Appliance Configuration Tab

InstallAnywhere 2020 » Advanced Designer » Build » Build Appliances

On the Appliance Configuration tab of the Build Appliances view on the Build page, you can create and modify appliance configurations, each of which defines how the appliance is built for a particular target hypervisor.

The Appliance Configuration tab includes the following options.

Option

Description

Select Appliance Configuration

Select an appliance configuration from this list and then perform one of the following actions:

•

Select the Add to project build option and then select Save on the File menu to add the selected appliance configuration to the project build. Then, each time you click the Build Appliance button, this appliance configuration will be built.

•

Edit the options (described below) on this tab and then select Save on the File menu.

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Click Add to create a new appliance configuration.

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Click Copy to copy the selected appliance configuration using a new name.

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Click Rename to edit the name of the selected appliance configuration.

•

Click Remove to delete the selected appliance configuration.

•

Click Build Selected to build just the selected appliance configuration.

Default Appliance Configuration

When a new InstallAnywhere project is created, from any of the templates, it is assigned the default appliance configuration, which is named Default_Appliance_Configuration. The Add to project build option is automatically selected for this configuration. All the build settings defined in the template are copied to the default appliance configuration.

Add to project build

Select this option to include the selected appliance configuration to the project build. Then, each time you click the Build Appliance button, this appliance configuration will be built.

When a new project is created from any of the templates, it is assigned the default appliance configuration, which is named Default_Appliance_Configuration. The Add to project build option will be enabled automatically for this configuration.

Add Appliance Configuration

To create a new appliance configuration, click this button. The Add Configuration dialog box opens, prompting you to enter a name for the new appliance configuration.

Copy Appliance Configuration

To copy an existing appliance configuration, click this button. The Copy Configuration dialog box opens, prompting you to enter a name for the new appliance configuration.

Rename Appliance Configuration

To edit the name of an existing appliance configuration, click this button. The Rename Appliance Configuration dialog box opens, prompting you to enter a new name for the appliance configuration.

Remove Appliance Configuration

To delete the selected appliance configuration, click this button. InstallAnywhere displays a message box, prompting you to confirm that you want to delete the selected appliance configuration.

Appliance Version

Enter a version number to identify the version of the virtual appliance that you will build with the selected appliance configuration.

Appliance UUID

When you add a new appliance configuration, an alphanumeric string is automatically entered to uniquely identify this appliance.

Click Generate UUID to generate a new ID.

EULA

Click Choose EULA File and select a text (.txt) file that contains the end user license agreement information for the virtual appliance. Your customers will be prompted to accept this EULA before they will be permitted to use the virtual appliance.

Note • The EULA must be a text-only file and will not support markup of any kind.

Note • Specifying a EULA is mandatory for the creation of a virtual appliance.

Description

Enter text to describe this virtual appliance.

Appliance URL

In the Appliance URL field, enter the start URL by which the appliance can be accessed post deployment. Enter the Appliance URL using the following format:

<protocol>#hostname#<context_root>

where:

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<protocol> is of type http://

•

#hostname# will be replaced by the IP of the appliance obtained after deployment of the virtual appliance

•

<context_root> is the context root of the virtual appliance

A typical virtual appliance URL can be specified by the appliance author in the InstallAnywhere GUI as:

http://#hostname#/sample/demo.html

If the IP of the deployed appliance is x.y.a.b, then this URL will be resolved as:

http://x.y.a.b/sample/demo.html

and will be presented as the start URL of the appliance to the end user.

Note • For more information, see Specifying the Appliance URL.

Target Hypervisor

Select one of the following options to identify the target hypervisor of this virtual appliance:

•

Amazon EC2

•

VMware vSphere 5

Credentials

Select the set of defined credentials to identify and connect to the target hypervisor.

To create a new set of credentials, click Add New Credential to open the Add New/Manage Connection Dialog Box.

To edit an existing set of credentials, select the credentials from the list and click Manage Credential to open the Add New/Manage Connection Dialog Box.

Deploy this Appliance

To enable automatic deployment of this virtual appliance to the selected target hypervisor at build time, select this check box.

OVF Appliance Type

Select one of the following options to define the OVF appliance type:

•

VMware vCenter compatible appliance—Appliance is deployed in OVF 1.1 format on a licensed VMware vSphere server which is managed by a licensed VMware vCenter. This appliance will be deployed as a pure virtual appliance and will have its own resource pool. Such virtual appliances are also capable of having multiple virtual machines under the appliance. InstallAnywhere currently supports only a single-VM virtual appliance.

•

VMware vSphere compatible appliance—Appliance is also deployed in OVF 1.1 format on a licensed or free version of VMware vSphere, which may or may not be managed by a VMware vCenter. This appliance will be deployed as a single virtual machine.

Note • Only displayed if VMware vSphere 5 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list.

Appliance output options

Select one of the following options:

•

OVF (Open Virtualization Format) 1.1—Contains the VM disk files and the OVF descriptor in a single directory.

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OVA (OVF Archive)—The OVF 1.1 format output is archived as a tar file, which enables easier distribution of the virtual appliance.

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Both—The virtual appliance output is provided in both OVF 1.1 and OVA formats. This option will consume a larger amount of disk space.

Note • Only displayed if VMware vSphere 5 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list.

Root Device Type

The AMI image used to launch Amazon EC2 instances is stored in the root device volumes. To specify the type of disk storage that your AMI image will be stored in, select one of the following root device storage-backed instance types:

•

EC2 instance store backed—Temporary block level storage (also known as an “instance store” volume). An instance store is dedicated to a particular instance and the data on it persists only during the lifetime of its associated EC2 instance. Data on such instance store volumes are lost when the instances are stopped, fail or are terminated and cannot be restored. It is ideal to use such instance-store-backed instances for temporary storage of information or content.

•

Elastic block store backed—Reliable storage volumes that can be attached to a running instance in the same availability zone. EBS volumes attached to an instance persist independently from the life of the instance and are recommended to be used when data changes frequently and requires long term persistence.

Note • For more information, see Support for Elastic Block Store (EBS) for Amazon.

Only displayed if Amazon EC2 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list.

Select the region for deployment

Select one of the following regions to upload and run your virtual appliance:

•

US East (Northern Virginia) Region

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US West (Northern California) Region

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US West (Oregon) Region

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South America (Sao Paulo) Region

•

EU (Ireland) Region

•

Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region

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Asia Pacific (Singapore) Region

Note • It is always beneficial to deploy the AMI to the region closest to your customer base. For example, if your business runs in South America only, then it is better to base your deployed AMI in the Sao Paulo region. This will result in faster response times. Also, both the S3 bucket and AMI instance would be deployed to the corresponding region, which would help customers reduce costs.

You can create an S3 bucket in any of these regions. Amazon guarantees that the S3 bucket will be created in the respective region and that the user-uploaded files will be stored in the specified region.

The same region specification applies to EC2 as well. Launching and running of EC2 instances can be done in any of these regions.

Note • For more information, see About EC2 and S3 Regions of Deployment for Amazon and Deploying an Amazon Virtual Appliance Through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Management Console.

Only displayed if Amazon EC2 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list.

EBS Volume size (GiB)

Specify the size in gigabytes of your EBS volume. The limit is up to 1 TiB depending on your AWS account limits.

Note • Only displayed if Amazon EC2 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list. Field is enabled when Elastic block store backed is selected under Root Device Type.

Device

Enter the name of the root device that the volumes will be attached to. For example, the recommended connection is:

/dev/sdf through /dev/sdp

Note • For more information, see Support for Elastic Block Store (EBS) for Amazon.

Only displayed if Amazon EC2 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list. Field is enabled when Elastic block store backed is selected under Root Device Type.

Image Name

Enter the name of the EBS backed image created from the EBS snapshot.

Note • For more information, see Support for Elastic Block Store (EBS) for Amazon.

Only displayed if Amazon EC2 is selected in the Target Hypervisor list. Field is enabled when Elastic block store backed is selected under Root Device Type.

Same as the build credentials

To deploy the virtual appliance to the same machine on which you are building the virtual appliance, select this check box.

To deploy the virtual appliance to a different server—not the one on which you are building the virtual appliance—clear this check box, and then select the appropriate machine in the box under this check box. The box contains all of the machines that are defined in the Credentials list.

Note • This functionality is available if VMware vSphere 5 is selected in the Target Hypervisor setting.

Appliance Output Location

After the virtual appliance is built, the output location is listed here. Click Open in Explorer to open the containing folder.

Build Appliance

Click to initiate the building of virtual appliances based on all of the appliance configurations that have been added to the project build (by having the Add to project build option selected).

Build Selected

Click to build the selected appliance configuration.

Build All

Click to build all appliance configurations that have been added to the project.

Appliance Configuration Tab

InstallAnywhere 2020 Help Library

October 2019