Initial Setup

To complete the initial setup of your servers, please work through the steps below:

1. System Installation (follow the guide for your hypervisor)

VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM (Jammy 22.04)

Amazon Web Services EC2

Microsoft Azure (Virtual Machines)

2. Check your network configuration

Set up Ubuntu LTS Server Edition (64 bit) following the steps below.

Start by downloading the ISO image below:

• ISO Download (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS): https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.04.1/ubuntu-22.04.1-live-server-amd64.iso

Then, please follow these steps:

1. At the GRUB menu, select 'Try or Install Ubuntu Server'
2. Select 'English' as the language
3. Select 'English (US)' for Keyboard Layout + Variant
4. Select 'Ubuntu Server' installation
5. Select a network interface
6. Select 'Continue' when asked about proxy access (Schoolbox requires direct access to the internet)
7. Confirm default Ubuntu archive mirror address
8. On the partition disks screen select 'Use an entire disk' + 'Set up this disk as an LVM group'. Do not select 'Encrypt the LVM group with LUKS'
9. Confirm the storage configuration and select 'Continue' when prompted to confirm.

At the 'Profile setup'

1. Create a user account on the server and set a secure password (Please do not use 'alaress' or 'schoolbox' as a username, this is reserved for internal use by Schoolbox staff). Please ensure that you store your username/password in a safe location.
2. Set your hostname according to local network policy
3. Tick the box for OpenSSH server install but nothing else
4. Once install complete, select 'Reboot Now'

The system will now reboot and be ready to use.

Please only do the above and not any of the following:

• Configure Ubuntu with a configuration management system (E.g. Puppet, Ansible, Chef etc.)
• Manually configure the LVM for the data drive
• Attempt to set up kerberos
• Manually install vmware tools
• Alter the default configuration of the SSH daemon
• Manually configure a ufw or nftables or iptables local firewall

If you are using AWS, please use the following to set up your instance

• Image (AMI) - Marketplace
  • (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS): https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-f2if34z3a4e3i 
• EBS volume type - General Purpose SSD
• Use Elastic IP addresses

Once the instance is up and running, please send a copy of the keyfile (".pem" file)  for the default 'ubuntu' user to the Schoolbox Support team to allow us to configure your instance.

If you are using Microsoft Azure, please use the following to set up your instance:

• Image/OS - Marketplace
  • (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS): https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/apps/canonical.0001-com-ubuntu-server-jammy
• "Premium Managed Disks" (SSD) for the system disk
• "Standard Managed Disks" (HDD) for the storage disk

NOTE: If your networking setup was incomplete or incorrect during the installation process, please contact Schoolbox Support for assistance making changes.

Please ensure that the correct network configuration for your internal network is set up for the server. This includes:

• static ip address
• netmask
• network
• broadcast address
• gateway
• dns-nameservers
• dns-search

NOTE: Schoolbox requires direct (no proxy) outbound access to the internet to integrate with multiple online resources, especially via ports (80, 443, 8140). This includes all varieties of inspection.

Reference: Ubuntu 18.04 / 22.04 LTS

Please see netplan.io for examples on how to create various network configurations.

We would highly recommend using DHCP with a static reservation.
Please note that Ubuntu 18.04 / 22.04 does not send a MAC address for DHCP, instead sending a DUID. You will need to ensure your DHCP server supports this (E.g. Win2008R2+ ).
Checking interface name: ip link
Checking the DUID for an interface: sudo netplan ip leases eth0 | grep CLIENTID

Since Schoolbox uses Ubuntu Server, the netplan renderer will be as below:

renderer: networkd