WalT server installation

Overview

We provide instructions to setup walt server software and dependencies on a freshly installed debian 12 (bookworm) operating system.

Note that walt server software starts various network daemons (lldpd, snmpd, dhcpd, ptpd, ntpd, tftpd, nfsd), thus you should not run other software related to network management on this walt server machine.

Hardware requirements

The WalT server must be installed on a 64bits (intel / amd64 CPU) machine, equipped with the following:

  • A 64 bits (intel or amd) CPU (recent core i5 or better is recommended).

  • A 250Go (or more) disk.

  • 16 Go RAM or more is recommended (RAM is mainly needed for the “virtual nodes” feature).

  • 2 wired LAN interfaces (recommended).

Note: in some cases, 1 wired network interface may be enough with appropriate configuration of the server and/or network equipment. See section about network configuration.

WalT is often used in one of the following scenarios:

  • Standard deployment in a building

  • Mobile setup (for demos)

In the first case, you could install WalT on a server in the datacenter of the building. In the second case, you could choose a small-form-factor PC. These rarely provide 2 LAN interfaces, but a few models do; and most of them are barebone (you need to buy RAM and disk separately). Contact us (walt-contact at univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) for more advice.

1- Install a first set of packages

$ apt update
$ apt install -y gcc python3-venv python3-dev libsmi2-dev curl git make

2- Install and configure walt software

$ python3 -m venv /opt/walt-9.0
$ /opt/walt-9.0/bin/pip install --upgrade pip
$ /opt/walt-9.0/bin/pip install walt-server walt-client
$ /opt/walt-9.0/bin/walt-server-setup

Note: walt-server-setup will display interactive configuration interfaces for network and image registries. For more information about WalT network concepts and configuration, see walt help show networking. For more information about WalT image registries, see walt help show registries.

3- Start playing!

The system is now all set. You can first verify that the system is running well by creating a virtual node.

$ walt node create vnode1
$ walt node shell vnode1

After a few minutes (download of the default image + node bootup) you should be connected on the virtual node.

Then, connect a switch, physical nodes and check that you can reach them (see walt help show node-install). Caution: do not connect a node directly to the server (with no intermediate switch). It will NOT work. (See walt help show networking and walt help show switch-install.)