Configure ThoughtSpot nodes in VMware

Prepare to install your ThoughtSpot cluster by configuring nodes.

Before you can install a ThoughtSpot cluster in VMware, you must configure your nodes.

Installation Prerequisites

Ensure the successful creation of the virtual machines (VMs) before you install the ThoughtSpot cluster in VMware.

  1. Download the OVF Download the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file.

  2. Review configuration overview Refer to VMware configuration overview for detailed instance specs.

  3. Create the instance Refer to Set up VMware for ThoughtSpot to create and launch your instance.

  4. Review required ports Refer to Network ports to view the required ports for successful operation of ThoughtSpot.

Configure Nodes

After creating the instance, you must configure the nodes. Follow the steps in this checklist.

❏

Step 1: Log in to your cluster

❏

Step 2: Get a template for network configuration

❏

Step 3: Prepare node configuration

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Step 4: Configure the nodes

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Step 5: Confirm node configuration

Step 1: Log in to your cluster

Log in to your cluster with admin credentials from Terminal on a Mac or a terminal emulator on Windows. Ask your network administrator if you do not know the admin credentials.

  1. Run ssh admin@<nodeIP>.

    Replace nodeIP with your specific network information.

    $ ssh admin@<nodeIP>

  2. Enter your admin password at the prompt.

    Ask your network administrator if you don’t know the password.

The password does not appear on the screen as you type it.

Step 2: Get a template for network configuration

Run the tscli cluster get-config command to get a template for network configuration for the new cluster. Redirect it to the file nodes.config. You can find more information on this process in the nodes.config file reference.

$ tscli cluster get-config |& tee nodes.config

Step 3: Prepare node configuration

DNS server and IP address values must be set in the cloud backend. It then populates them into the VM configuration. If you specify different values during this step, it can create a temporary mismatch and lead to connectivity issues.

  1. Add your specific network information for the nodes in the nodes.config file, as demonstrated in the autodiscovery of one node example. Run vim nodes.config to edit the file.

    $ vim nodes.config
    Some of the information in the nodes.config file may be pre-populated from earlier steps. For example, if you specified an IP address while creating VMs, that IP address might already be present in your nodes.config file.

  2. Fill in the areas specified in Parameters of the nodes.config file with your specific network information.

    If you have additional nodes, complete each node within the nodes.config file in the same way.

    Do not edit any part of the nodes.config file except the sections described in Parameters of the nodes.config file. If you delete quotation marks, commas, or other parts of the code, it may cause setup to fail.

  3. Update the file /etc/hosts with all the node IP addresses and hostnames for the other VMs that will be part of the ThoughtSpot cluster.

Step 4: Configure the nodes

Configure the nodes in the nodes.config file using the set-config command.

  1. Disable the firewalld service by running sudo systemctl stop firewalld in your terminal. The firewalld service is a Linux firewall that must be off for ThoughtSpot installation. After the cluster installer reboots the nodes, firewalld automatically turns back on.

    $ sudo systemctl stop firewalld

  2. To make sure you temporarily disabled firewalld, run sudo systemctl status firewalld. Your output should specify that firewalld is inactive. It may look something like the following:

     $ sudo systemctl status firewalld
   ● firewalld.service - firewalld - dynamic firewall daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/firewalld.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)

  3. Run the configuration command:

    $ cat nodes.config | tscli cluster set-config

    If the command returns an error, refer to set-config error recovery.
    After you run the node configuration command, your output appears similar to the following:

    $ cat nodes.config | tscli cluster set-config
    Connecting to local node-scout
Setting up hostnames for all nodes
Setting up networking interfaces on all nodes
Setting up hosts file on all nodes
Setting up NTP Servers
Setting up Timezone
Done setting up ThoughtSpot

Step 5: Confirm node configuration

Use the get-config command to confirm node configuration.
Your output may look similar to the following:

$ tscli cluster get-config
{
  "ClusterId": "",
  "ClusterName": "",
  "DataNetmask": "255.255.252.0",
  "DataGateway": "192.168.4.1",
  "IPMINetmask": "255.255.252.0",
  "IPMIGateway": "192.168.4.1",
  "Timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
  "NTPServers": "0.centos.pool.ntp.org,1.centos.pool.ntp.org,2.centos.pool.ntp.org,3.centos.pool.ntp.org",
  "DNS": "192.168.2.200,8.8.8.8",
  "SearchDomains": "example.company.com",
  "Nodes": {
	"ac:1f:6b:8a:77:f6": {
  	"NodeId": "ac:1f:6b:8a:77:f6",
  	"Hostname": "Thoughtspot-server1",
  	"DataIface": {
    	"Name": "eth2",
    	"IPv4": "192.168.7.70"
  	},
  	"IPMI": {
    	"IPv4": "192.168.5.70"
  	}
	}
  }
}

Install ThoughtSpot software

Next, install your ThoughtSpot clusters.

Error recovery

Set-config error recovery

If you get a warning about node detection when you run the set-config command, restart the node-scout service.

Your error may look something like the following:

Connecting to local node-scout WARNING: Detected 0 nodes, but found configuration for
only 1 nodes.
Continuing anyway. Error in cluster config validation: [] is not a valid link-local
IPv6 address for node: 0e:86:e2:23:8f:76 Configuration failed.
Please retry or contact support.

Restart the node-scout service with the following command:

$ sudo systemctl restart node-scout

Ensure that you restarted the node-scout by running sudo systemctl status node-scout. Your output should specify that the node-scout service is active. It may look something like the following:

$ sudo systemctl status node-scout
  ● node-scout.service - Setup Node Scout service
    Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/node-scout.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
    Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-12-06 13:56:29 PST; 4s ago

Next, retry the set-config command.

$ cat nodes.config | tscli cluster set-config

The command output should no longer have a warning.

Additional resources

As you develop your expertise in VMware network configuration, we recommend the following ThoughtSpot U course:

See other training resources at:

ts u

Related information

Use these references for successful installation and administration of ThoughtSpot.

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