Configuring the Management Node

The Management Node is the administrative interface of the Pexip Infinity platform, from which administrators can:

  • Create and manage Conferencing Nodes.
  • Configure Pexip Infinity services (Virtual Meeting Rooms, Virtual Receptions and so on).
  • View platform and conference status across all Conferencing Nodes.
  • Perform active conference management functions such as adding and disconnecting participants, enabling streaming or recording services, locking a conference, or muting a participant’s audio.

The Management Node does not handle any conference media or signaling.

It is deployed using a virtual machine management application such as VMware's vCenter Server, or Microsoft Hyper-V, or on a cloud service such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The initial configuration of the Management Node is provided via the installation wizard. Any subsequent changes to the configuration of the Management Node should be done using the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface or via the management API. Do not make any changes by any other means such as VMware or SSH; doing so may cause the Pexip Infinity service to fail. In particular you must not change the IP address of the Management Node.

To change configuration of the Management Node itself, go to Platform > Management Node.

The available options are:

Option Description
Name The name used to refer to the Management Node. It comprises the DNS Hostname and Domain suffix that were assigned to the Management Node during initial installation (when the installation wizard was run).
Description

An optional field to provide more information about the Management Node.

This defaults to the Name but you can change it here.

DNS servers

Select one or more DNS servers to be used by the Management Node.

While you can assign unlimited DNS servers to a Management Node, only three will be used.

NTP servers Select one or more NTP servers to be used by the Management Node.
Web proxy The web proxy to use for outbound web requests from this Management Node when sending usage statistics, incident reports, and some license activation requests, when communicating with the configured cloud bursting service, and (if One-Touch Join has been enabled and is using OAuth) when sending requests to the OAuth token endpoint.
TLS certificate The TLS certificate to use on this node.
Configured FQDN

An optional identity for the Management Node. It is used by the web interface when indicating its own identity, for example when it needs to redirect to another page on itself. The name can be the same as its existing hostname.domain. If configured, the name must match an identity in the Management Node's TLS certificate.

When a Configured FQDN is specified, access to the Management Node is limited to anything accessing the node by either the FQDN, or the IPv4 static NAT address if it’s behind a static NAT.

IPv4 static NAT address The IPv4 static NAT address for this Management Node. This allows IP address-based access to a Management Node behind a NAT when it has a Configured FQDN specified.
IPv6 address The IPv6 address for the Management Node.
Gateway IPv6 address

The IPv6 address of the default gateway.

If this is left blank, the Management Node listens for IPv6 Router Advertisements to obtain a gateway address.

Static routes From the list of Available Static routes, select the routes to assign to the node, and then use the right arrow to move the selected routes into the Chosen Static routes list. For more information, see Managing static routes.
MTU

(Maximum Transmission Unit) — the size of the largest packet that can be transmitted via the network interface of the Management Node. It depends on your network topology as to whether you may need to specify an MTU value here.

If the Management Node is running in Google Cloud Platform, the MTU must not be higher than 1460 bytes.

Enable SSH

Determines whether this node can be accessed over SSH.

Use Global SSH setting: SSH access to this node is determined by the global Enable SSH setting (Platform > Global settings > Connectivity > Enable SSH).

Off: this node cannot be accessed over SSH, regardless of the global Enable SSH setting.

On: this node can be accessed over SSH, regardless of the global Enable SSH setting.

Default: Use Global SSH setting.

SSH authorized keys

You can optionally assign one or more SSH authorized keys to use for SSH access.

From the list of Available SSH authorized keys, select the keys to assign to the node, and then use the right arrow to move the selected keys into the Chosen SSH authorized keys list.

Note that in cloud environments, this list does not include any of the SSH keys configured within that cloud service.

For more information, see Configuring SSH authorized keys.

Use SSH authorized keys from cloud service

When a node is deployed in a cloud environment, you can continue to use the SSH keys configured within the cloud service where available, in addition to any of your own assigned keys (as configured in the field above). If you disable this option you can only use your own assigned keys.

Default: enabled.

You can also change the Management Node's SNMP settings (see Monitoring via SNMP for more information):

Option Description
SNMP mode

Configures the SNMP access mode for the selected node:

Off: SNMP is disabled. You cannot use SNMP to query the node for its status.

SNMPv2c read-only: enables insecure, read-only access.

SNMPv3 read-only: enables secure, read-only access, using the authPriv security level with SHA1 authentication and AES 128-bit encryption.

When enabled, access is provided to the basic RFC 1213 MIB-II tree (1.3.6.1.2.1).

Default: Off.

SNMP community

The SNMP group to which this node belongs. This setting applies to SNMPv2c only.

Default: public

SNMPv3 username The node's SNMPv3 username, used to authenticate SNMPv3 requests.
SNMPv3 privacy password

The node's SNMPv3 privacy password used for encrypting messages between the node and the management station.

AES encryption must be used; DES is not supported.

SNMPv3 authentication password

The node's SNMPv3 authentication password, used to authenticate the associated username.

The SHA authentication protocol must be used; MD5 is not supported.

SNMP system contact The contact details (for example, email address) of the person responsible for this particular node.
SNMP system location A description of the node's location.

If you want SNMP traps to be sent from the Management Node to a particular SNMP Network Management System (NMS), select the NMS from the SNMP NMS drop-down menu:

Option Description
SNMP NMS

The Network Management System to which the Management Node sends SNMP traps. If you have not already added the SNMP NMS, you can do so now by clicking .

Pexip Infinity does not currently support traps with SNMPv3. If traps are required, use SNMPv2c.

Other details of the Management Node that cannot be changed via the Administrator interface are also shown on this page for your information, as follows:

Option Description
IPv4 address The IPv4 address of the Management Node.
Network mask The IPv4 network mask of the Management Node.
Gateway IPv4 address The IPv4 address of the default gateway.
Hostname The DNS hostname of the Management Node.
Domain The DNS domain of the Management Node.

If you need to change any of the hostname/addressing information, you must do so by Re-running the installation wizard.

To perform other maintenance tasks such as changing the IP address of the Management Node or moving the Management Node to a different host server, see Moving, restoring or changing the IP address of the Management Node.

To configure platform-wide settings, see About global settings.