Create the Manager node

To create the Lab Management Manager, you create NFS volumes for operating system images and users’ home directories and assign static IP addresses to the Manager.

Important: CollabNet strongly recommends that you dedicate a machine to the Lab Management Manager Server because the server requires that it is the only software running on the machine. Consequently, it takes over the entire system. Moreover, other applications on the Lab Management Manager Server could interfere with Lab Management's operations and hamper troubleshooting efforts should problems occur. If you decide to install additional applications on a machine housing the Lab Management Manager, you do so at your own risk.

When CollabNet Professional Services arrives on a customer's site, it expects that a physical machine dedicated for the Lab Management Manager Server:

Meets Lab Management's hardware and software specifications.
Has the Red Hat Enterprise Linux software already installed.
Is ready for the Lab Management software installation process to begin.

Note: With Lab Management 2.3 (and later), the Manager node can be a physical machine or a guest of vSphere ESX servers. See these instructions for configuring an ESX server as an unmanaged node.

Create two NFS volumes:
- One for the O/S Image Volume
  Important: Follow the Naming Conventions when organizing the directory structure for this volume.
- One for the users' home directories
The location of these volumes depends on how you want to deploy them. They can be local and reside on the Manager node itself or exist on a separate NFS Server.
You should mount both of the NFS volumes that you just created on the Lab Management Manager with Read and Write permissions for the root user.
1. Mount the O/S Image Volume at the directory level where the cubit_nfs_mount_os token points to.
2. Mount the home directory volume at the directory level where the cubit_nfs_mount_base token points to.
The Lab Management Installer automatically creates recommended directory structures for O/S images, packages, and patches.
Assign one static IP address to the Lab Management Manager on each subnet allocated to the Lab Management Domain.
Important: If the Manager manages multiple subnets, the Manager needs an IP address on each one of those subnets.

You can accomplish this step in one of two ways:
- Install multiple Network Interface Cards (NICs) on the Lab Management Manager node.
- Use a single NIC with a Virtual LAN (VLAN).
Consult with your network administrator to select the best way to assign static IP addresses for the subnets in your network.

Note: You must have at least one subnet. You might want multiple subnets if you wish to simulate multi-tiered applications in which the tiers are on different networks.
Configure the VMware Server on Lab Management Manager. As the root user, run /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl.
At the prompt, select bridged network.

Select the interface whose IP address is on the same network as the Infrastructure node that is to be hosted on the Lab Management Manager node.
This step ensures that you can run the virtual Infrastructure nodes on your Lab Management Manager Host.