Configuring your appliance

After you have initialized your appliance using the serial console, you must configure your appliance using the user interface to enable your appliance functions.

Before you begin

  • Complete the installation and initialization of the appliance hardware. See Installing WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance for more information.
  • You must be assigned the Appliance administration permission to perform these steps.

About this task

The initialization process using the serial console prepares the appliance to be administered using the user interface. To prepare your appliance for use, you must configure additional settings.
Note: All these settings are important, but properly adding a Domain Name System (DNS) server, adding a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server and configuring mail delivery are of extra importance. These tasks must be performed before any other usage occurs.
  • Security
    You can configure several aspects of security on the appliance, including user interface security and transport level security.
  • Managing users and groups
    Users and user groups are provided so that you can manage the level of access for each individual to your WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance. You can use user groups to apply permissions to groups of users.
  • Managing the IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance Ethernet interfaces
    During the initial serial connection, you configured the mgmt Ethernet interface to connect your appliance to your network. You can define additional private Ethernet ports in the user interface.
  • Managing the Domain Name System (DNS) Server
    A Domain Name System (DNS) server is required for the IBM® WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance as DNS lookup services are used for communication. You are required to specify the DNS server during the appliance initialization.
  • Mapping IP addresses to host names
    Before address information can be used to create a connection in a TCP/IP network protocol, the IP address must be associated with a host name. You can resolve an IP address to a host name by editing the etc/hosts file on the appliance. You can edit the etc/hosts file from the user interface.
  • Managing date and time settings
    Use Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers to maintain a synchronized time and date across the appliances in your collective.
  • Managing IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance email delivery
    The mail delivery function on the appliance is used for resetting user passwords. When the user requests a new password, the appliance sends the user an email with the new password.
  • Shutting down or restarting the appliance from the user interface
    The WebSphere DataPower XC10 Appliance can be restarted or shut down from the user interface.
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