AWS Pulse Server Setup Guide
Overview
The Lantronix Local Manager's Pulse feature allows you to specify a network endpoint to act as an indicator of good network connectivity. While most customers use the Lantronix Control Center as an endpoint, any system capable of running the echo service can be used as a target. This document describes the process for setting up a Pulse server (echo service) using Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Requirements
- AWS Account - log into or create an account at aws.amazon.com
- Network path from Local Manager to Pulse Server (routing, firewalls, etc.)
Creating the EC2 Instance
Navigate to the AWS Management Console.
Click on Launch a virtual machine.
Select Amazon Linux 2 AMI (HVM), SSD Volume Type.
Select Free tier eligible or larger size depending on the number of Local Managers in your deployment.
Click Next: Configure Instance Details.
Select Enable under Auto-assign Public IP.
Note: If you shut down and restart your EC2 instance, there is a possibility that the public IP address may change. To maintain your IP address, use an elastic IP address (see Assigning an Elastic IP Address), which can be allocated after the instance is created. At the time of this writing, one free elastic IP is allowed per instance.
Click on Configure Security Group.
By default, SSH is added as part of the allowed access. Select My IP under Source to restrict SSH access to your WAN IP. Other addresses can be added as necessary.
Click Add Rule.
Choose Custom TCP Port as Type, 7 as Port Range, your WAN IP address as Source, and Echo Service as Description.
Add as many addresses as necessary to cover the source IP addresses from all of your Local Managers. You can also specify Anywhere as the Source to allow all incoming connections to port 7.
Click Review and Launch.
Review your selections and click Launch.
You will be presented with the following screen.
Select Create a new key pair. This will allow secure communication between your SSH client and the AWS server.
Name your key pair and then download it to your computer.
You will not be able to download the key pair again.- How to install .pem file to putty: click here
- How to install .pem file to SecureCRT: click here
Click Launch Instances to launch the EC2 server.
You will be presented with the following screen. Click View Instances to access the newly created EC2 server. It may take a few minutes for the instance to become available.
The next screen will list your EC2 instance as well as its Public IPv4 address.
Configuring Echo Service
Using your SSH client, connect to the server using its public IP address and the username ec2-user. There is no password as authentication is handled by the SSH certificates configured earlier.
Become root by running the sudo su - command.
Install xinetd by running the yum install xinetd command. Enter y when asked *Is this ok**.
Wait for installation of xinetd to complete.
Use vi to edit /etc/xinetd.d/echo-stream to configure and enable the echo service.
Change the disable option to no and save the file.
- Press i to enter insert mode
- Use arrow keys to move cursor to disable line
- Use backspace to delete yes
- Type no
- Press ESC
- Type :wq and press Enter
Start xinetd by running the systemctl start xinetd.service command. If the service is already running, use the systemctl restart xinetd.service command instead.
To view the status of the echo server, run the systemctl status xinetd command. If Local Managers are already trying to reach the Pulse server, you should see echo-stream START and EXIT messages every 30 seconds.
Assigning an Elastic IP to EC2 Instance
From the AWS Management Console, click on EC2 to access the EC2 Dashboard.
In the EC2 Dashboard, click on Elastic IP, which is located in the left panel under the Network & Security section.
Click the Allocate Elastic IP address button.
To use an address from Amazon's pool of IPv4 addresses, accept the default configuration and click Allocate.
You new elastic IP address will be displayed on the next screen.
Select Associate Elastic IP Address from the Actions menu in the upper right hand corner.
Use the Instance and Private IP address boxes to select your EC2 instance. Click Associate to save your configuration.
Control Center / Local Manager Configuration
You can now proceed with configuring Local Managers to use the EC2 instance's public IP address as a Pulse server. Pulse settings can also be configured from an Inventory group on the Control Center.