Roadrunner SMB — Quick Start Guide

Time to first share: approximately 20–30 minutes after stack deployment completes.

Prerequisites

Before deploying, confirm you have:

• An AWS account with sufficient service quotas: EC2, EFS, DynamoDB, ECS, NLB
• A VPC with private subnets across at least 2 Availability Zones
• NAT Gateway (or VPC endpoints) providing outbound internet access from private subnets
• An Active Directory domain reachable from the VPC (on-premises via Direct Connect/VPN, or AWS Managed Microsoft AD)
• DNS resolution for the AD domain from the VPC (DHCP options or Route 53 Resolver rules)
• A domain account with permission to join computers to the domain (you will enter these credentials in the setup wizard — no pre-created secret is required)
• IAM permissions to deploy CloudFormation stacks

Step 1 — Deploy the Marketplace Stack

1. Subscribe to Roadrunner SMB in the AWS Marketplace

2. Click Continue to Subscribe, then Continue to Configuration

3. Select your region, then click Continue to Launch

4. Choose Launch CloudFormation and click Launch

5. Fill in the CloudFormation parameters:

   Parameter	What to enter
   VpcId	Your VPC ID
   PrivateSubnetIds	At least 2 private subnet IDs across different AZs (comma-separated)
   AdDomainFqdn	Your AD domain FQDN (e.g. corp.example.com)
   DcDnsIp1	Primary domain controller IP
   DcDnsIp2	Secondary domain controller IP (optional)
   AdminCidr	CIDR of machines that will access the Admin UI (e.g. 10.0.0.0/8)
   BackendImageUri	(pre-filled from Marketplace)

6. Click Next, accept capabilities, then Create stack

7. Wait for the stack to reach CREATE_COMPLETE (typically 5–10 minutes)

Step 2 — Find the Admin UI URL

1. In the CloudFormation console, click your stack → Outputs tab
2. Copy the value of AdminUIUrl — this is your Admin UI address
3. Open the URL in a browser from a machine within the AdminCidr range
4. The First-Time Setup wizard will load automatically

If the page doesn't load: verify your browser machine's IP is within AdminCidr and that you're connecting from within the VPC (e.g. via VPN or a bastion host).

Step 3 — Retrieve the Bootstrap Secret

The First-Time Setup wizard requires a one-time Bootstrap Secret to authenticate the initial configuration. The secret is pre-generated by the CloudFormation stack and stored in AWS Secrets Manager.

To find it:

1. In the CloudFormation console, click your stack → Outputs tab
2. Click the link next to BootstrapSecretConsoleUrl — this opens the secret directly in the Secrets Manager console
3. Click "Retrieve secret value"
4. Copy the secret value

Alternative: search for the secret ARN shown in the BootstrapSecretArn output directly in the Secrets Manager console.

The bootstrap secret is valid only until First-Time Setup is completed. It is automatically disabled once setup is complete and cannot be reused.

Step 4 — Complete First-Time Setup

The First-Time Setup (FTS) wizard runs only once and walks through 5 steps:

4a — Enter Bootstrap Secret

Paste the secret retrieved from Secrets Manager (Step 3) and click Continue.

4b — Establish HTTPS

Click Generate TLS Certificate. The appliance generates a self-signed certificate and redirects you to HTTPS. Accept the certificate warning in your browser — this is expected for the self-signed cert.

4c — Join Active Directory

Enter your domain join credentials directly in the wizard:

Click Test to run an AD preflight check, then click Join Domain. Join takes 30–90 seconds.

4d — Set Appliance Owner Password

Set the password for the local break-glass administrator account (rrsmb-admin). Store this securely — it is used if AD authentication is unavailable.

Minimum 12 characters required.

4e — Claim Appliance Admin

Log in with your personal domain account to claim Appliance Admin rights. This grants your AD account full access to the Admin UI going forward.

Click Claim Admin and confirm if prompted.

4f — Complete Setup

Click Complete First-Time Setup. The bootstrap secret is permanently disabled. You are redirected to the Admin UI login page.

Step 5 — Log In to the Admin UI

1. Log in with the domain account you used to claim admin (Step 4e)
2. You will land on the Dashboard showing cluster health and pipeline metrics

Step 6 — Create Your First Share

1. Click Shares in the left navigation
2. Click Create Share
3. Enter a share name (e.g. data)
4. Configure permissions (choose a preset or customize AD groups)
5. Click Create
6. Wait 15–60 seconds for the share to materialize across the cluster

Step 7 — Mount the Share from Windows

1. Open File Explorer on a domain-joined Windows machine
2. In the address bar, type:

   \\<NlbDnsName>\<sharename>
   

   Use the NlbDnsName value from CloudFormation Outputs, for example:

   \\rrsmb-nlb-abc123.elb.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\data
   

3. Press Enter and authenticate with your Active Directory credentials

Step 8 — Verify

• Share appears in File Explorer
• You can create a folder and file in the share
• Another domain user with appropriate permissions can access the share

Common First-Time Issues

See the Support & Troubleshooting guide for more.

Next Steps

• Read the Admin Guide for share management, cluster health, and logs
• Review Known Limitations before deploying for production use
• Contact support if you need assistance