Simplified installation of vSCOUT on Windows
Contents
Introduction
vSCOUT verion 6.1.1 build 336 is the final version of product that supports "lite" mode. In lite mode, the agent is not analyzing traffic; it can only be used to forward packets - encapsulated in GRE or UDP - to a InfiniStreamNG. vSCOUT uses signifiantly less CPU time in lite mode than in standard mode.
The procedure below requires the use of a MSI installer transformed by COMCERT and is only available to COMCERT customers with an active support contract. This installer overcomes a few installation limitations and problems with the NETSCOUT provided installer.
Please read the article on vSCOUT resource usage before you start.
This article assumes familiarity with Windows Server OS.
Solution
Supported Operating Systems
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
- Windows Server 2012 R2 (minimum of R2 required regardless of SP level)
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2019# (not officially supported by NETSCOUT)
(#) officially not supported by NETSCOUT but successfully tested by COMCERT.
Supported Hardware
- vSCOUT is supported on virtual and physical hosts based on 64-bit x86 processors.
Before you begin
Serial number
The installer will automatically use the machine's hostname (%COMPUTERNAME%) to identify itself in Device Configuration.
Installation parameters
Before you start, obtain and make a list of these parameters:
| Parameter | Description | Initial Value |
|---|---|---|
| INSTALLDIR* | Specifies the path for vSCOUT installation | E:\Programs\NETSCOUT\VSCOUT |
| NSCONFIG_SERVER_IP | nGeniusONE Server Address | A.B.C.D |
| NSCONFIG_MONITOR_IP | Specifies the network interfaces to be monitored by vSCOUT by IP address or subnet | E.F.G.H |
| NSCONFIG_MGMT_IP | Specifies the network interface to be used for communications with the managing nGeniusONE server either by IP address or subnet |
I.J.K.L |
| FWD_SRC_IP | Specifies the IP address of the interface from which vSCOUT forwards traffic (tunnel) | M.N.O.P |
(*) If the path includes spaces, be sure to enclose it in quotation marks. You also must respect Microsoft's path naming conventions.
Installing vSCOUT using the MSI file
Download, save and checksum the MSI installation file to a directory on the host (suggested C:\Temp).
Before you can install vSCOUT using the MSI installer, you must download and install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2015 (64-bit).
Open a command prompt (CMD) as Administrator or with elevated priviledges. This is very important!
Run the folllowing command while substituting the correct values from Table 1:
msiexec /i COMCERT-is-6110-336-vSCOUT-x64.msi /qn INSTALLDIR=E:\Programs\NETSCOUT\vSCOUT NSHTTP_PORT=7080 NSHTTPS_PORT=7443 NSCONFIG_SERVER_IP=A.B.C.D NSCOMM_PORT=395 NSCONSOLE_PORT=7501 NSCONFIG_MONITOR_IP=E.F.G.H NSCONFIG_MGMT_IP=I.J.K.L NUM_CPUS=2 MEM_SIZE=2048 FWD_SRC_IP=M.N.O.P VSCOUT_MODE=lite
After installation, the parameters listed in Table 1 are stored in the <INSTALLDIR>\rtm\config\nsagent_config.cfg file. You can edit this file and restart vSCOUT services to apply changes. The MON_INF and MGMT_INF options in the nsagent_config.cfg file will be set automatically with the correct interface number and the NSCONFIG_MONITOR_IP and NSCONFIG_MGMT_IP options may no longer be present in the configuration file.
The install log is located in %TEMP%\MSI???.log.
Removing vSCOUT from Windows
vSCOUT, vSTREAM Embedded and vSTREAM Agent are completely different products with different capabilities and different license requirements. Before moving to vSTREAM Embedded or vSTREAM Agent, vSCOUT must be removed entirely.
To remove vSCOUT from Windows, please read the article.
