Onboard Edge Nodes to ZEDEDA Cloud

Updated

Introduction

This article describes how to onboard an edge node to your ZEDEDA Cloud enterprise.

To onboard an edge node, you must create an edge node object in your enterprise. These objects serve as configurations for your physical edge nodes. You must also install EVE-OS on your physical device.

When an edge node first boots, it will try to connect to ZEDEDA Cloud. After it is connected, the physical node will associate itself with its edge node object and download its configuration.

This is a series of articles. You will likely follow them in this order.

  1. Edge Node Overview  
  2. Onboard an Edge Node  - You are here!
  3. Manage an Edge Node
  4. Use the ZEDEDA CLI to Manage an Edge Node

Prerequisites

  • You must have a physical edge device where you will install EVE-OS, and which will connect to ZEDEDA Cloud. 
  • Port 443 must be opened in the firewall for the management interface of the device (shared or dedicated) to reach ZEDEDA Cloud. 
  • If you want to deploy applications from the data store, the data store must be directly reachable from the edge nodes. 
  • You must have either the SysManager or SysAdmin role in your ZEDEDA Cloud enterprise.
  • Your edge node’s hardware model must be available in the Global Marketplace or uploaded to your Local Marketplace. (For testing, it's okay to use any hardware model.)
  • You must have an onboarding key. The default onboarding key is prepopulated with 5d0767ee-0547-4569-b530-387e526f8cb9. Note that your ZEDEDA Cloud administrator may have a unique onboarding key for you.
  • You must have your edge node’s soft serial number.
  • Some customers work with ZEDEDA and hardware vendors to use hardware serial numbers. If you’re not sure whether to use your hardware or soft serial number, use the soft serial.

Add an Edge Node Using the ZEDEDA Cloud GUI

To create an edge node object in your ZEDEDA Cloud enterprise, follow these steps.

  1. Log in to the ZEDEDA Cloud GUI.
  2. Click Edge Nodes in the left panel.
  3. Click the plus sign (+) in the upper-right corner.

Select a Hardware Model

A Hardware model provides the necessary details about a physical device’s specifications, features, and capabilities. This ensures accurate identification and seamless management of devices, including components like the CPU, RAM, storage, and I/O ports, along with their configurations.

  1. You have the following options for selecting the hardware model: 
    • Select a Brand from the list.
      For testing purposes, you can pick any brand. For production purposes, you need the correct brand or your configuration options will not match your device.
    • Select a Model from the list.
      You can select from Local Models that you have already imported into the ZEDEDA Marketplace. Or you can select one from Global Models and it will be automatically imported to your local marketplace.
  1. (Optional) Click the drawer for a quick overview of the hardware details.
  2. Click Next. 

Configure an Edge Node

After selecting the hardware model, configure the edge node. 

  1. Enter the edge node Name.
    This is unique across the enterprise and cannot be changed.
  2. Enter the edge node Title.
    This value is not used by the ZEDEDA Cloud system. It’s offered to give you more flexibility in organizing your enterprise. It can be changed after you create the object. 
  3. Enter a Description to help other admins understand the purpose of the edge node or any important details.
  4. Select a Project.
    • If you have already created one or more projects, choose the one to associate with your edge node.
      • If the project you choose is a deployment project, choose the Deployment Tag Name.
    • If you do not have a project, click Add New to create a project.
  5. Enter the Hardware Identity of the hardware being onboarded. 
    See Onboarding and Hardware Identity for further information about your options for identifying hardware.
    • Edge Node Certificate: Generated as part of the EVE-OS installation & can be obtained from the inventory partition of your USB. 
    • Onboarding Key: Uses a hardware Serial Number or an autogenerated soft serial number and pre-shared Onboarding Key for initial device authentication. This onboarding key is pre-populated with the EVE-OS default key from the prerequisites, but you can replace it with your own key.
    • Generate Single-Use EVE-OS Installer: Provides a secure, single-use EVE-OS installation media. The installer is tied to the first device that uses it. You will complete further steps for this during the Get and Install Eve-OS section.
  6. Tags: Name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources or target specific groups of edge nodes, such as location:us-west.  
      • Enter a key, such as location.
      • Enter a value, such as us-west.
      • Click the plus sign (+) to add more.
      • If you’re creating an Edge Node Cluster for two-node HA, use the key:value of tie-breaker:true for your tie-breaker node. 
      • See Tagging for more info about how to use tags.
  7. Additional Configurations:
    You can specify additional information:
      • Asset ID:  Any identification specific to your edge node.
      • Asset Location: Any location details specific to your edge node.
      • Edge Sync: Enter your Edge Sync URL. 
      • Activate Edge Node: 
        • Toggle on if you want this edge node to activate automatically after creation. The default is on.
        • Toggle off if you prefer to activate the edge node manually.
      • Activate Default App Network: 
        • Toggle on if you want to automatically create a Network Instance to be the default for all edge app instances on your edge node. This can save you some time in the future if you have a network instance that you always want assigned to the ethernet or wi-fi ports of any new edge node that you create. The default is on.
        • Toggle off if you prefer to create a Network Instance manually and assign it when deploying your app instance.

Interface Configurations

The Network is pre-filled with the default network name for your Enterprise, so you can use the default or a different network.  

  • If you have already created one or more networks, choose the one to associate with your edge node from the drop-down.
  • If you don’t want to use the default network or an existing network, click Add New to create a network.

Network Adapters

Configure your edge node’s Network Adapters. Alternatively, you can leave the automatically populated fields as they are.

  1. Interface Usage - Select one of the following: 
    • Unused: Port unspecified. If you intend to never use an adapter, select Disabled instead. 
    • Management: Port used for management traffic and can be associated with network instances.
    • App Direct: Port is directly used by one edge application (using PCI passthrough).
    • App Shared: Port can be shared by different network instances.
    • Disabled: Interface disabled.
    • VLANs Only: Port is used only for segmentation of a physical adapter into multiple logical networks (VLANs). See VLANs for Logical Segmentation of a Physical Port: A Use Case for an example. 
  2. Network - Select a network, such as the default or one that you created.
    • If you used Static IP - Adapter Specific when you created a network, then you will have to configure the IP Details here instead.
      1. Select the name of your adapter-specific network.
      2. Expand (⌄) the row.
      3. Additional fields display for your network adapter IP Details.
      4. Configure them as needed. See the descriptions in Create a Network
  3. Cost - Set a preferred interface based on lower cost, whether it’s based on price, bandwidth, etc. A higher number indicates lesser preference. 
  4. Tag - Name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources or target specific groups of edge nodes, such as location:us-west. 
    • Enter a key, such as location.
    • Enter a value, such as us-west.
    • Click the plus sign (+).
  5. Allow modifications locally (LPS): Enable local management of network port configuration with Local Profile Server when disconnected from ZEDEDA Cloud.
  6. Add VLAN: To use a VLAN, click the expand icon to configure the details. You can use it for Management or App Shared.
    • Logical Label - Any label that’s meaningful to you, such as “VLAN 10” or “Shop Floor”. The labels are unique per adapter. 
    • VLAN ID - Any ID per RFC 2674. The IDs are unique per adapter. 
    • Interface Usage:
      • Management: VLAN interface used for management traffic and can be associated with network instances.
      • App Shared: VLAN interface can be shared by different network instances.
    • Tag - Name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources or target specific groups of edge nodes, such as "location:us-west". 
      • Enter a key, such as location.
      • Enter a value, such as us-west.
      • Click the plus sign (+).
    • If you need more VLANs on this adapter, click Add another VLAN. 

Adapter Labels

An adapter label is a free-form string that you can assign to one or more network ports. You can designate multiple ports into a group by assigning them the same label. You can also assign multiple labels to a port, so it can belong to multiple groups. For example, you could assign “internet” or “internet-access” or similar to every port with Internet access. You can use adapter labels for scenarios such as grouping management ports, grouping port forwarding ports, grouping internet ports, and more. See Network Instances: a use case for an example of using adapter labels to configure a Local Network Instance for multi-path routing with failover and port-forwarding restrictions.

  1. Expand the network adapter interface drop-down to configure the Adapter Label. 
  2. Use adapters on your network ports if you want to designate multiple ports into a group.
  3. Use multiple adapter labels on a port if you want to put the port in multiple groups.
  4. See next steps for where else you can use these adapter labels.

IO Adapters

You can specify adapter information and tags.

  1. Interface Usage - Select one of the following: 
    1. Unused: Interface unspecified. If you intend to never use an adapter, select Disabled instead. 
    2. Management: Interface can be used by EVE-OS as well as other Edge applications.
    3. App Direct: Interface is directly used by one edge application.
    4. App Shared: Interface can be shared by different network instances.
    5. Disabled: Interface disabled.
  2. Tag - Name/value pairs that enable you to categorize resources or target specific groups of edge nodes, such as "location:us-west". 
    1. Enter a key, such as location.
    2. Enter a value, such as us-west.
    3. Click the plus sign (+).

Review & Add

  1. Review the information.
  2. Click Add. 

Get and Install EVE-OS

Single-use installer

If you chose the Generate Single-Use EVE-OS Installer option in the Configure section, in the Hardware Identity field, get EVE-OS and install it on your edge node as follows:  

  1. Use the recommended EVE-OS version or Select a different version.
    1. If you select a different version a Select EVE-OS LTS Version window appears:
      1. (Optional) Click Release Notes to read what’s supported in different EVE-OS versions.
      2. Search or navigate to the version of your choice and click the radio button. 
      3. Click Select. 
  2. Generate a single-use installer or a live image:
    • Single-Use Installer to install EVE-OS to run on the edge node disk. By default, the installer will choose the first available disk for installing both EVE-OS and app storage. You can Download the default or use the advanced configuration to select disks of your choice. 
      • (Optional) Select Advanced Configuration - to use this option, you must know the exact names of your Installation Disk (such as sda) and Storage Disk (such as sdb). 
        • Use single disk (storage on single drive) for EVE-OS and application storage on a single drive of your choice.
        • Specify EVE-OS & application storage disks for EVE-OS & application storage disks on separate drives of your choice.
      • Enter the name of your Installation Disk (such as sda) or Storage Disk (such as sdb). 
      • Click Apply Config & Download. 
    • Single-Use Live Image to run EVE-OS from removable media (such as USB). Click Download from the card.
  3. After the download is complete, flash an EVE-OS installer or live image. 
  4. After the flash is complete:
    • For installer: Install EVE-OS on your edge node by following the instructions in the GUI or see Install EVE-OS for more details.
    • For live image: After flashing to the medium, attach it to the device, and the device will boot into EVE-OS directly.
  5. Click Finish Onboarding.

Edge node certificate, onboarding key, or ARM64

You will see the checkbox for I already have EVE-OS installed on my device or I will install it later. You can install EVE-OS on your device at any time before or after completing all the steps in the onboarding flow. 

If you chose Edge Node Certificate, Onboarding Key, or ARM64 during the Hardware Identity selection (or if you want an installer/image that can be used to install the same EVE-OS image onto many devices), see the following for further details to get, flash, and install manually: 

  1. Get EVE-OS.
  2. Flash an EVE-OS installer or live image.
  3. Install EVE-OS on your edge node.

Watch the Video

Next Steps

This is a series of articles. You will likely follow them in this order.

  1. Edge Node Overview  
  2. Onboard an Edge Node  - You are here!
  3. Manage an Edge Node
  4. Use the ZEDEDA CLI to Manage an Edge Node

After you complete the series, you might be interested in the following articles: 

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