Introduction

The Synergy SKY Platform is a Linux based VM image that can be hosted within most virtualized environments. This article describes deployment within Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environments including how to:

• Create the image in your cloud portal
• Create the VM Instance
• How to log into the Synergy SKY platform over SSH for the first time
  1. Generate SSH-Keys (Windows 10/OS X/Linux)
  2. Add your public key into Google
• Perform post install tasks

You can view our video tutorial on the bottom of this article for a full walkthrough assisted by one of our engineers.

Requirements

Step by Step Guide

Create the Image in Your Cloud Portal Images

1. Starting from your GCP project dashboard, expand the left hamburger menu
2. Scroll to 'Compute' section
3. Expand the 'Compute Engine' menu
4. Under 'Storage' select 'Images'
5. Enable the Compute Engine & API if asked
   Note: It may take a few minutes to spin up if this is the first time using these services
6. At the top, click "[+]CREATE IMAGE"
7. Name your image. e.g. "synergyskysuite"
8. Change 'Source' to 'Cloud Storage file'
9. Copy the following line into the 'Cloud Storage file' field
   

   synergyskyappliance_images/synergysky-appliance-20.tar.gz

   Note: You should see a green checkbox confirming the path as correct
10. Select a location that works best for your company
11. Click 'Create' at bottom
    

This process will take a few minutes to complete. This image will be used for creating the virtual machine hosting the Appliance.

Creating the VM instance

1. In the Compute Engine menu on the left, under 'Virtual machines' click 'VM instances'
2. At the top, click '[+]CREATE INSTANCE'
3. Name your Virtual machine according to your hostname standard
4. Select appropriate region and zone
5. In machine configuration select a configuration fulfilling the server requirements listed previously
   
   
   
   
   
6. Under Boot disk section, click “change”
7. Select the tab named “Custom images”
8. Find “synergyskysuite” in the image list (make sure you are in the same project as you created the image in first paragraph).
9. Set the boot disk type to: Standard persistent disk, 10GB
10. Press select at the bottom of the screen
    
    
    
    
    
11. Under Firewall, check both boxes for Allow HTTP & HTTPS traffic
    
    
    
    
    
12. Expand the 'Management, security, disks, networking, sole tenancy' link
12. Select the 'Disks' tab
14. Click '+Add new disk'
15. Name your disk e.g. "synergy-appliance1"
16. Select type: SSD persistent disk
17. Snapshot schedule can be set up to your company policy - but will effectively work as an automated backup, which is highly recommended.
18. Source type: Blank
19. Mode: Read/Write
20. Size: 100GB or more
21. Press Done.
    
    
    
    
    
22. Now that the secondary disk is created, click Create. This will create our Platform instance on the GCP.

Logging in to the Synergy SKY platform over SSH for the first time

Google uses a login system that is based on public key login (not password), which means the client computer where you access the appliance from must have its SSH-public key added to Google. If you are already familiar with private/public keys over SSH, you can skip the following section.

Generate SSH-Keys (Windows 10/OS X/Linux)

1. Open CMD/Powershell/terminal prompt.
2. Generate your new pair of keys by typing: ssh-keygen
3. Follow the prompt on the screen, for simplicity press enter now to not include password in your key-pair. However it is recommended to set a complex password on your private key.
4. After the key has been generated, print the key out by opening the following file.
5. <home directory>\.ssh\id_rsa.pub.
6. Windows: notepad.exe .ssh\id_rsa.pub
7. Linux/OS X: cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub
8. Copy the content/key to your clipboard.
9. You are now ready to add it into Google.

Add your public key into Google

1. In the Compute Engine menu, under 'Settings', click 'Metadata'
2. Select the 'SSH Keys' tab
   
3. Click 'Add SSH Keys'
4. Paste your public key (from the last paragraph) into the large text box.
5. To add more keys, click the large '+ Add item' button
6. At the end of the key - there is a username followed by @ and a hostname, change the username to “admin”
7. joe@computername should say admin@computername

Post Install Tasks

1. The first time you log into the Synergy SKY platform over SSH with the user admin, a process of setup the data-disk will start. It should take about a minute.
2. Then additional first-time procedures will run for about 2 minutes.
3. When you see the menu screen, you are ready to continue with the next step

Next Step

Your instance should now be running and when you see the menu screen you can continue with the configuration as described in this article.

Video Tutorial