Chapter 2: Installation

  • Published on May 28, 2025
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Installation

Installation includes all tasks necessary to make the Nasuni Edge Appliance and the Nasuni Edge Appliance user interface operational.

Important: Installing third-party software on Nasuni appliances is not allowed.

A. Record your Nasuni.com Username and Password

Your Nasuni.com Username and Password are required for administering your account.

B. If you manage multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances, install the Nasuni Management Console (NMC)

Here is a Worksheet for planning configurations.

The Nasuni Management Console allows you to manage multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances from one central application. For details, see the Nasuni Management Console Guide.

Place Nasuni Edge Appliances under the control of the Nasuni Management Console (NMC).

C. Planning multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances

Here is a Worksheet for planning configurations.

You can set up different Nasuni Edge Appliances for different uses, including the following:

  • Applications that access the Nasuni Edge Appliance directly: the goal is to maximize performance of the application. Applications that directly access the Nasuni Edge Appliance open large numbers of files rapidly and frequently.

  • Primary file server: the goal is timely file access for users.

  • Providing FTP/SFTP access to data, especially for users without the usual authentication.

  • Standby for disaster recovery: the goal is to have files ready for reasonable user access in case the primary server goes down. The performance is expected to not equal the performance of the primary server.

  • Backup: the goal is to preserve copies of files in case the original file is lost or corrupted. Backup consists of two processes: moving data to the Nasuni Edge Appliance’s cache, and moving data from the Nasuni Edge Appliance’s cache to the cloud. Dedicate a specific Nasuni Edge Appliance for backup.

If you have only a single Nasuni Edge Appliance, go to step D, Planning the installation of each Nasuni Edge Appliance.

If you have multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances, you must plan the resources necessary for each Nasuni Edge Appliance separately. Each Nasuni Edge Appliance should have a different name.

Caution: Avoid using characters that systems, such as Active Directory, specify as disallowed, including period (.), backslash (\), forward slash (/), colon (:), asterisk (*), question mark (?), quotation mark ("), less than sign (<), greater than sign (>), percent (%), and vertical bar (|). Errors can occur for Nasuni Edge Appliances whose names include such characters. For example, it might not be possible to configure the Nasuni Edge Appliance for Active Directory access. You can change the name of the Nasuni Edge Appliance to avoid such characters.

Then proceed with step D, Planning the installation of each Nasuni Edge Appliance for each Nasuni Edge Appliance. To simplify managing multiple Nasuni Edge Appliances, install the Nasuni Management Console.

D. Planning the installation of each Nasuni Edge Appliance

For details, see the Nasuni Edge Appliance Initial Configuration Guide.

  1. Verify minimum memory: 16 GiB (virtual machine).

    Recommended memory is 16 GiB. A heavy load might require more than 16 GiB. If applications access the Nasuni Edge Appliance directly, consider adding more memory.

    Important: These are general recommendations. Your specific situation might require further resources.

    For comparison, the Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliance includes 16 GiB (N1040t-2), 64 GiB (N1040r, N1050, N2050, or N2040), or 128 GiB (N4040 or N4050) memory.

    Important: The maximum amount of memory that can be configured is 128 GiB. Any memory above the limit of 128 GiB is ignored.

  2. Verify minimum free hard drive space to run the Nasuni Edge Appliance: 370 GB (344 GiB) for virtual machine.

    This includes the 32 GiB operating system, 250 GB cache, and copy-on-write (COW) disk. See step 4 below.

    Important: These are general recommendations. Your specific situation might require further resources.

    For comparison, the Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliance includes 3.84 TB (N1040r-3f, N1040r-3fe, N2040-3f, N1050, N2050, or N2040-3fe), 4 TB (N1040t-2), 7.68 TB (N4040-7f, N4050-7f, N4050-7fe, or N4040-7fe), 8 TB (N1040r-6 or N2040-6), 15.36 TB (N4040-13f, N4050-13f, N4050-13fe, or N4040-13fe), or 30.72 TB (N4040-27f, N4050-27f, N4050-27fe, or N4040-27fe) hard drive space.

    To increase the size of the OS disk to 32 GiB for the Nasuni Edge Appliance (NEA) or the Nasuni Management Console (NMC), perform these steps:

    • Change the size of the OS disk in the virtual machine to 32 GiB.

    • Reboot the virtual machine.

    Note: Since this procedure interrupts access to the NEA or NMC, schedule this procedure for a time of low usage.

  3. Verify minimum number of CPU processors: 8 or more recommended for optimal performance (virtual machine).

    Important: These are general recommendations. Your specific situation might require further resources.

    For comparison, Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliances include 4 processors (N1040r-6, N1040r-3f, N1050, or N1040r-3fe), 6 processors (N1040t-2), 8 processors (all N2040), 12 processors (N2050), 32 processors (N4050), or 20 processors (all N4040).

    If applications access the Nasuni Edge Appliance directly, consider adding more CPU processors.

  4. Verify minimum hard drive space for cache: 250 GB (virtual machine).

    Important: These are general recommendations. Your specific situation might require further resources.

    For comparison, the Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliance includes 2 TB (N1040t-2), 2.59 TB (N1050 or N2050), 3 TB (N1040r-3f, N1040r-3fe, N2040-3f, or N2040-3fe), 6 TB (N1040r-6 or N2040-6), 6.18 TB (N4050-7f or N4050-7fe), 7 TB (N4040-7f or N4040-7fe), 13 TB (N4040-13f or N4040-13fe), 12.4 TB(N4050-13f or N4050-13fe), 25.84 TB (N4050-27f or N4050-s27fe), or 27 TB (N4040-27f or N4040-27fe) hard drive space for cache.

    It is not necessary for all the data stored with Nasuni to be kept in the cache. The size of the cache should be based on the size of the working set (the amount of data being accessed by users or applications on a regular basis), including metadata. See Appendix B, “Cache Configuration,” on page 69 for details.

    If this Nasuni Edge Appliance is a standby for disaster recovery, the cache should be sufficient to hold the working set of data.

    If this Nasuni Edge Appliance is managing backup data, the cache should be large enough to hold one backup’s worth of data.

  5. Verify supported virtual platforms. VMware ESXi 7.0 and later.

    Microsoft Windows Hyper-V Server 2019 and later.

    Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor) versions AOS 6.7 and later. Scale HyperCore version 9.4.17.

  6. Verify working network connections.

    Note: IPv6 is not supported.

    Important: Edge Appliances and the NMC must be configured with operational DNS servers and a time server (internal or external) within your environment.

    For details on configuring for network traffic, see Appendix E, “Network Traffic,” on page 94. (The Nasuni Edge Appliance uses bonding mode 5 (balance-tlb) for high-availability (HA) networking with a performance enhancement when sending packets. This has no requirement from the switches. This bonding mode can be changed by Nasuni Support, if necessary.)

  7. Verify working connection to the Internet.

    The Nasuni Edge Appliance must be able to access Nasuni.com and the cloud object storage provider.

    You can run the console application nasunicheck to confirm DNS connectivity for the Nasuni Edge Appliance.

    If this Nasuni Edge Appliance is a standby for disaster recovery, the higher the bandwidth, the better.

    If this Nasuni Edge Appliance is managing backup data, the bandwidth should be sufficient to protect one day’s worth of data in cloud object storage in less than one day. It takes 1 entire day to protect 1 TB of data with a 100 Mbps connection.

    Important: These are general recommendations. Your specific situation might require further resources.

  8. Verify corporate firewall configured to open required ports. For details, see the Firewall Best Practices. The following ports should be open, as required:

Port number

Associated protocols

Used for

Inbound (to Nasuni Edge Appliance)

Outbound (from Nasuni Edge Appliance)

8443

HTTPS

Access Nasuni Edge Appliance administrative interface.

Optional (but not recommended), open to Nasuni Edge Appliance for external management access direct or via NAT.

N/A

443

HTTPS

Nasuni Management Console Administrative Access; Web Access.

Optional, but required if using Web Access.

Optional, open to Nasuni Management Console for external management access direct or via NAT.

Optionally, open to av-updates.api. nasuni.com for AntiVirus updates.

At a minimum, open to

*.nasuni.com, *.amazonaws.com, and *.windows.net

Note: Firewalls that process and log port 443 traffic from the Nasuni Edge Appliance can affect performance when the Nasuni Edge Appliance communicates with the

cloud.

If you must use IP addresses (not recommended), see Appendix F, “Port 443 Outbound Details,” on

page 108.

123

NTP

(Network Time Protocol)

Connecting to Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers.

N/A

Optional, if connecting to external Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers.

161, 162

SNMP (Simple Network Management

Protocol)

Connecting to Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) services.

161: Optional, if using external Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) trap addresses.

162: Optional, if using external Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) trap addresses.

25

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) processing for outgoing email messages.

N/A

Optional, if using external servers for email for Nasuni Edge Appliance messages.

Tip: Certain firewall manufacturers offer Nasuni application types for their safelists or allow lists, and these should be enabled.

E. Platform installation options

Important: Edge Appliances and the NMC must be configured with operational DNS servers and a time server (internal or external) within your environment.

Important: Installing third-party software on Nasuni appliances is not allowed.

There are 4 platform options for installation:

  • For a Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliance, go to step 1.

  • For a virtual machine platform, including Google Cloud Platform, Nutanix AHV, Microsoft Hyper-V, Scale HyperCore, and VMware, go to step 2

  • For the Microsoft Azure virtual platform, go to step 3.

  • For the Amazon EC2 virtual platform, go to step 4.

  1. Nasuni Edge Appliance hardware appliance:

    • N1040r Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N1040t Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N2040 Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N1050 Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N2050 Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N4040 Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

    • N4050 Hardware Appliance Getting Started Guide.

      The Nasuni Edge Appliance software is already installed.

      Determine or set the initial IP address in one of these ways:

      • If DHCP is available on the network, make note of the IP address that appears on the LCD panel.

      • Otherwise, connect a monitor and keyboard. Press Enter. Use username service and password service. Enter editnetwork. Enter setall static. Enter a new IP address. Enter save.

      • Otherwise, on the console, press Enter. Use username service and password service. Enter editnetwork. Enter setall static. Enter a new IP address. Enter save.

      To configure iDRAC (Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller), see the iDRAC Configuration Procedure.

      Continue with step F, Logging in to the Nasuni Edge Appliance for the first time.

  2. Installation on virtual machine: Installing on Google, Installing on Hyper-V, Installing on Nutanix, Installing on Scale HyperCore, and Installing on VMware.

    When the Nasuni Edge Appliance console screen appears, note the initial IP address. Continue with step F, Logging in to the Nasuni Edge Appliance for the first time.

  3. Installation on Microsoft Azure virtual platform

    For detailed installation instructions, see Installing on Microsoft Azure. Note the initial IP address.

    Continue with step F, Logging in to the Nasuni Edge Appliance for the first time.

  4. Installation on Amazon EC2 virtual platform

    For detailed installation instructions, see Installing on Amazon EC2. Note the initial IP address.

    Continue with step F, Logging in to the Nasuni Edge Appliance for the first time.

F. Logging in to the Nasuni Edge Appliance for the first time

Use the Username and Password that you created for administration of this Nasuni Edge Appliance. For details, see the Nasuni Edge Appliance Initial Configuration Guide.

Important: For security reasons, if the IP address of your computer changes, you must log in again. This behavior can be disabled by Support.

  1. Verify initial login to Nasuni Edge Appliance

    Use the initial IP address with a Web browser: https://<IP address>:8 443

    If a warning appears about the site’s SSL security certificate, you can ignore it.

  2. When the wizard starts, configure settings for your network

    For details on configuring for network traffic, see Appendix E, “Network Traffic,”.

  3. Enter the serial number and authorization code for this Nasuni Edge Appliance

    The Edge Appliance Serial Number and Authorization code are found under the Account section of www.nasuni.com, or on the Account Status page of the Nasuni Management Console. For a new installation, choose an unused Edge Appliance Serial Number. To recover a prior installation, such as during disaster recovery, choose the Edge Appliance Serial Number of the prior installation.

    Important: Authorization codes (also called “Auth codes”) are intended for a single use, and are not permanent. Authorization codes change if the associated serial number is used successfully, if the authorization code is refreshed via the NMC (Account Status --> Serial Numbers, then click Refresh), and if the authorization code is regenerated via the NOC (visit https://account.nasuni.com/account/serial_numbers/, then click show, then click regen).

    Tip: If a green Available (version number) hyperlink is located in the Description box, click it to update the Edge Appliance to the corresponding version.

  4. Accept the Terms of Service

  5. Create a Nasuni Edge Appliance name or description

    Caution: Avoid using characters that systems, such as Active Directory, specify as disallowed, including period (.), backslash (\), forward slash (/), colon (:), asterisk (*), question mark (?), quotation mark ("), less than sign (<), greater than sign (>), percent (%), and vertical bar (|). Errors can occur for Nasuni Edge Appliances whose names include such characters. For example, it might not be possible to configure the Nasuni Edge Appliance for Active Directory access. You can change the name of the Nasuni Edge Appliance to avoid such characters.

  6. Create a Username (case-sensitive) and a Password (case-sensitive) for administration of the Nasuni Edge Appliance

  7. The Nasuni Edge Appliance Home page appears.

    The Home page, and all other pages of the Nasuni Edge Appliance user interface, might look different to different users. Also, different menus and actions might be available for different users. This is because different users are assigned different permissions, based on their roles in the role-based access control system. See “For each volume, configure Quality of Service rules”.

    Tip: To access the NEA or NMC appliance using the serial console, instead of using the IP address obtained when installing the appliance, follow one of these procedures:

    All supported hypervisors include a serial console that works with Nasuni. For other hypervisors, consult your vendor’s documentation for connection instructions.

Continue with configuring the Nasuni Edge Appliance at “Configuration”.

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