In this tutorial, we will learn how to install RackTables on Debian Latest. RackTables is an open-source and web-based datacenter asset management system. It provides a friendly graphical user interface to manage assets such as racks, servers, switches, and other devices in a data center.
Before we start with the installation process, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:
First, we need to install the Apache web server, which will serve as our application server for RackTables. To do that, execute the following command:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2
Once the installation completes, start and enable Apache2 service to start automatically on system boot.
sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl enable apache2
Next, we will install the MySQL database server for RackTables. Execute the following command:
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
During the installation process, you will be prompted to set a password for the MySQL root user.
After the installation completes, start and enable MySQL service:
sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl enable mysql
RackTables is written in PHP, so we need to install it to be able to run the application. Execute the following command to install PHP along with the necessary extensions:
sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php php-mysql php-cli php-json php-gd php-curl
You can verify the PHP installation by creating a phpinfo.php file in the Apache's document root directory:
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Add the following content to the file:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Save and close the file, then open a web browser and navigate to http://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS/phpinfo.php. You should see the PHP information page showing your PHP version, modules, and other relevant information.
Now, it's time to download the RackTables package from its official website. Execute the following command to download the package:
wget https://github.com/RackTables/racktables/archive/master.zip
Once the download completes, extract the package:
sudo apt-get install unzip
unzip master.zip -d /var/www/html/
Then, rename the extracted directory to racktables:
mv /var/www/html/racktables-master /var/www/html/racktables
Change the ownership of the /var/www/html/racktables directory to the Apache owner www-data:
sudo chown -R www-data: /var/www/html/racktables
We need to create a MySQL database and user for RackTables. Login to MySQL console:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter your MySQL root password, and then execute the following commands to create a new database and user:
CREATE DATABASE racktablesdb;
CREATE USER racktablesuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'RACKTABLES_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON racktablesdb.* TO racktablesuser@localhost;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Replace the RACKTABLES_PASSWORD with an appropriate password for the racktablesuser user.
One last step is to configure RackTables with the previously created database. Copy the config.php-dist file:
cp /var/www/html/racktables/inc/config.php-dist /var/www/html/racktables/inc/config.php
Then, edit the config.php file:
sudo nano /var/www/html/racktables/inc/config.php
Update the following fields:
define('RACKTABLES_DBUSER', 'racktablesuser');
define('RACKTABLES_DBPASS', 'RACKTABLES_PASSWORD');
define('RACKTABLES_DBNAME', 'racktablesdb');
define('RACKTABLES_DEFAULT_LANG', 'en');
Save and close the file.
Now, you can access RackTables through your web browser by navigating to http://YOUR_IP_ADDRESS/racktables. You will be redirected to the login page. The default username and password are admin and admin.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured RackTables on Debian latest. You can now start managing your datacenter assets with RackTables.
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