1. Using a UCS appliance

In addition to the traditional installation, there is also the possibility of providing UCS via an appliance image. These appliance images can be used both for simple commissioning in a virtualization solution such as VMware and for providing a cloud instance.

Appliances can be created with minimal effort. This is described in Creating a UCS appliance/cloud image.

Whilst some of the settings can be preconfigured globally in the image, it is still necessary for the end user to make final adjustments to the configuration, e.g., to set the computer name or the domain used. For this reason, a basic system is installed for the appliance image and a component set up, which then allows the end user to finalize the configuration. Alternatively, the configuration can also be performed automatically without user interaction. This is described in Automatic configuration of an appliance.

The interactive configuration can be performed in two ways:

• A graphic interface starts on the system, in which the web browser Firefox is started in full-screen mode and automatically accesses the configuration URL. This option is particularly suitable for images in virtualization solutions.

• The configuration can also be performed directly via an external web browser. In this case, the system’s IP address must be known to the user (e.g., if it has been notified to him in advance in the scope of the provision of a cloud image).

In the scope of the initial configuration, the user can change the following settings in the default setting:

• Selection of the language, time zone and keyboard layout

• Configuration of the network settings

• Setup of a new UCS domain or joining a UCS or Microsoft Active Directory domain

• Software selection of UCS key components. The user can install software from other vendors at a later point in time via the Univention App Center.