Installing OT-BASE Asset Center on Linux

(Note: This doesn't apply to the SaaS version of Asset Center)

Picking an Appropriate Target for Hosting

Before installing the OT-BASE Asset Center, do some planning in order to pick an appropriate target. The following factors will most likely determine your decision on where to host the OT-BASE Asset Center:

• If this is a proof-of-concept, you may place the OT-BASE Asset Center inside a process network, assuming that no external access is desired.
• If you want IT users to be able to access the OT-BASE Asset Center, a good hosting candidate is a computer inside the DMZ that separates process networks from office networks.
• If you want to collect configuration data from multiple sites in a central OT-BASE Asset Center, a hosting candidate would reside in the enterprise network that can be reached by all participating sites.

Summing up, placement of the OT-BASE Asset Center is largely determined by required access paths -- both for users and for configuration data provided by OT-BASE Asset Discovery nodes. For the latter, you only need to assure that Asset Discovery nodes can uni-directionally send files to the Asset Center. Such a connection may involve multiple steps with store-and-forward functionality in between. A direct online connection between Asset Discovery engines and the OT-BASE Asset Center is not required, and the transmission of configuration files is not time critical.

It also doesn't matter if you are running OT-BASE Asset Center on bare metal or in a virtualized environment. Even a private cloud (AWS, Azure etc.) is ok.

Your server platform should have empty disk space of at least 10 GB, more if you are using the CVE and file upload features. Note that a definitive size cannot be specified because it is ultimately up to your user profile how many files users choose to upload.

Installation

Install Docker

OT-BASE Asset Center comes as a Docker image and therefore requires the Docker container platform. If you are not familiar with Docker yet, information on this software can be found at www.docker.com. Cloud services usually provide pre-installed Docker servers.

Install the OT-BASE Docker Container using the installation script

For easy installation of OT-BASE Asset Center on a new system, an install script named 'ot-base.install' is provided with the distribution image. This script installs and starts OT-BASE with default settings. Before executing the script, make sure that all settings are appropriate for your installation.

To execute the script, call

> $ bash ./ot-base.install

Installing the container manually

In order to manually install OT-BASE Asset Center without using the install script, proceed as follows:

> $ docker load -i ot-base.4.02.tar

Create and run a container from that image (settings shown below are from the install script):

> $ docker run -d

>    --name ot-base

>    --tmpfs /run:rw

>    --restart always

>    -p80:80

>    -e TZ=America/New_York

>    -v/var/ot-base/backup:/var/otb_backup

>    -v/var/ot-base/ot-base-files:/var/ot-base-files

>    -v/var/ot-base/otb_import:/var/otb_import

>    ot-base:4.02

 Here's a breakdown of the parameters used:

run -d --name ot-base

--tmpfs /run:rw 

--restart always 

-p80:80 

-e TZ=America/New_York 

-v/var/ot-base/backup:/var/otb_backup

-v/var/ot-base/ot-base-files:/var/ot-base-files 

-v/var/ot-base/otb_import:/var/otb_import 

ot-base:4.02

Modify access rights when using Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux)

When using Security-Enhanced Linux, you must set a write permission for the directory /var/ot-base:

sudo chcon -Rt svirt_sandbox_file_t /var/ot-base