Prepare the installation media

To install N-able N-central on physical hardware without using remote management options like iLO, iDRAC, or IMM2, you need to create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive using the N-central installer image.

Create a DVD

Burn as an image, not as a data file. Incorrect burning will result in a non-bootable DVD.

Use your preferred DVD creation software and follow its standard process to burn the N-central .iso image to the disc.

Create a USB Flash Drive

Writing the N-central .iso image to a USB flash drive will erase all data on the drive. Back up any data before continuing.

  • The USB flash drive must have at least 6 GB of available space. (Tooltip: The ISO is large — ensure enough space before writing.)

  • The image must be written using the DD method. (Tooltip: Sector-by-sector copy creates a proper bootable drive.) Copying the file directly will not create a bootable installer.

  • After the image is written, the USB flash drive becomes read-only and cannot be used for other files until reformatted post-installation.

On Linux and MacOS

  1. Elevate to the root user so you can mount the USB Flash Drive.

    2. sudo su –

  2. Identify the USB Flash Drive device name. Be careful to verify the device size so you don’t accidentally overwrite another device, like you hard disk.

    3. Linux: lsblk

    MacOS: diskutil list

  3. Write the disk image to the USB Flash Drive. Make sure the device you are writing to is your USB Flash Drive. This step will overwrite all data on the drive. Be sure to specify the device name, not the partition name (/dev/sdb, not /dev/sdb1).

    4. dd if=/path/to/N-central.iso of=/dev/device-name bs=512k

The DD method writes the image sector-by-sector, creating an exact copy for booting. Drag-and-drop won't work for bootable media.

Windows

Use a third-party utility, for example, Rufus, to write the disk image to your USB Flash Drive.

When copying the .iso file, ensure you use the following configuration options:

  • Partition scheme: “MBR”
  • Target system: “BIOS or UEFI”
  • Volume label: Leave it as is. Do NOT change the label!
  • File system: FAT32
  • Cluster size: Default

If you are asked to select the mode used to write the image to disk, use DD Image mode. If not selected, N-able N-central may fail to install on certain devices.