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Getting started with WombatOAM

Prerequisites

Before installing WombatOAM, ensure that the machine meets the prerequisites. The following is required before installing WombatOAM:

  • A UNIX operating system (WombatOAM has been tested on Linux and OS X)
  • Erlang 17.5 or later installed for running WombatOAM, the managed nodes can be as old as R14.
  • OpenSSL and libcrypto (already present on Mac OS X)

Installing WombatOAM

To install WombatOAM on your computer, retrieve the current WombatOAM package and run the installation script.

  1. Extract the WombatOAM package and go inside directory:

    tar xfz wombat-[VERSION].tar.gz
    cd wombat-[VERSION]
  2. Execute the following command:

    ./wombat install

If you already have a WombatOAM installation follow the instructions in the "Upgrading WombatOAM" chapter.

Installing WombatOAM on Windows

Currently on Windows only running it inside Docker is supported. Please get in touch with us if you need native Windows support.

!INCLUDE "parts/upgrade-howto.md"

The WombatOAM web dashboard

To access the web dashboard, go to http://localhost:8080 in your browser. Log in with the following details:

  • Name: admin
  • Password: admin

Running WombatOAM

The command ./wombat start will start WombatOAM automatically. You can use the following commands to manipulate WombatOAM:

./wombat start  # start WombatOAM
./wombat stop   # stop WombatOAM
./wombat start_script # the OTP release start script

The env variable WOMBAT_LICENSE can be used by WombatOAM to read the license text, this is useful when doing continuous redeployments.

To check whether WombatOAM is already running, navigate your browser to the WombatOAM web dashboard on http://localhost:8080.

Running inside containers using Docker

You should have access already to the WombatOAM Docker image, if not, please get in touch with us.

  1. Import the image locally by running the following command, it will show you the tag of the image which is used to start the container:
    1
    docker load --input wombat_<version>.image.tar
    
  2. Start the container and expose the dashboard port. By defining an environment variable we can tell Wombat's webserver to listen on all interfaces:
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    docker run -it -p 8080:8080 -e WOMBAT_NODENAME=wombat@0.0.0.0 wombat:<version>
    
  3. Navigate to localhost:8080 in your browser

If you start WombatOAM this way, your container will have no access to other Erlang nodes running on your machine, only the wombat@127.0.0.1 node will be accessible. We suggests setting up a docker-compose.yml file including your application. For testing purposes you can connect to the container using docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID bash and start an Erlang node manually. Examples can be found in the next chapters.

Please refer to the manual's "Configuring WombatOAM for servers and containers" chapter for more information.

Running on Amazon AWS

We build AMIs from Wombat. Please get in touch at wombat@erlang-solutions.com if you have no access to them.

Please check the Wombat-Manual.pdf or the html documentation "Using the official AMI containing WombatOAM" section.

Using WombatOAM

To see how WombatOAM handles nodes, you can let WombatOAM monitor itself:

  1. Select the Topology tab and click Add Node.
  2. Enter the following:
    • Node name: wombat@127.0.0.1
    • Cookie: wombat
  3. Click the Add node button.

The WombatOAM node should come up in a few seconds. If it doesn't, check the following log file for details: _build/default/rel/wombat/log/wombat@127.0.0.1/wombat.log

The following chapter will help you to get to know WombatOAM.