How to Access a Jumpbox#
What is a jumpbox?#
A jumpbox is a server that has been setup for the specific purpose of accessing hosted environments. As the environments hosted at the new data centres cannot be accessed from individual PCs, servers have been setup so that users can remote into these servers in order to access any hosted environments. Apart from the credentials to be able to login to each environment, no client-specific configuration (i.e. HOSTS file entries, etc.) is needed on your PC in order to access the environments, as everything required to connect to the client environments resides on the jumpbox.What jumpbox should I connect to?#
Currently, there are 4 jumpboxes that have been setup. They are as follows:itops & itops2 #
- designated for use by Hosting - IP addresses are 10.86.0.7 and 10.86.0.6 respectively
itops3 #
- designated for use by Support - IP address 10.86.0.11
itops4 #
- designated for use by Tech - IP address 10.86.0.13
Please only use the jumpbox that has been designated for your respective team/department, so that usage can be spread across these servers. Each server has a limited capacity, so if too many users try to log on to any single server, the user will receive a message that the server is at capacity and/or be asked if they want to force another user off of the server so that they can login. Please confirm with the user if they are actively using the session before forcing any user to log off.
How do I connect to the jumpbox?#
In order to connect to the jumpbox, you will need to utilize the Remote Desktop app. This app is usually preinstalled on most PCs (or if not, can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft if needed). You will also need an account to be provisioned on one of the jumpboxes. If you do not have an account, or have issues logging in with your password, please open a help desk ticket to request assistance with this. If you have both the Remote Desktop app and a jumpbox account, perform the following steps:
1) Launch Remote Desktop
2) Click the ‘+ Add’ button in the top right-hand corner and select ‘PCs’, and the ‘Add a PC’ dialog should appear
3) In the PC name field, enter the IP address above that corresponds to the server you wish to connect to. The User Account field should be set to ‘Ask me every time’. The Display Name is optional, but just to identify the machine you are connecting to, you can name it anything, for example Jumpbox-itops3.
4) Click the Save button
5) You will now have an entry created with the server settings saved
6) Click on this entry, and you will be prompted for your username and password. Note that this is NOT the same username and password that you use to login to your own PC, as this is a separate server that resides on a completely different domain. The usual format is hlh\[username]. So for example hlh\support. Enter in your password (if logging in for the first time, the one that you have been provided by IT Ops when the account was setup), and then click on ‘Connect’.
7) You may receive a warning ‘It might not be safe to connect to this PC – untrusted certificate’. This is normal, and you can toggle ‘Don’t ask about this certificate again’ and click ‘Connect anyway’.
8) You should now see the Windows desktop of the jumpbox
9) If you open Windows File Explorer, and go to the path [C:\PS_Information_Center|../../../PS_Information_Center], you will see a folder within this directory called ‘Highline Links’. This is the folder that contains all the links to the Hosted environments that can be accessed from the jumpbox. Right-click on this folder, and choose ‘Send to Desktop (Create Shortcut)’. This will create a shortcut on the desktop so that this will be easy to access whenever you login to the jumpbox, and you won’t have to remember the actual path.
10) Double click the shortcut on the Desktop, and you will see a number of folders, one per client. Within each of these folders, there is a folder called ‘New DC’. This represents environments that are hosted at the new data centre, and only the links within these folders should be used. Any other links outside of this folder should be ignored, as they may reference old environments that may no longer be operational.
11) Select the client’s folder that you wish to access, and go into the ‘New DC’ folder. There are a number of links within this folder, but the primary ones that you will be accessing will be the ones that start with ‘Launch Page’. These links will take you to the launch page for the respective environment. From the launch page, you will be able to access Admin and Self-Service user interfaces as required.
12) NOTE: Please do NOT upgrade Java or make any other configuration changes/modifications to the jumpboxes without clearing it with IT Ops first. SQL Developer/JDeveloper tools are installed on several (if not all) of the jumpboxes, and if there are any additional tools that are required/if you are not sure if something is already installed, please confirm / request it through IT Ops.
HighLine.Standard Operating Procedures
