Overview:
In this Progress Report, we configure the basic VM and network infrastructure that will be used to develop and test our capstone project. This setup will be used as a foundation for our project as well as future developments. In terms of the environment, we configured new Windows and Linux workstations within a Proxmox Hypervisor. This enables us to virtualize hosts with the ability to revert our systems back to a known working state in case of issues during testing. Additionally, we used Ansible to help automate testing and deployments of our scripts and services.
Following this Progress Report, we will be able to focus on developing the basic framework and services of our endpoint management system. This would include a backend server that is able to send queued tasks to both the Windows and Linux endpoint systems, which will report back on their status. Furthermore, we will build upon our current Ansible playbooks to include configurations for the setup of our backend and endpoint systems on their respective hosts.
Specific Tools Used and Implementation:
To facilitate rapid testing and deployment of our endpoint management system, we have chosen to host our environment virtually in a Proxmox hypervisor, which would allow us to simulate a typical use case environment (endpoint management services with endpoint hosts). Our environment consists of both Linux and Windows Hosts which will take on the roles of “Management” (Xubuntu), “Backend” (Debian 13), “Endpoint01” (Win10), and “Endpoint02” (Debian 13). Networking was configured for each system as shown in Figure 1.
Additionally, we decided to implement Ansible to deploy our scripts as well as run any system configurations needed to test our endpoint management system. We decided to use this tool as it would allow us to consistently deploy our services as well as monitor for any issues that may arise during testing. By keeping the deployment process the same, we can more easily identify issues with our services, which would help us save time later with debugging.
Proof of Work/Documentation:
Capstone Project Network Diagram:
Figure 1: Screenshot of our updated Project Network Map
Ansible Playbook Install + Testing:
Figure 2: Base inventory file used for deployments within the environment
Successful Ansible ping test on both Linux and Windows hosts
(shows that Ansible connectivity is working between hosts and the management system)