Establishing Secure Channel to Parallels Support

Parallels Server Bare Metal provides you with a special tool - Support Tunnel - which allows you to establish a private secure channel to the Parallels support team server. After establishing such a channel, the support team will be able to quickly and securely connect to your Parallels server and diagnose and solve your problem. The secure connection to your server is achieved through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) created between the Parallels support team server and your server.

To start using the Virtuozzo Support Tunnel tool:

• Make sure the openvpn (version 2.0 and above) and vzvpn packages are installed on your server. These packages are automatically installed during the Parallels Server Bare Metal installation.
• Make sure that port 80 is opened on the server.
• Edit the /etc/vzvpn/vzvpn.conf file to specify the correct parameters for your proxy server, if you use any. Detailed information on these parameters is given in the vzvpn Configuration File subsection of the Parallels Command Line Reference Guide .

After you have completed the tasks above and in case you encountered a problem, you can do the following to get assistance from the Parallels support:

1. Obtain a special certificate from Parallels which will uniquely identify you as a Parallels Server Bare Metal user. Certificates are issued by Parallels in the form of files and should be installed on your server by issuing the vzvpn.sh key-install certificate command where certificate denotes the name of the certificate file obtained from Parallels. You can get a certificate in one of the following ways:
   • Visit the http://www.parallels.com/en/support/virtuozzo/certificates web site, fill up the Request Secure Virtuozzo Support Tunnel Certificate form, and click the Submit button. After a while, a certificate will be generated and sent to the email address you provided in the Request Secure Virtuozzo Support Tunnel Certificate form.
   • Contact the Parallels support team via e-mail or by telephone and ask for a valid certificate.
2. After you are ready with the certificate installation, make sure your server is connected to the Internet.
3. On the server, execute the /etc/init.d/vzvpn.sh start command to establish a VPN between your server and the Parallels support server.
4. Contact the Parallels support team (by telephone or via e-mail) and inform them of the problem you encountered. You should also mention that you have launched the Virtuozzo Support Tunnel tool and established a VPN to the Parallels support server.
5. After that, the Parallels support team will connect to your server by using the secure VPN established, closely examine your problem, and make its best to solve the problem as quickly as possible.

Notes:

1. Support Tunnel is implemented as a standard Linux service running in the background of your system. Therefore, to have this service running after your server reboot, you should set it to the autoboot mode or start it manually again by executing the /etc/init.d/vzvpn start command.

2. To close the VPN session with the Parallels support server, you should issue the /etc/init.d/vzvpn stop command on the server.