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Overview

The migration process from a non-HA installation to an HA installation is broken down into 3 steps:

  • A backup of your current installation
  • A fresh install on the two systems comprising the HA installation
  • Restore from the backup

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Important Notes

Unsupported Configurations

Statseeker does NOT support:

  • Hyper-threading (also known as logical processing or logical processors), you will need to disable this feature in the BIOS prior to commencing the installation process
    In the instance of physical (non-VM) installations, the following are NOT supported:

  • Raid 5
  • Raid 6
  • SAN Drives
  • Virtualized High-Availability installations

Installation HDD

User Accounts

The installation process will create the following administrative system accounts:

  • admin – the web user administrator account
  • statseeker – the system user account used by the Statseeker application
  • root – the superuser account in the backend operating system

You will be prompted to provide the root user password during the installation process. This password will become the default password for both the admin and statseeker accounts. This password can be changed after the installation process via:

  • the command line ssadmin tool
  • the web interface in the Administration Tool, see Admin Tool > Statseeker Administration > OS Configuration
Note: the password specified for your new HA installation does not need to be the same as that used for your current Statseeker installation.

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Prerequisites

  • A current Statseeker installation
  • A license key that is compatible with a Statseeker High-Availability installation, contact Customer Service to ensure that you have a suitable key
  • A Statseeker High-Availability installation image/iso, contact Customer Service for access to the installation image

Hardware Requirements

Ensure that both prospective HA servers meet the Version 5 Hardware Requirements. In addition an HA installation requires that each server have a least two network interfaces and that are connected via a dedicated high-speed cable for the HA data sync link.

Installation Media

Contact Customer Service for access to the Statseeker installation ISO image file appropriate for your HA license. Once this file is downloaded, depending on the destination hardware, use CD/DVD writing software to open this ISO image file and burn the contents to a CD/DVD disc or copy the iso to a USB drive.

Configuration Information

You will also need to provide, or define, the following information during the install process:

  • The root user password for the server
  • A host name for the server
  • A domain name suffix for the server
  • Static IP, Netmask and Default Gateway addresses for the server
  • The IP address of your Domain Name Server
  • The SNMP read access community string to your devices (routers, switches, servers, etc.)

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Backup Current Installation

For assistance with backing up your current Statseeker installation, please refer to Backup and Restore

Once the backup process is complete:

  • Verify the backup

  • Ensure that the verified backup is not being stored on any of the prospective Statseeker High-Availability servers as all data on those server will be erased during the installation process

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Install Master Server

Prepare the server for installation:

  • Adjust the server BIOS settings
  • Configure the BIOS time and time zone as desired
  • Set the boot sequence of the first boot device to CD/DVD disc and the secondary boot device to the hard disk
  • Connect the server to your LAN as desired
  • Place/Mount the CD/DVD disc into the drive of the server

Begin the installation process:

  • Boot the server from the Statseeker Installation CD/DVD disc

The FreeBSD welcome screen will be displayed.

  • Press Enter to continue with the installation
Note: The install process will display a number of configuration screens:

  • Use the arrow keys to navigate through these dialogs
  • Use the Tab key to move between the data-entry section and the OK/Cancel confirmation section
  • Use the Enter to confirm the action in the confirmation section

The Statseeker Welcome screen is displayed.

  • Press Enter

The High-Availability Alert screen is displayed

  • Press Enter to continue with the installation

If you have multiple hard disks, the Installation Disk Selection screen is displayed.

  • Select the disk you want to use, select OK and press Enter
Note: This screen will only be presented if you have multiple disks configured or if you have a RAID configuration and a separate disk.

The data wipe alert is displayed; continuing with the installation will delete all data on the hard disk.

  • Press Enter to continue with the installation

The HA Role Selection screen is displayed

  • Ensure that the Master role is selected and hit Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the master server data-sync interface is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Select the interface to be used for the data-sync link
  • Press Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the master server data-sync interface IP is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Specify the IP and subnet mask to be used and press Enter
Note: the data-sync link interfaces should be configured on a different subnet to the rest of your network. See the image below for an example.

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the master server main interface is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Select the interface to be used for the link to the rest of the network
  • Press Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the master server main interface IP is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Specify the IP and subnet mask to be used and press Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the virtual host IP is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Specify the IP to be used and press Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the virtual host authentication string is to be configured.

  • Press Enter
  • Specify the authentication string to be used and press Enter

  • Specify the hostname to be used for the master server Enter

  • Specify the domain and DNS servers to be used for the master server and press Enter

  • Specify the data-store to be used and press Enter

Installation will continue.

The server time prompt is displayed.

  • If you are certain that the CMOS clock is set to UTC, then select Yes, otherwise select No
  • Select the time zone region

  • Select the time zone

  • Select Yes to confirm the time zone configuration

A prompt will be displayed asking you to set the password for the server root account.

Note: This password will become the default password for both the admin and statseeker user accounts.


  • Enter the password and press Enter
  • Repeat to confirm the password

Statseeker will now install all required packages and reboot.

Once the server has started to reboot you may remove the CD/DVD disc from the server drive. A login prompt will be displayed, indicating a successful install.

  • Do not log in, rather move on to the HA Slave server installation

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Install Slave Server

The installation of the slave server will begin in exactly the same manner as the installation of the master server.

The Statseeker Welcome screen is displayed.

  • Press Enter

The High-Availability Alert screen is displayed

  • Press Enter to continue with the installation

If you have multiple hard disks, the Installation Disk Selection screen is displayed.

  • Select the disk you want to use, select OK and press Enter
Note: This screen will only be presented if you have multiple disks configured or if you have a RAID configuration and a separate disk.

The data wipe alert is displayed; continuing with the installation will delete all data on the hard disk.

  • Press Enter to continue with the installation

The HA Role Selection screen is displayed

  • Ensure that the Slave role is selected and hit Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the slave server data-sync interface is to be configured.

  • Press Enter

  • Select the interface to be used for the data-sync link
  • Press Enter

The HA Config Summary screen is displayed, indicating that the IP of the master server data-sync link interface is required.

  • Press Enter

  • Specify the IP address previously assigned to the interface used for the data-sync link on the master server
  • Press Enter

You will then be prompted for the password assigned during the master server installation process.

  • Enter the password for the root account on the master server and press Enter

SSH keys will be exchanged for communication between the master and slave servers, then the installation process will test this link and pull configuration data from the master server to assist with automatically configuring the slave server. The HA Config Summary screen will be displayed detailing the automatic configuration assigned to the slave server.

The installation process will proceed as per that used when configuring the master server:

  • The HA Config Summary screen will be displayed before each step, indicating the next setting to be configured
  • The configuration screen will be displayed and will be pre-populated as per the automated configuration
  • Step through these settings, editing the configurations if required and pressing Enter to confirm

Once the HA specific configuration options are complete the installation process will move on to the remainder of the slave server configuration.

  • Specify the hostname to be used for the slave server Enter

  • Specify the domain and DNS servers to be used for the salve server and press Enter

  • Specify the data-store to be used and press Enter

Installation will continue.

The server time prompt is displayed.

  • If you are certain that the CMOS clock is set to UTC, then select Yes, otherwise select No
  • Select the time zone region

  • Select the time zone

  • Select Yes to confirm the time zone configuration

A prompt will be displayed asking you to set the password for the server root account.

Note: This password will become the default password for both the admin and statseeker user accounts.


  • Enter the password and press Enter
  • Repeat to confirm the password

Statseeker will now install all required packages and reboot.

Once the server has started to reboot you may remove the CD/DVD disc from the server drive. A login prompt will be displayed, indicating a successful install.

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License the Installation

Once Statseeker is installed on both servers you can access the web interface, to do this:

  • Enter the IP address previously specified for the virtual host, in your browser address bar

You will then be prompted with a login screen.

  • User Name = admin
  • Password = the root user account password as specified during installation

Once logged in to the web interface, you will be prompted with the Statseeker License configuration screen.

  • Enter your Server ID and select Download a new Key
Note: to obtain a Server ID, email: keys@statseeker.com

It may take a minute or two to obtain your license key. The screen will update to display the license details.

  • Select the tick box to accept the Statseeker license
  • Select Save to activate the license key
  • Click Next

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Restore from your Backup

From the Statseeker Configuration screen:

  • Select Restore Statseeker from backup

  • Click Next
Note: for more detail on the backup and restoration process, see Backup and Restore.

You will now be prompted to select your method of retrieving the backup file.

  • Select the Method
    • local - the backup needs to be located on the specified directory on the local machine
    • ftp - Statseeker will open an ftp connection to the specified backup repository
    • ssh - Statseeker will open an ssh connection to the specified backup repository
  • Specify the backup location and any credentials required to access that path as required by the selected Method
  • Click Save

The page will update displaying a list of backup files found at the specified location.

  • Select one of the stored backups and click Verify

This will allow you to confirm that the backup data is valid prior to attempting to restore from the data.

  • Once the backup data has been verified click Restore
Note: if during this process the Verify and Restore associated with a backup file are not visible, it is because the page is in display mode. Click Edit (top-right) to rectify this.

A confirmation dialog will be displayed detailing the backup data selected for the restore process.

  • Click OK to begin the restore process

A dialog will be displayed informing you when the restoration process has completed.

  • Click OK to close the dialog

The restoration process has completed and your new Statseeker High-Availability Installation is online, monitoring and reporting on your network.

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