The Lumu Virtual Appliance can be deployed on Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This article guides you step-by-step on how to convert an OVA image to a raw disk file, upload it to GCP, create an OS image from it, and start a virtual machine running that OS.

If you don't want to go through the disk conversion process, you can request our support team to share an OS image to your GCP account and follow our legacy guide.

Requirements

• QEMU utilities tools, specifically qemu-img.
  • If you're using Microsoft Windows, you can download them from here.
  • If you’re using Linux, you can install it using your default package manager.
  • If you’re using MacOS, you can install it using brew.
• Tar or any other extraction program to extract the OVA file disc.
  • If you’re using Microsoft Windows, you can use 7zip.
  • If you’re using Linux or MacOS, tar is already installed in your system.
• Google Cloud CLI to access GCP services through your terminal.
• At least 35GiB of free space on your hard drive.

Google Cloud CLI isn't 100% necessary, but it's highly recommended. If you decide not to install it, all the steps in this guide can be done through the Google Cloud UI.

Before Starting

Throughout this guide, you'll often see the text versionhere in commands. This text must be replaced with the version of Lumu VA you downloaded when following this guide.

Download the Lumu VA

You need to download an OVA image of the Lumu VA. It is recommended to download the VirtualBox version, as it is the most stable. You can find it on the Lumu portal, in the Virtual Appliances section.

You can also use VMware and Hyper-V; however, we highly recommend using the VirtualBox version of the VA.

Extract the VMDK from the OVA

Having downloaded the OVA image from the Lumu Portal, you now need to extract the virtual machine disk (VMDK). To do this, use tar or any other extraction program. If using tar, execute the following command.

Once the extraction is complete you should have two files:

Convert VMDK to RAW format

Now, you need to convert the virtual machine's disk to the RAW format supported by GCP. To do this, use the qemu-img command.

Once the conversion is complete you will get a file called disk.raw.

This process can take some time.

Create a tarball for Google Cloud

Package the newly created RAW file into a compressed archive that is going to be uploaded to Google Cloud. We recommend giving this file a meaningful name. To compress the file using Tar, run the following command:

Once the compression is complete, you will get a compressed file with the specified name, in this case lum_va-versionhere.tar.gz.

From this point on, you'll need to have Google Cloud installed and configured. If you don't have it, use the links to the official Google documentation provided throughout this article.

Upload to Google Cloud Storage

Upload the compressed file to GCP by creating a bucket to store your compressed file. You can create it from the GCP UI by following the steps on this page, or you can create it using Google Cloud CLI with the following command:

Once you have the bucket ready, upload the .tar.gz file to the bucket with the following command:

The speed of this process will vary depending on your Internet speed.

Create the Google Cloud image

Create an operating system image based on the Lumu VA's hard drive. To do this, use the following command.

Alternatively, you can create the OS image from the GCP UI by following the steps on this page.

Once this process is complete, you will receive the following output indicating that the image has been created successfully.

Deploy the Lumu VA

Having created the OS image, you can now deploy a virtual machine. To do so, you can use the following command or deploy it from the Google Cloud Web UI.

e2-medium instances are recommended by default, however, we encourage you to consider the traffic load you expect to pass through this Virtual Appliance and choose the size that best suits your traffic load. Please refer to our sizing guide for more information.

When the process completes successfully, you will get the following output information about the newly created virtual machine.

Enable Serial Connection

The first time you connect to your new Lumu VA, you'll need to do so via a serial connection because the VA doesn't yet have an assigned IP address. To do this, you'll need to enable the serial port through the Google Cloud Platform web interface. Go to the VM instances section and enter the VM you just created. Then, click Edit at the top of your screen.

Make sure the Enable connecting to serial ports option is enabled and click Save.

Assign an Internal IP Address to the Lumu VA

Connect to your Virtual Appliance via a serial console by clicking on Connect to serial console.

A pop-up window will open; wait for a black screen to load. If no text appears, press Enter. If prompted for credentials, use the default username and password: applianceadmin.

Before configuring the Lumu Virtual Appliance, you need to assign it an internal IP address. When asked if you want to configure it, press the n key and press enter.
To assign the IP address, you will need to run the ip l command first, and search for the name of the network interface you want to assign the IP to. It usually is interface number 2, and its name tends to begin with eth or ens.

Once you have identified the network interface to which you want to assign the internal IP, run the following command, replacing ens4 for the name of your interface:

Verify that the internal IP indicated in the GCP web interface has been assigned to the specified network card using the ip a command.

Activate and Configure the Virtual Appliance

Now that you have finished configuring GCP for the Lumu Virtual Appliance and assigned an internal IP address, you are ready to activate and explore the VA general settings. See the Configure Virtual Appliance article for detailed guidance.