FastX Installation Guide
Purpose
The purpose of this document is to give an in-depth understanding of how to install and configure FastX for use on your Linux system. This guide will cover basic installation as well as more advanced topics such as installation in non standard locations.
System Requirements
FastX Server
- Download the FastX Server Installation Package on your Linux server
Hardware Requirements
- Intel or AMD x86-64 processor
- A FastX session’s memory requirements are highly dependent on the applications running in the session. As such provisioning requires some calculations based on your actual use case. We provide the following examples to give you a better understanding of the system requirements when provisioning your systems.
- FastX Xterm single window mode session 4K: 360 MB RAM
- FastX Gnome single window mode session 4K: 1.1 Gig RAM
- We also recommend a system with at least 8 logical CPU cores in order to maximize the CPU compression speed,
Please see FastX Memory Usage for more information
Operating Systems
- Red Hat Enterprise (including CentOS) 7, 8, or later, 64-bit only. FastX version 3.0 is the latest version available for Red Hat 6.
- Any Linux operating system equivalent to Red Hat 7 or later including Debian/Ubuntu style systems
Miscellaneous Requirements
These requirements can be modified by changing the default startup options.
- Mounted $HOME directory (when using clustering)
- /tmp directory with read/write access for all users
Default Ports
- Port 3300 for http and https (https://hostname:3300)
- Port 22 for SSH
Migrating from 3.1 and Earlier
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Installing FastX
Follow these instructions for administrators who have root privileges. Systems can be RPM or Deb based. The following instructions assume an installation in the default /usr directory.
Install the StarNet Repository
Download the setup script (setup-fastx-server.sh)
run it with bash as follows:bash setup-fastx-server.sh
Installing FastX Server
On RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/etc based systems
yum install -y fastx-server
On a Debian/Ubuntu based systems
apt install -y fastx-server
The following is not needed after 3.3.19Run the post install script (as root)/usr/lib/fastx/3/install.sh
Installing in an Alternate Location
On RPM based systems (RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/SuSE/etc), the FastX server can be installed in a location different from the default.
In the following example, the FastX server will be installed in /your/base/dir
NOTE: Debian packages (.deb) do not install to an alternate location. To install the FastX server in an alternate location, use the non-root instructions.
Install the server (as root)
rpm -i --prefix=/your/base/dir fastx-server-*.rpm
The following is not needed after 3.3.19Run the post install script (as root)
/your/base/dir/lib/fastx/3/install.sh
Custom Installations
The installation process (started by yum/rpm/apt can be modified by setting the following environment variables
FASTX_INSTALL_DISABLE
This environment variable may contain a comma-separated list of the following words:
- rlm – Don’t enable or start the fastx-rlm (license server) service. Use this if you have a central license server.
- sudo – Don’t create the file /etc/sudoers.d/fastx3.
- fastx3 – Don’t enable or start the FastX web server (fastx3 service).
- sshd – Don’t enable the FastX ssh session authentication service (fastx-sshd)
FASTX_INSTALL_LICENSE_SERVER
Set this to the hostname (or IP address) of your central license server.
File Locations
Default file locations can be specified as environment variables.
To specify custom locations, do the following BEFORE installing FastX
- Create a file /etc/sysconfig/fastx3
- Add the environment variable to the file
- FX_LOCAL_DIR=/my/custom/location
- Save
- Install FastX
Below is a list of environment variables
FX_CONFIG_DIR
Default location: /etc/fastx
The location that contains the local configuration of the web server
FX_VAR_DIR
Default location: var/fastx
Top level directory containing licensing, and default location for $FX_LOCAL_DIR
FX_LOCAL_DIR
Default location: $FX_VAR_DIR/local
The local directory contains the FastX database, the server ID, and the public-private key for this FastX server. This directory must be unique (not shared) for each FastX server (including FastX cluster members)
Upgrading FastX
To upgrade FastX simply follow the installation instructions again with the new RPM Package.
** If you have a prerelease version of FastX you will need to uninstall FastX before upgrading to the newer version.
Uninstalling FastX
To uninstall, run the commandyum erase -y fastx-server
Non Root Installations
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Resetting the Admin Account
Admins are defined by Linux User Groups. If somehow you need to reset the admin account run the following command /usr/lib/fastx/tools/reset-admin
Note: The user who is running the FastX web service always has superadmin access.
Installing Third-Party Certificates
FastX ships with self-signed certificates to get the web server up and running with as little trouble as possible. Once the system has been configured and is ready to go into production, it is time to add your own certificates from a trusted third party (VeriSign, Thawte, Comodo etc). Acquiring the certificate is beyond the scope of this guide and typically the trusted third parties have instructions on how to do those.
- Log in to the web interface as an administrator
- Click on the gear
icon to bring up the System Section
- Choose Local System > WWW
- Add the paths to your cert, key and CA file
- Save
- Restart the FastX service
Granting Sudo Access to the FastX User
In order to avoid cases where double authentication is required in a cluster, or when using OpenID Connect administrators can set the fastx user account to try to sudo to the other user. This is an optional option. The method for allowing sudo access is documented in Security Considerations
Startup Options
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Configuring Multiple Systems for Clustering
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FastX 3.3.17 and Earlier
Silent and Automated Installs
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