Cisco Secure Access Control System Virtual Machine 5.2 Configuration Example
Table of Contents
1.1. Introduction to Cisco ACS 5.2 VM installation
1.2. Minimum requirements for installing the Virtual Machine from Cisco
1.3. Before you Begin important notes
1.4. Installation sequence in VM workstation 7.x and 6.x
1.5. Creating a new Virtual Machine
1.6. Virtual Machine Compatibility options
1.7. Virtual Machine Installer image options
1.8. Virtual Machine personalize the ACS 5.2 installation
1.9. Location selection for the VM
1.10. Virtual Machine number of CPU of processors
1.11. Virtual Machine Memory Requirements.
1.12. Virtual Machine Network Settings.
1.13. Virtual Machine Hard drive options
1.14. Virtual Machine Completing setup and logging on to the console
1.15. Complete the installation
Introduction to Cisco ACS 5.2 VM installation
Virtual Machines have come a long way in recent years. They have become an invaluable tool in any professional’s arsenal providing a powerful way of simulating and replicating network environments problems and complex scenarios. This document describes the Cisco ACS 5.2 virtual machine installation procedure with the aid of some visual aids and practical field advice.
Minimum requirements for installing the Virtual Machine from Cisco
The official document from Cisco States the bellow
In Reality you can actually install the ACS VM into VMware Workstation 7 and above. You can also get away with 2 GB of ram instead of 4.
Before you Begin important notes
Before you begin you will need to download the Cisco ACS 5.2 over here. Of course as with most good things from Cisco this requires a a CCO login.The ACS 5.2 comes in two flavours VM version and an Appliance based version.To read more about that visit this page
After Successfuly downloading the Cisco ACS 5.2 version you will need a trial or a demo licence to start up your appliance or VM box. You can find that trial licence on this page and you guessed it that also requires a CCO login.
After successfuly completing the above steps proceed with the bellow described guide.If you however feel you are lost you can always give us a shout over here
The official installation guide from Cisco Can be found over here
Installation sequence in VM workstation 7.x and 6.x
Once you have obtained the above software you may proceed with the virtual machine setup.The main thing that you want out of your VM workstation is to be able to support Linux 2.6.x kernel and above if that’s not supported you need to find the appropriate version of the software in order to proceed.
Creating a new Virtual Machine
Click on start new->new virtual machine
Virtual Machine Compatibility options
Virtual Machine Installer image options
Select an installer image file or installer disk depending on your availability
Virtual Machine personalize the ACS 5.2 installation
Location selection for the VM
Virtual Machine number of CPU of processors
The recommended setting here is the more the better. So if you have a powerful cpu don’t be shy use all the available CPU power at your disposal
Virtual Machine Memory Requirements.
As specified above Cisco Requires 4 gb of RAM that however is flexible. You may install it at $ gb and then drop it down to 2 gb after the initial installation is completed.
Virtual Machine Network Settings.
This will be used to specify where will the machine plug into the network .When you select bridged network setting that bridges the virtual machine adaptor with your physical network adaptor .they however have different mac addresses and thus you can have 2 separate ip addresses coming out of a single NIC adaptor .A word of caution some switches have been setup to allow a single mac address coming out of a single port .If that’s the case you have to disable that feature on that specific port.
Virtual Machine Hard drive options
Self-explanatory you need to meet 520gb for the minimum HDD requirement.You don’t have to have that much in physical space tough.
Virtual Machine Completing setup and logging on to the console
Once the machine has completed the operating system installation you will get a small setup prompt that will prompt you for application specific settings like login credentials ip address gateways etc .These settings are organization specific and have to be done as per your network policy
Complete the installation
Once you have installed the VM and logged on you may configure the software parameters as show in this document over here
Similar Documents For Configuring Different Parameters of the ACS 5.2 Appliance can be found bellow.
- Cisco-ACS-5.2-Role-Based-Authentication-Authorization-For-Different-Privilege-Levels-Configuration-Example
- Cisco-ACS-5.2-Intresting-Configurations
- Cisco-ACS-5.2-802.1.x-Authentication-And-Multi-Domain-Authentication-Configuration-Example
- Cisco TACACS+ switch template configuration example.
- Cisco TACACS + firewall template configuration example.
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