Deploying on Openstack

18 min

Overview

Assumptions

The basic understanding of deployment models of ICS on a data center and basic experience in using OpenStack is needed for the better understanding of this guide.

Supported Platform Systems

This section helps you in choosing the instance types that should be deployed with Ivanti Connect Secure.

ISA4500-V

ISA6500-V

ISA8500-V

For more details, see ISA VA Supported Platforms.

Prerequisites and System Requirements

The OpenStack Fabric has various components such as Controller, Compute, Identity, Image, Networking etc. that are separately installed. For details about these services,

To deploy the ICS VA on OpenStack, you need the following:

Access to the OpenStack Dashboard

An OpenStack account with deployment rights

ICS KVM Image

(Optional) ICS licenses

(Optional) ICS configuration in xml format, required only for zero touch deployment

Desired flavors of ISA-V. For details, see ISA VA Supported Platforms.

Desired ICS KVM image on OpenStack

Internal, External and Management networks on OpenStack

Security Groups for Internal, External and Management Ports

Compute nodes should support vTPM.

Compute nodes should support secure boot for virtual machines.

Compute nodes should have Ivanti released OVMF firmware binary (OVMF_CODE.secboot.ivanti.fd) and NVRAM file (OVMF_VARS_4M.ivanti.fd) for secure boot.

Deploying ICS on OpenStack Using Horizon Dashboard

Before proceeding with the ICS deployment, ensure that the necessary prerequisites are set up. For details, see Appendix A: Setting Up Prerequisites

To deploy ICS on OpenStack, do the following:

In the OpenStack dashboard displayed, select Project > Compute > Imagesand then create an image. For more information, see Create Image.

From the list of images displayed, click on Launch corresponding to the ICS KVM image you want to launch. Image selected must have following attributes for secure boot and vTPM supported ICS image.

hw_disk_bus='virtio'

hw_firmware_type='uefi'

hw_machine_type='q35'

hw_tpm_model='tpm-crb'

hw_tpm_version='2.0'

os_secure_boot='required'

The following figure depicts the ICS VA Images screen:

In the Launch Instance Details window, fill the following and then click Next.

Instance Name: Specify host name of the ICS Virtual instance

Description: Enter a brief description on this instance

Availability Zone: Select the zone where the instance is deployed

Count: Number of VM instances

The following figure depicts the Device Details screen:

The Source window displays the details of the image used. Click Next.

The following figure depicts the Source Selection screen.

In the Flavor window, select required flavors of ISA-V from the list based on the memory and storage capacity of the instance. Click Next.

The following figure depicts a sample Flavor Selection screen.

In the Networks window, select networks from the list that specifies internal, external and management subnets. ICS supports VM with 2-NICs model and 3-NICs model for deployment. Click Next.

The following figure depicts the Network Selection screen:

(Optional) Network Ports window. Click Next.

The following figure depicts the Network Ports Selection screen:

In the Security Groups window, select the required network security groups from the list for internal, external and management ports. Click Next. To create new security groups, refer Creating Required Security Groups for Internal, External and Management Ports

The following figure depicts the Security Groups Selection screen:

Key Pair is not used. Click Next.

The following figure depicts the Key Pair screen:

Click Choose File and import the file that contains the provisioning parameters in XML format OR paste the Customization script and do the required modifications. Select the Configuration Drive check box. The template file is available for ISA-V instance and click Launch Instance upon selecting the Configuration Drive option.

The following figure depicts the Configuration Script screen:

The Instances window lists all the ICS VA instances. The blue bar in the Task column shows the status of creation of the instance. This will take a few minutes.

Open the created ICS VA instance by clicking on the Instance Name link.

The Interface tab shows the networks that are created.

The Log tab shows the log details of the device that is created.

The console tab provides the virtual console to view the device coming up.

Next, the Internal and External interfaces are configured by DHCP (Zero touch configuration).

The following figure depicts the Internal and External Interfaces Configuration by DHCP screen:

The Config URL is downloaded for initial configuration.

The following figure depicts the Download Config URL from Template screen:

ICS Provisioning Parameters

Provisioning parameters are those parameters which are required during the deployment of a virtual appliance. ICS accepts the following parameters as provisioning parameters in the XML format.

<PropertySection> <Property oe:key="vaIPAddress" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaNetmask" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaGateway" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaDefaultVlan" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaExternalIPAddress" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaExternalNetmask" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaExternalGateway" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaExternalDefaultVlan" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaManagementIPAddress" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaManagementNetmask" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaManagementGateway" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaManagementDefaultVlan" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaPrimaryDNS" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaSecondaryDNS" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaWINSServer" oe:value="1.2.3.4"/> <Property oe:key="vaDNSDomain" oe:value="ics.company.com"/> <Property oe:key="vaAdminUsername" oe:value="admindb"/> <Property oe:key="vaAdminPassword" oe:value="Password123$"/> <Property oe:key="vaCommonName" oe:value="ics-ext-port.company.com"/> <Property oe:key="vaOrganization" oe:value="Ivanti"/> <Property oe:key="vaRandomText" oe:value="randomtextrandomtextrandomtextrandomtext"/> <Property oe:key="vaAcceptLicenseAgreement" oe:value="y"/> <Property oe:key="vaEnableLicenseServer" oe:value="n"/> <Property oe:key="vaAdminEnableREST" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaAuthCodeLicense" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaConfigURL" oe:value="http://a.b.c.d/ics_config.xml"/> <Property oe:key="vaConfigServerCACertPEM" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaConfigData" oe:value=""/> <Property oe:key="vaInternalPortReconfigWithValueInVAppProperties" oe:value="1"/> <Property oe:key="vaManagementPortReconfigWithValueInVAppProperties" oe:value="1"/> <Property oe:key="vaExternalPortReconfigWithValueInVAppProperties" oe:value="1"/> </PropertySection>

Parameter Name	Type	Description
vaIPAddress	IP address	Internal interface IP
vaNetmask	IP address	Internal interface subnet mask
vaGateway	IP address	Internal interface IP gateway
vaDefaultVlan	integer	VLAN number to assign to this interface
vaExternalIPAddress	IP address	External interface IP
vaExternalNetmask	IP address	External interface subnet mask
vaExternalGateway	IP address	External interface IP gateway
vaExternalDefaultVlan	Integer	VLAN number to assign to this interface.
vaManagementIPAddress	IP address	Management interface IP
vaManagementNetmask	IP address	Management interface subnet mask
vaManagementGateway	IP address	Management interface IP gateway
vaManagementDefaultVlan	Integer	VLAN number to assign to this interface
vaPrimaryDNS	IP address	Primary DNS IP
vaSecondaryDNS	IP address	Secondary DNS IP
vaWINSServer	IP address	Windows server IP
vaDNSDomain	string	Windows domain name
VaAdminUsername	string	Admin username
vaAdminPassword	string	Admin password
vaCommonName	string	Common name
vaOrganization	string	Organization name
vaRandomText	string	Random text to generate self-signed certificate
vaAcceptLicenseAgreement	character	“y” to accept the license agreement
vaEnableLicenseServer	character	“y” to enable it as VLS server. “n” to bring it up as a ICS node.
vaAdminEnableREST	character	“y” to enable REST for administrator user
vaAuthCodeLicense	string	Authentication code that needs to be obtained from Ivanti.
vaConfigURL	String URL	Http based URL where XML based ICS configuration can be found.
vaConfigServerCACertPEM	string	PEM format of CA certificate.
vaConfigData	string	base64 encoded XML based ICS configuration.
vaInternalPortReconfigWithValueIn VAppProperties	integer	The Internal port overwrite property. If set to 1, overwrite the virtual appliance’s internal port settings with the ones specified during deployment. Set this value as 1.
vaManagementPortReconfigWithValueIn VAppProperties	integer	The Management port overwrite property. If set to 1, overwrite the management port-related parameters in the ICS with the ones defined here. Set this value as 1.
vaExternalPortReconfigWithValueIn VAppProperties	integer	The External port overwrite property. If set to 1, overwrite the external port-related parameters in ICS/IPS with the ones defined here. Set this value as 1.

IICS supports zero touch provisioning. This feature can detect and assign DHCP networking settings automatically at the ICS boot up. The following ICS parameters should be set to null in order to fetch the networking configuration automatically from the DHCP server.

vaIPAddress

vaExternalIPAddress

vaManagementIPAddress

vaNetmask

vaExternalNetmask

vaManagementNetmask

vaGateway

vaExternalGateway

vaManagementGateway

vaPrimaryDNS

vaSecondaryDNS

vaDNSDomain

Leased IP from DHCP server should be valid for a long time as ICS does not request for DHCP renewals.

vTPM and Secure Boot Support on OpenStack

This section provides guidance on enabling virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) and Secure Boot features for Ivanti Connect Secure virtual appliances deployed on OpenStack. Implementing vTPM and Secure Boot improves data protection by supporting encrypted secrets and secure firmware validation.

vTPM Overview

This section describes the process and prerequisites for enabling vTPM (virtual Trusted Platform Module) and Secure Boot for Ivanti Connect Secure virtual appliances on OpenStack. Enabling these security features ensures that sensitive data such as encryption keys are stored securely and validates the integrity of the virtual appliance firmware during boot. The guidance provided here will help you configure a compliant and robust OpenStack environment for secure ICS deployments.

Enabling vTPM

To enable vTPM (virtual Trusted Platform Module) support on OpenStack for Ivanti Connect Secure virtual appliances, ensure the following requirements and steps are met on each compute host:

Prerequisites:

An OpenStack key manager service, such as Barbican, must be deployed and configured on the controller node. This service is required to store the secrets used for encrypting virtual device files at rest.

The user deploying the ICS virtual appliance must have the creator role in the corresponding OpenStack project to allow Barbican to create ICS secrets.

The swtpm binary and associated libraries must be installed on each compute node

/etc/nova/nova-compute.conf should have following configuration to support virtual TPM.

Set the config option to 'True' inof compute node. This will enable support for both TPM version 1.2 and 2.0.

With the above requirements satisfied, verify vTPM support by inspecting the traits on the compute node’s resource provider: Inline image

Enabling Secure Boot

To enable UEFI secure boot on OpenStack, follow steps as per OpenStack documentation.

You can verify UEFI Secure Boot support by inspecting the traits on the compute node’s resource provider: Inline image

In order to boot Ivanti virtual ICS in secure boot mode, perform following steps.

Extract Ivanti released OVMF firmware and VARS file from KVM ZIP artifact.

Ivanti released OVMF firmware and VARS file needs to be copied to /usr/share/OVMF directory of compute nodes. Ivanti released VARS file has secure boot certificate required to boot virtual ICS in secure boot mode.

Copy 40-edk2-x86_64-secure-enrolled.json to 10-edk2-x86_64-secure-enrolled.json and modify 10-edk2-x86_64-secure-enrolled.json file in /usr/share/qemu/firmware directory to use Ivanti’s secure boot OVMF files. b. Following contents need to be changed to use Ivanti’s released OVMF files.

Restart libvirtd and nova-compute on compute nodes

Setting Virtual ICS Image Attributes

Following attributes need to be set to enable secure boot for virtual ICS.

Select virtual ICS image.

Edit image.

Select Metadata section.

Update following attributes.

hw_disk_bus='virtio'

hw_firmware_type='uefi'

hw_machine_type='q35'

hw_tpm_model='tpm-crb'

hw_tpm_version='2.0'

os_secure_boot='required'

If above listed attributes are enabled then virtual ICS will boot with secure boot enabled and vTPM attached.

Limitations

Snapshot and Restore functionality does not work in OpenStack for ICS with vTPM. a. Source b. Spawning from an image created by snapshotting a VM with a vTPM will result in a fresh, empty vTPM

Operations like “hard reboot” or “shut off/start” may fail to start ICS with vTPM. Refer Bug link a. Above error may be seen. b. OpenStack fix link is needed to solve this issue. c. Alternately, following workaround can be added in your OpenStack environment.