Installing Flow Enterprise Server 2024.1.1

Preinstallation instructions

• Read and follow the Flow Enterprise Server 2024.1.1 system requirements.

• If you’re using an external database, have your database administrator complete the necessary steps to prepare the database.

• Download the latest copy of the flow-enterprise-tools package. Version 3.0.0.0 or greater is required. This is provided by your Pluralsight support representative. Install this package on each node of the Flow cluster.

• For the host server, copy flow-enterprise-tools-<channel>[-airgap]-<version>.tar.gz to the home directory of the user account used for the installation on the host server.

• Extract the tools file using tar xvf flow-enterprise-tools-<channel>[-airgap]-<version>.tar.gz.

  Note: Run any tool from the bin directory by running cd /path/to/flow-enterprise-tools/bin ./[tool name]. Install the tools package with the install-enterprise-tools.sh script cd /path/to/flow-enterprise-tools ./install-enterprise-tools.sh. The script will ask where to install the components. The default is /usr/local/share/flow-enterprise-tools.

• Install the flow-enterprise-tools package using the script install-enterprise-tools.sh. This allows installation of the scripts and binaries in the system where users can access them from standard PATH settings. You can also run this package's scripts in-place.

  Important: For the root user, /usr/local/bin must be in the PATH environment variable. Set up the root user as a Flow user after installing Flow. This is critical if your OS is hardened.

• Create the following directories. These can all be bundled in a single volume:
  app directory (default: /opt/flow)
  mkdir -p [app_directory]
chmod 755 [app_directory]
  Once the app directory is created, change the ownership of the directory to:
  chown -R 37355:37355 [app_directory]

• If you're using an embedded database, make a database directory (default: /opt/flow/database) on the primary host server only:
  mkdir -p [database_directory]
chmod 725 [database_directory]
  Once the database directory is created, change the ownership of the directory to:
  chown -R 1000:1000 [database_directory]

If your version of Flow Enterprise Server is airgapped, download the airgap bundle from Replicated (external site, opens in new tab). A password is required. If you can't access Replicated, contact Support for assistance.

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Install Flow Enterprise

Now you’re ready to install Flow Enterprise 2024.1.1. For an online installation, run sudo flow-tools install. For an airgapped installation, run sudo flow-tools install -a. This only needs to be done on the primary node.

The device filter is in GoLang regular expression format. Device names vary between distributions. Add multiple filters if the devices are named differently in worker nodes. An example of such a case may look like sd[b-z]|nvme[1-3]|xvd[b-c].

On a single-node cluster, the installation labels the primary node appropriately by default. However, in a multi-node installation, label the worker nodes as directed from the installation command's output as seen above.

Reset the console password by running kubectl kots reset-password -n default if desired.

Next, install Flow Enterprise on each of the worker nodes using the join command output at the end of the installation of the primary node. Read more about joining a node to the cluster.

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Configure the KOTS app

Configure TLS

1. Open your Chrome browser and go to the URL provided at the end of the installation on the primary node. It will look like http://<ip address of server>:8800.

   Note: You’ll receive an error saying your connection is not private. Flow uses a self-signed SSL/TLS Certificate to secure the communication between your local machine and the admin console during setup. This is secure.

2. Click Advanced, then click Proceed to continue to the admin console.

3. On the next screen, enter the following information from the Before you begin steps:

   1. Enter your hostname.

   2. Upload your key and certificate.

4. Click Upload & Continue.

Log in to the KOTS admin console

1. Enter the password provided during installation at the end of the installation script output.

   

    

2. Upload the license file provided by your Flow representative.

   

    

3. On the following screen, there are two options for installing Flow. If your server doesn’t have Internet access, choose the airgapped environment option and upload the pre-downloaded airgapped binary zip file. Otherwise, click the download from the internet link to continue.

Set up Flow configurations

Once the license is validated, the configuration screen appears.

The following configuration changes are recommended:

• Match the Flow URL to the fully qualified domain name registered earlier.

• Provide a valid email address to receive email alerts.

• Click Email settings and provide the details of the SMTP/Email server port, credentials, protocol, and other details.

• If there’s a proxy involved, check Use an outbound HTTP/HTTPS Proxy and add the details.

• Enter the details for your external Postgres database.

Once this page is configured, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save config.

Deploy Flow

To deploy Flow, on the next screen click Deploy.

Confirm the pop-up window by clicking Yes, deploy.

To monitor the deployment process, run kubectl get pods on the primary node to see each pod’s status. Wait until all pods are in a running state.

Once all pods are running, start Flow. Then proceed to log in to the Flow Enterprise Application using the original URL for the application.

Additional configurations after installing Flow

• To prevent your Flow Enterprise Server cluster from running into a forced eviction due to a lack of disk space, go to Disk Pressure Check Settings and click the checkbox next to Enable Disk Pressure Check and Scale Down.

  

• Enable monitoring services.

• Automatic certificate renewal.

Log in to Flow

Navigate to your Flow URL. Enter your organization name and primary email. Choose a password to log in.

Connect with your Pluralsight Flow representative to talk about next steps for your onboarding experience. For steps to get started with Flow, check out our Getting Started guide.