MCS Installation

Owned by Ramya Raman
Last updated: Sept 11, 2024
5 min read

Pre-requisites

 

  • MCS can be installed on a server with Ubuntu 20.04 running on Intel/AMD 64 bit platforms (Called x86_64 - can be tested from command line with ‘uname -m’).

  • Enable SSH to connect to the Linux system to deploy MCS.

  • Minimum disk space of >300GB.

  • Minimum Memory > 32 GB.

  • Minimum of 32 cores CPU.

Note: Please do not install any security or automatic updating applications without consulting with TAG support.

** While creating a user in MCS, please create a user ID (UID) and group ID (GID). Usually, the user ID = 1000 and the group ID = 1000.

> ssh <user_name>@<IP address of the system>

Installation Steps

Copying the image file

 

There are two ways to install MCS.

  1. Copy the updated images in the format update_x.y.z.tar (x.y.z is the version number) from the shared location (need the location path) to the root location of the MCS user.

 > scp <shared_location>/update_x.y.z.tar <user_name>@<IP address of the system>:/home/<MCS_user_root_location>/

To check if the package update_x.y.z.tar is present, type the ls or ll command.

 

Extract the file using the command: tar -xvf update_x.y.z.tar

** A MCS folder is created, which contains all the relevant files.

2. Alternatively, you can also use FTP to copy the images. Please follow the below steps.

  • Create a folder to copy the MCS installation to: mkdir <newdir>

  • Connect with FileZilla to the Linux server.

    1. Open the “Site Manager”

    2. Create a new site as the following.

 

New Site

Protocol: SFTP

Host: The IP address of the Linux server.

User: The user name of the Linux.

Password: The password of the Linux.

Click on Connect to access the server and copy the file. 

  1. Connect through ssh to the MCS server (ssh <user_name>@<IP address of the system>).

  2. Go to the directory where the installation package was copied.

  3. Extract the file: tar -xvf <the name of the installation package>

  4. Enter the MCS directory (created from the extraction) cd MCS.

Install MCS

 

Enter the MCS directory (created from the extraction): cd MCS.

If you are using Ubuntu 20.04, run ./install.sh script which does the following:

 Installs the latest version of Docker.

  1. Installs Docker compose.

  2. Adds docker group.

  3. Assign the user to the docker group.

  4. Disabling swap: It is recommended for elastic search in the database. If enabled, it might slow down the database.

  5. Increase virtual memory for elastic search database.

  6. Restart the docker services.

Type 'Y' if you want to use an online installation; otherwise, type 'n'.

Log out and re-login once the installation is complete.

Note: If you are using a different version other than Ubuntu 20.04, please install a suitable docker-compose, add a docker group, and assign your user to the docker group.

User ID setup

To get your user ID, use the command echo $UID

 

** Please note the user ID needs to be 1000

Create and add user to the group

Use the below command to add a user to the group.

  1. sudo groupadd docker

  2. sudo usermod -a -G docker <user_name>

  3. reboot

  4. docker ps

Execute Setup Scripts

Use the ./setup.sh command to run the setup script.

Select the management IP from the options displayed. Here, it is 1.

 

The script enters the crontab jobs and calculates the free space available.

The internal folder path for the Elastic search data is ./elasticsearch/data. However, it is recommended to use elastic search externally; in that case, please specify the new path and set the Current free disk space to 50% of the storage.

 

Type “n” and choose the latest image available. (For first-time installation, only one image is present).

To verify the docker images, use the docker images command.

Elasticsearch setup

It is essential to edit the ‘.env’ file to externalize the elasticsearch before proceeding further.

Navigate to the MCS folder: cd MCS/

Use the command nano .env to edit the environment file.

Note:

  • Setting EXTERNAL_LOG_DB_TYPE = “disabled” disables all the data. Additionally, disable the Internal Elastic Search ENABLE_INTERNAL_ES=false → Relevant for external elastic search.

  • Set EXTERNAL_LOG_DB_TYPE = “elasticsearch” and ENABLE_INTERNAL_ES = true → Relevant for internal elastic search only.

Control O to save
Control X to exit

Running the MCS system

To run the MCS system, execute the command ./run.sh

Choose the appropriate MCS options to start, stop, etc.

  1. Start – Starts the MCS system.

  2. Stop – Stops the MCS system.

  3. Logs – Records the logs for the user operation performed on the UI of the MCS and the Database.

  4. Update – Works from the local registry. Pulls the latest images for the containers.

  5. Run-debug – Pg admin and Redis command. Enabling the Run-Debug will toggle to Stop Debug to stop the PG Admin.

  6. Run-kibana

  7. Setup – Runs the setup script.

  8. Exit – Logout from the MCS system.

Note: If the internal Kibana is closed ENABLE_INTERNAL_ES=false in the environment file, the run-kibana option will be disabled in ./run.sh.

Now the MCS GUI is ready to be launched.