Many AutoLab deployments are inside your firewall on a trusted network, without direct inbound access from the Internet. When AutoLab is deployed on Ravello it is outside your firewall and accessible only over the Internet. Due to this very different security situation the Ravello build of AutoLab does not publish the NAS VM and it’s Build share. Usually the various pieces of licensed software are copied onto this share at the start of the build. On Ravello the ESXi and vCenter installer ISOs are uploaded and attached to the NAS VM, additional build share files are downloaded from inside the DC after it’s built.
You may wish to publish the Build share to upload additional files, then unpublish when you’re done uploading. I don’t recommend leaving the share accessible as there is no security on the share. In a later release we will have better mechanisms for uploads.
Here’s the simple process to make the Build share accessible:
1. In the Canvas select the NAS VM and click the Services tab
2. In the Supplied Services area Click the Add button
3. Enter 445 in the Port field and click Save
4. Remember to click Update to apply the configuration change to the application.
As you may have noticed my VMs were all powered off as I made this change, I need to power on the NAS before I can upload to it. You can still make the changes to the VMs while they are running however may be an brief outage on the VM you change.
5. On the Summary tab of the NAS select the DNS: field, copy the entire text. This is the Internet accessible address of the NAS VM.
6. In Explorer use the copied text to make up the URL of the Build share: \\<copied text>\Build
You can now copy files onto the Build share, or edit files like the Automate.ini file to your requirements.Bear in mind that you are accessing a remote Samba share, it will be very (very) slow. I plan to build FTP access into the next version for faster uploads.
7. Once you are finished uploading and editing you should disable access to the share. In the Ravello console select the NAS VM again and click the Services tab. Click the trash can next to the service you added to delete the service. Again click Save and Update to apply the change.
