Getting started guide

Follow these steps in order to get started with the Halon platform. Please contact us on support@halon.io, or go to the support page and create a ticket in case you have any problems.

Download

The Halon platform can be downloaded as a software distribution image based on FreeBSD, similar to ISO installation files that other operating systems offer. The software can be installed bare-metal onto either a hard drive or a flash memory (such as a USB stick or CompactFlash card, because the system partition is read-only), or as a virtual machine on KVM, VMware, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and many more.

Please visit halon.io/download to download the full version of our software.

Installation

Dedicated hardware (bare-metal)

For bare-metal installations, follow the instructions for writing system images. For hardware compatibility please consult the FreeBSD hardware compatibility notes or ask us if you're unsure of which components to use.

Virtualization

There are prepared installation images for VMware (OVF), Citrix XenServer (XVA) and Hyper-V (VHD). For other platforms, please use the universal "raw" image.

If you are using VMware Workstation, VMware Player or something similar as a host, download the VMX package, extract it, and simply double-click on the VMX file thas was created. Please note that using these types of hosts is not recommended for production deployments.

Cloud providers

There are public images available for Amazon EC2, Azure as well as Google Compute Engine making the deployment rapid. For other providers such as Rackspace or GleSYS, please follow the instructions for writing system images.

First run

Follow these steps to complete the initial configuration:

1. Make sure you're on the same network as the newly installed system.
2. Start a web browser and go to the URL displayed on the console. By default, Halon uses DHCP to acquire an IP address. You can configure another IP and gateway in the console administration.
3. The default configuration's username and password are "admin" and "admin".
4. Follow the first run guide that will be presented to you when you login the first time. This guide will set up your Halon node with some sample scripts and a default configuration.
5. Unless there was an additional, empty disk available during first boot, you need to configure a storage partition.
   
   • If the system partition disk is large enough to hold a storage partition
     1. Go to Hosts -> System -> Hardware
     2. Select "System disk" as "Device" and press "Save", then reboot the system
   • Otherwise, attach a storage disk (you may need to reboot, depending on disk system)
     
     1. Go to Hosts -> System -> Hardware
     2. Erase the disk by selecting it on the "Format" pane and press "Erase" then reboot the system
     3. Once completed, sign in again and go to the Hosts -> System -> Hardware page
     4. Select it as "Device" and press "Save" then reboot the system again

Default configuration

• Username and password are admin
• Uses DHCP for IP address and default route on the first Ethernet interface (ordered by MAC)
• Makes the web administration available over HTTPS

Resources

• Changelog
• Halon Scripting Language (HSL) documentation
• Halon Scripting Language (HSL) code examples
• Halon Github projects
• Halon API