server IP>
Note: A forward zone is a pair consisting of a domain name and a server address: if a
name is below the given domain name in the DNS hierarchy, then the DNS resolver
can query the given server. Multiple servers can be given for any particular domain
name to provide load balancing and fail over. A common usage will be to specify "." as
the domain name i.e. the root of the DNS hierarchy which matches every domain
name, i.e. if the server is on IP 10.1.1.1
dns mmp add forwardzone . 10.1.1.1
c.
Similarly, configure the DNS for the MMP.
d. If you need to delete a DNS entry use:
dns mmp del forwardzone <domain name> <server IP>
for example:
dns mmp del forwardzone . 10.1.1.1
4.3 Creating the Web Admin Interface Certificate
The Web Admin is only accessible through HTTPS, you need to create a security certificate to
install onto the Acano server so you can enable the Web Admin Interface and be able to log into
it.
The information in step 29 assumes that you trust Acano to meet requirements for the
generation of a private key. If you prefer, you can generate the private key and the certificate
externally using a public Certificate Authority (CA), and then load the externally generated
key/certificate pair onto the MMP of the Acano server using SFTP. Go on to step 30
Note: if testing your Acano solution in a lab environment, you can generate a key and a selfsigned certificate on the Acano server. Self-signed certificates are not recommended for use in
real deployments (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-signed_certificate). To create a selfsigned certificate and private key, log in to the MMP and use the command:
pki selfsigned <key/cert basename>
where <key/cert basename> identifies the key and certificate which will be generated e.g.
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Configuration
"pki selfsigned webadmin" creates webadmin.key and webadmin.crt (which is self-signed).
Then go on to step 30.
29. Follow this step if you trust that Acano meets the requirements for generation of private key
material. This step explains how to generate a private key and the associated Certificate
Signing Request with the MMP pki csr command, export them for signing by a CA, and
then copying the signed certificate file on to the Acano server.
a. Log in to the MMP and generate the private key and certificate signing request:
pki csr <key/cert basename> [<attribute>:<value>]
where:
<key/cert basename> is a string identifying the new key and CSR (e.g. "webadmin"
results in "webadmin.key" and "webadmin.csr" files)
and the allowed but optional attributes are as follows and must be separated by a colon:







CN: the commonName which should be on the certificate. Use the FQDN defined in
DNS A record as the Common Name. Failure to do this will result in browser
certificate errors.
OU: is Organizational Unit
O: Organization
L: Locality
ST: State
C: Country
emailAddress:
Use quotes for values that are more than one word long, for example:
pki csr example CN:example.com "OU:Accounts UK" "O:My Company"
b. Send the CSR to one of the following:

a Certificate Authority (CA), such as Verisign who will verify the identity of the
requestor and issue a signed certificate.

to a local or organizational Certificate Authority, such as an Active Directory server
with the Active Directory Certificate Services Role installed.
i.
Transfer the file to the CA.
ii.
Issue the following command in the command line management shell on the CA
server replacing the path and CSR name with your information:
certreq -submit -attrib "CertificateTemplate:WebAdmin"
C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\webadmin.crt
iii. After entering the command, a CA selection list is displayed similar to that below.
Select the correct CA and click OK.
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Configuration
iv. Do one of the following:
 If your Windows account has permissions to issue certificates, you are prompted
to save the resulting certificate, for example as webadmin.crt. Go on to step c
below.
 If you do not see a prompt to issue the resulting certificate, but instead see a
message on the command prompt window that the 'Certificate request is
pending: taken under submission', and listing the Request ID as follows. Note
the RequestID and then follow the steps below before going on to step c below.
v.
Using the Server Manager
page on the CA, locate the
Pending Requests folder
under the CA Role.
vi. Right-click on the pending
request that matches the
Request ID given in CMD
window and select All
Tasks > Issue.
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Configuration
vii. The resulting signed certificate is
in the Issued Certificates folder.
Double-click on the certificate to
open it and open the Details tab
(see right).
viii. Click Copy to File which starts the
Certificate Export Wizard.
ix. Select Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)
and click Next.
x.
Browse to the location in which to save
the certificate, enter a name such as
webadmin and click Next.
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c.
Transfer both the certificate (e.g. webadmin.crt) to the MMP of the Acano server using
SFTP.
CAUTION: If you are using a CA with the Web Enrolment feature installed, you may copy the
CSR text including the BEGIN CERTIFICATE REQUEST and END CERTIFICATE REQUEST
lines before submitting. After the certificate has been issued, copy only the certificate and not
the Certificate Chain. Be sure to include all text including the BEGIN CERTIFICATE and END
CERTIFICATE lines and paste into a text file. Then save the file as your certificate with a .pem,
.cer or .crt extension.
4.4 Configuring the Web Admin Interface for HTTPS Access
You can configure the Web Admin Interface to use one of the five Ethernet interfaces.
30. Establish a SSH connection again to the MMP of the Acano server and sign in.
31. Enter the following commands to configure the Web Admin Interface to use the Ethernet
interface labeled ADMIN:
webadmin certs webadmin.key webadmin.crt
webadmin listen admin 443
webadmin enable
Note: Be sure to use the same names as the certificates you uploaded in section 4.3
32. Test that you can access the Web Admin Interface of the Acano server using the MMP user
account that you created earlier, i.e. enter https:\\acanoserver.example.com in your browser
and login using the user account you created in step 3.
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Configuration
Note: You are now ready to configure the Acano virtualized solution. See:

the Acano solution Single combined Deployment Guide if you are deploying on a single
host server

the Acano solution Single split Deployment Guide if you are deploying on a split Core/Edge
deployment

the Acano solution Scalability & Resilience Guide if you are deploying multiple servers
(single combined or split Core or Edge servers) that you will cluster.
Note: Any two interfaces of Acano solution must not be put into same subnet. The only
exception is that the ADMIN interface of a physical Acano server can be on the same subnet as
one of the other interfaces (A to D)—and is probably a common deployment.
Note: When you want to power off the Acano server be sure to sign into the MMP and use the
shutdown command before you disconnect the power.
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DC Power Option – Wiring and Safety
Appendix A DC Power Option – Wiring and
Safety
If you are using the DC power option for your Acano server, you must observe the following
additional instructions.
Location
The Acano server must be installed in a restricted access location within the meaning of UL
60950-1, IEC 60950-1 or equivalent (see http://www.ul.com).
Wiring
Use 10 AWG wire for the RTN, -48V and ground (earth) connections. (The RTN is the positive
power connection and the -48V is the negative power connection. The ground (earth) connection
is to the chassis for safety.)
Note: Generally, DC wiring colors are not standardized nationally. Follow the color scheme
applicable to your facility.
Overcurrent protection
Use a 30A circuit breaker on the branch circuit connection to each power supply unit. The circuit
breakers must be approved for use in your facility.
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© 2015 Acano (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved.
This document is provided for information purposes only and its contents are subject to change without notice. This
document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, for any purpose other than the
recipient’s personal use, without our prior written permission.
Acano and coSpace are trademarks of Acano. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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