Manually Setting Up a Static IP for a Porta On Prem VM

To reliably access Porta from the same address, we need to set up a static IP for the VM.

Tip

During this process, you will be prompted for thesudo password; this is the Porta VM password provided to you.

Warning

If these commands are run using an SSH connection (a Windows Powershell or Terminal) to access the VM, your connection will be disrupted while the script is running and the setup will fail.

1. Using the native VirtualBox terminal window of the running virtual machine, log in to the VM:
   • Type the username portavm and hit Enter,
   • Type the password provided to you and hit Enter again to log in.
2. Run the following command to begin setting up a static IP address:

   sudo ./scripts/setup_static_ip.sh

3. You will be prompted to enter thesudo password.
4. The script will perform a network scan to find available IP addresses on your network.

   Caution

   If the network scan fails to complete or doesn’t find any available IPs, you’ll be asked “Would you like to manually enter an IP address?”

   1. Type y and press Enter.
   2. Type a full, valid IP address (e.g., 192.168.1.100), and hit Enter.
      • If the IP appears to be in use, you’ll be asked to confirm by typing y and pressing Enter.
5. Select an IP address for the virtual machine by typing the number corresponding to one of the listed available IPs and pressing Enter.
   • If you choose to enter a custom IP address:
     • Enter the full IP address (e.g., 192.168.1.100)
       • If the entered IP appears to be in use, you’ll be asked to confirm. If you are sure the IP is safe to use, type y and pressing Enter.

     Tip

     If you’re unsure of available IP addresses, contact your network administrator or IT specialist.

6. Next, select the machine role (also known as its type) by entering the number corresponding to one of the following options and pressing Enter:
   1. main
   2. backup
   3. arbiter

   Note

   If you’re only using one machine for Porta, select 1 formain.

7. The script will then proceed to configure the VM with the selected static IP address and machine role.
   • You will see a lot of output in the terminal, including password prompts, but you can ignore it.
8. When IP configuration is complete, the script will print “Static IP setup completed successfully! VM is now accessible at IP:” and list the new static IP address.

Caution

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are setting up multiple Porta VMs and their IP addresses are not sequential (e.g., 10.100.100.10, 10.100.100.11, 10.100.100.12), you must manually configure the hosts file on each VM after setup has completed. Please see the Manually configuring the hosts file section below for instructions.

Manually configuring the hosts file

During set up, the script setup_vm.ps1 attempts to automatically configure the hosts file on each Porta VM to ensure proper communication between multiple machines in a replication group. However, this automatic setup will not work as intended if the assigned IP addresses are not sequential.

For example, if you have three Porta VMs with the following IP addresses:

• Main machine: 192.168.50.123
• Backup machine: 192.168.50.244
• Arbiter machine: 192.168.50.25

or:

• Main machine: 192.168.50.24
• Backup machine: 192.168.50.25
• Arbiter machine: 192.168.50.23

Then the automated configuration will be incorrect, and you’ll need to manually edit the hosts file on each VM.

1. On each Porta VM, open the hosts file for editing using a text editor with superuser privileges. For example, you can use nano:

   sudo nano /etc/hosts

2. Add entries for each Porta database in the replication group, mapping their static IP addresses to their respective hostnames. For example:

   127.0.0.1 localhost
   127.0.1.1 MACHINENAME
   
   # Replace <these> with the actual IPs
   10.221.113.40 porta-db
   10.221.113.15 porta-db-2
   10.221.113.66 porta-db-3
   
   # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
   ::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
   fe00::0 ip6-localnet
   ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
   ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
   ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

3. Save your changes and exit the text editor.
   • In nano, you can do this by pressing CTRL + X, then Y to confirm saving, and ENTER to exit.
4. Repeat these steps on each Porta VM in the replication group to ensure all machines can communicate with each other.