SevOne Installation Guide - Virtual Appliance

Introduction

This document describes the installation of a SevOne virtual appliance. A virtual appliance can be a SevOne Performance Appliance Solution (vPAS) or a SevOne Dedicated NetFlow Collector (vDNC), each of which runs the SevOne Network Management Solution (NMS) software. It can also be a SevOne Performance Log Appliance (vPLA), which runs the SevOne PLA software.

Prerequisites

There are three methods to download the image for a virtual SevOne appliance.

• VMware - Standard method for all virtual SevOne software installations via a .ova file download from http://fileshare.sevone.com/ftp/login/.

• KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) - A virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel that turns it into a hypervisor. This method uses a .QCOW2 file.

• Microsoft Azure - The method used to install is a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image.

All three methods have the following hardware requirements.

Download Virtual Appliance Image File

Perform the following steps to download the virtual appliance image file from the SevOne download server. For VMware this is a .ova file. For KVM this is a .QCOW2 file. For Microsoft Azure, this is a .vhd file.

1. In the Address field on your web browser, enter the virtual appliance image link from the email sent by SevOne.

2. Press Enter and wait for the following dialog to appear.

   

3. Click Save to display the Save As dialog.

   

4. Navigate to the location in a local folder on your computer where you want to save the image.

5. Click Open to begin the download.

   

6. Wait till the download is complete (can take up to 20 minutes),

VMware Considerations

A vPAS/vDNC installation using VMware has the following host system requirements

• Intel-VT or AMD-V CPU extensions

• VMware ESXi v5.0+

• Does not run on VMware Workstation / VMware Player

The following are the VMware initial setup best practices.

• The SevOne .ova image file contains a vmware-tools package to provide emulation for what vCenter and the ESX need to get from the VM. This package provides a set of utilities and drivers to help you improve the performance and management of virtual machines.

• VMware Tools include the VMXNET3 network driver. The VMXNET3 adapter is a virtualized Network Interface Card that offers better performance and should be used for the vPAS 100K.

• Turn on Storage I/O Monitoring in vCenter for all data stores used by the appliance to diagnose performance issues.

• Ensure that hyperthreading is enabled by default in the virtual data center. Hyperthreading is enabled or disabled in the BIOS when the system is booted.

• Ensure adequate CPU and memory allocation as described earlier in this document. Do not inadvertently limit CPU or memory and ensure that the Unlimited check box is selected.

For a physical system, the concept of a CPU is easy term to understand. However, in the virtualized space it is difficult to determine how many cores a CPU has and whether hyperthreading is turned on. One way to normalize the values you should use to plan your virtual environment is to use the SPECint benchmark published by SPEC. SPEC breaks out CPU performance metrics for:

• CPU Speed (cint)

• CPU Throughput (rint)

The cint performance runs a single instance of the benchmark test to measure the speed of the system to perform a single task. rint runs the same number of instances of the benchmark test as there are threads in the machine to measure parallelization. Although a system may have a faster processor, other factors can reduce the number of parallel tasks, so rint is as important a measurement as cint. SevOne software provides good parallelization that benefits from more effective CPUs rather than from a smaller number of faster CPUs.

Virtualization can provide better efficiency of the underlying hardware through a fundamental model of over subscription. When set up properly, VMs can freely move about within the cluster of hypervisors to resolve temporary resource constraints without administrator intervention. It is important to note the following:

• Since the system may attempt to resolve resource contention issues autonomously, performance related postmortem analysis can be difficult via the VM alone.

• From the VM, it is difficult to determine if you actually have the resources you think you have without an attempt to continuously allocate them, which degrades performance.

• Some things that constrain the performance of VMs are not things that trigger a VM to move within the cluster.

• Data points that describe the level of resource contention and over subscription are intentionally not revealed to the VMs and access to vCenter in those scenarios is not universal.

KVM Implementation

Each KVM implementation varies dependent upon your environment. The following workflow reflects an Openstack implementation. The typical implementation is to set up a private, internal network for the Openstack instances to use for communication. This private network is made available to the public network via NAT. You apply a floating IP address from the public network to the instance's main interface in the private network. Users connect to the floating IP address via their regular network. SevOne instances (each virtual appliance you peer into the cluster) is peered to one another via the private IP address. The private IP address must be reachable (i.e., in the same Neutron network, or otherwise routable). Otherwise, you should use floating IP addresses from the public network to establish peering. Metadata service is not supported.

The KVM image file has a QCOW2 file extension. QCOW2 is a file format for disk image files used by QEMU, a hosted virtual machine monitor. It stands for QEMU Copy On Write and uses a disk storage optimization strategy that delays allocation of storage until it is actually needed. You followed the steps earlier in this document to download the QCOW2 image.

Deploy a Virtual Appliance Using a VHD on Azure

For steps to deploy a virtual appliance using a .vhd file on Microsoft Azure, see Microsoft's documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/create-upload-centos.

Network Configuration Via the Config Shell for VMware, KVM, and Azure Implementations

The config shell appears after you open the console on the SevOne NMS/SevOne PLA computer in the VMware implementation steps. Use the configuration menu to enter your company's network settings. For a KVM implementation, many of the config shell settings have already been entered. To access the config shell from a command prompt, enter the following command.

From this point forward in the document, the SevOne NMS/SevOne PLA computer is referred to as the SevOne appliance. You need the following information:

• System Name (Host Name)

• Host IP address and sub-netmask

• Broadcast address

• Default Gateway IP address

• DNS primary & secondary IP address

• NTP (Time Server) IP address

• SNMP Settings

• Domain Name

On the first page, press Enter to display the logon page that controls access to the Configuration Menu.

1. Enter the default password, supportuser .

   When you log in here for the first time, you are logging as the user support. Steps for changing the default password for the support user are in the OS-level User Names and Passwords section. It is important that you change the default password.

   Failure to change the default password presents a significant security risk.

2. Press Enter to display the system configuration menu.

Press the down arrow to select System Name in the left menu and press Enter to display the System Name fields on the right.

1. In the Hostname field, enter the hostname for the SevOne appliance.

2. Press Enter to save the System Name settings and return the focus to the menu on the left.

Press the down arrow to select IP Address and Gateway and press Enter to display the IP address and gateway fields on the right.

If your network uses DHCP type Y to disable the following fields and skip the IP Address and Gateway steps. If your network does not use DHCP, type N and complete the following fields.

1. In the IP Address field, enter IP address of the SevOne appliance and press Tab.

2. In the Netmask field, enter the netmask of the SevOne appliance and press Tab.

3. In the Gateway field, enter the IP address of the SevOne appliance and press Tab.

4. In the Broadcast field, enter the SevOne appliance broadcast IP address.

5. Press Enter to save the IP Address and Gateway settings and return the focus to the menu on the left.

Press the down arrow to select DNS and Search Domains and press Enter to display the DNS and Search Domains fields on the right.

1. In the Primary DNS field, enter the IP address of the DNS server for the SevOne appliance to use first and press Tab.

2. In the Secondary DNS field, enter the IP address for the SevOne appliance to use second, if applicable and press Tab.

3. In the Tertiary DNS field, enter the IP address of the DNS server for the SevOne appliance to use third, if applicable and press Tab.

4. In the Search Domains field, enter the domain names or IP addresses for the search domains for the SevOne appliance to use (separated by a space).

5. Press Enter to save your DNS and Search Domains settings and return the focus to the menu on the left.

Press the down arrow to select Time and Date and press Enter to display the Time and Date fields on the right.

1. Confirm that the time and date are correct for Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (a.k.a. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)). This is the SevOne NMS/PLA system time. You define time and date settings for users, devices, and reports via the SevOne NMS/PLA GUI in a later step.

2. If needed, enter the time and date using the appropriate format in the fields provided.

3. Press Enter to save the Time and Date settings and to return the focus to the menu on the left.

Press the down arrow to select NTP Servers and press Enter to display the NTP Servers fields on the right.

1. In the Servers field, enter the DNS name or IP address of the time server for the SevOne appliance to use to maintain time settings.

2. Press Enter to save the NTP Servers settings and to return the focus to the menu on the left.

Press the down arrow to select SNMP Settings and press Enter to display the SNMP Settings fields on the right.

1. In the Read Only Community field, enter the SNMP read community string for other devices to use to poll SNMP data on the SevOne appliance when communicating via IPv4 and press Tab.

2. In the Read Only Community (IPv6) field, enter the SNMP read community string for other devices to use to poll SNMP data on the SevOne appliance when communicating via IPv6 and press Tab.

3. In the Trap Destination field, enter the IP address or hostname of the destination where traps the SevOne appliance generates are to be sent and press Tab.

4. In the sysContact.0 field, enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysContact OID and press Tab.

5. In the sysLocation.0 field, enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysLocation OID and press Tab.

6. In the sysName.0 field, enter the text you get when you SNMP walk the sysName OID.

7. Press Enter to save the SNMP Servers settings and to return the focus to the menu on the left.

If you changed the System Name settings or the IP Address and Gateway settings, press the down arrow to select Shutdown and Restart and press Enter to display a Shutdown option and a Restart option on the right.

For all other configuration setting changes, you can press the down arrow to select Exit.

In the Shutdown/Restart section select an option and press Enter to shut down or reboot the SevOne appliance.

If you highlight Exit, when you press Enter the initial Configuration Menu Welcome page appears.

Install vPAS/vDNC License File

Your vPAS/vDNC license file is attached to the email.

1. Save the <license>.dat file to a location that is accessible by the SevOne appliance.

2. Enter the URL for the SevOne appliance into your web browser to display the license agreement.

   

3. Click Accept to display the License Upload page.

   

4. Click Browse.

5. Navigate your file hierarchy to the license.dat file, select the <license>.dat file, and click Open.

6. Click Submit to import the license.

7. On the Finish Importing Certificate message, click OK.

8. Restart your browser.

SevOne PLA Email Server Setup

Perform the following steps to define the email server for the SevOne PLA to use to send report and alert emails. For SevOne NMS, skip this section.

1. From the command line, enter the following command to display the current email server settings.

   $ set-email-server

2. Enter ^C to keep the current settings.

3. When prompted, enter the URL for the mail server.

4. When prompted, enter the username for the mail sender.

5. Enter the password for the sender to connect to the server (or leave blank for no password).

6. Enter the email address from where emails are to be sent.

Add a SevOne PLA to a SevOne NMS Cluster

Perform the following steps to include the SevOne PLA in a SevOne NMS cluster.

OS-level User Names and Passwords

You will need to change the default passwords for the admin, root, and support user accounts. This is important for security reasons.

Failure to change the default passwords presents a significant security risk. This publication includes default passwords and this document has probably been made available to the public.

Enable Firewall for CentOS

On appliances that are running CentOS, the firewall will be disabled. This applies to both appliances with new SevOne NMS installs and appliances that were previously running Gentoo, then moved to CentOS. Perform the following steps to enable the firewall.

1. SSH into the appliance as root.

2. Execute the following command to enable firewalld:

   $ /usr/bin/systemctl enable firewalld

3. Execute the following command to start firewalld:

   $ /usr/bin/systemctl start firewalld

4. Execute the following command to identify custom ports:

   $ netstat -tuplet

   

5. Execute the following command to add a custom port to the firewall. Replace <portNumber> with the number of the port you want to add. Replace <connectionType> with tcp or udp.

   $ firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=<portNumber>/<connectionType> --permanent

6. Execute the following command to reload the firewall and apply changes:

   $ firewall-cmd --reload

7. Exit the session when you are done.

Shut Down and Reboot SevOne NMS

SevOne NMS can run for extended periods of time. Occasionally it is necessary to shut down or reboot an appliance. SevOne NMS stores data in cache and writes to the disk on a regular basis.

Use the configshell to shut down the software or the following shell commands back up the memory ring tables to the database on the disk to ensure that you do not lose data.