vSTREAM Agent on Windows

 

Introduction

This is a simplified installation procedure that has been thoroughly tested by our engineers on virtual as well as physical host.

A complete and detailed installation guide is available on MyNetscout.

You can install vSTREAM Agent on a virtual or physical machine running one of the following 64-bit Microsoft Windows versions:

• Windows Server 2012 R2 (minimum of R2 required regardless of SP level)
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019*

(*) not officially supported by NETSCOUT, but successfully tested by COMCERT.

 

Solution

 

 

 

Before you install

Some considerations before we start:

• You don't want to use NetScout's default communication ports as they are relatively common and could be in use on the host, now or in the future.
• You want to see the name of the agent in Device Configuration to be identical to the host's name.
• You know the IP address of the nGeniusONE Server (NGS). 
• You are familiar with nGeniusONE
• You are familiar with Windows CMD and/or PowerShell

 

Firewall

These communication are required.  Make sure they are allowed by every firewall in the path between the host running vStream Agent and NGS:

From NGS to vStream Agent (basic communication = required):

• tcp/7080
• tcp/7443
• tcp/7501

From vStream Agent to NGS 

• udp/395 

From vStream Agent to any InfiniStream NG

• GRE (IP protocol number 47) or udp/50100

 

Pre-configuration considerations

• vStream Agent offers the posibility to store application session detailed records (ASR) and data packets on the host itself.  The amount of disk space used for this purpose is restricted; it must be at least 1GB/10GB respectively.  Any value configured below this value will effecitvely disable that functionality.  We recommend to start with 1GB and 10GB for the XDR store and packet store respectivily.  
• vStream Agent can monitor more than one interface and those interfaces can be different from the interface used to communicate with NGS and NGIS.

In the example below:

• vStream Agent will be configured with a 1GB ASR store
• vStream Agent will be configured with a 10GB Packet store
• Interface eth0 is used for both management and monitor interface
• vStream Agent is allowed to use 2 CPU and 4 GB of memory on the host

 

From 1 to 16 vCPU can be assigned to vStream Agent to spread the load workload among each processor but at the cost of additional licenses. Valid ranges for allocated memory are 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 10240, 12288, 14336 and 16384).

 

 

 

Create custom storage path

A custom path where to store XDR records (\xdr) and packets (\pkt) must be created upfront. In our example, we decided to use E:\nsagentstore for that purpose.

If the path does not exist, vSTREAM Agent will use the default storage path located at:

%INSTALLDIR%\rtm\pa\data

 

Installation

Visual C++

We prefere to use the MSI installer and silent install as this method can be automated.

Before you can install vSTREAM Agent using the MSI installer, you must download and install at least one of the following versions of the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable.  

• 2015
• 2017
• 2019

One of these versions may already be present on the target machine.

 

vSTREAM Agent

Now, download the vStream Agent msi installer to the target machine's c:\temp folder.  If that folder doesn't exits, create it.

Open a command shell as Administrator and run the following command to install the agent:

msiexec /i c:\temp\vStream_agent.msi /qn INSTALLDIR=C:\NETSCOUT\vSTREAM HTTP_PORT=7080 HTTPS_PORT=7443 NSCOMM_PORT=395 NSCONSOLE_PORT=7501 NSCONFIG_SERVER_IP=10.165.30.183 MON_INF=1 MGMT_INF=1 NUM_CPUS=2 MEM_SIZE=4096 XDRSTORE_SIZE=1000 PKTSTORE_SIZE=10000 CONFIG_PARAMS="STORAGE_PATH=E:\nsagentstore NUM_FWD_CPUS=1 "

If the target server has multiple network interfaces, you may want to select the desired interface by substituting the interface's number (here 1) by its name as found by running ipconfig.  The monitor (MON) and ad management interface (MGMT) can also be modified after installation with the nstray utility found in %INSTALLDIR%\rtm\bin.

Installation is silent and will take about 35s to complete (more on a busy system).  To see if the installation has finished, check MSI***.log or look for the running processes (see Test).

 

Test

Logs

Logs are located in  %temp%

Check for running processes

To check if vStream Agent is running, open Task Manager > Processes and look for the following Background processes.  All these processes must be running.

• nsprobe
• procmanager
• paservice (32 bit)
• tfaengine.exe

You may also run the following command

<INSTALLDIR>\rtm\bin\ps.bat

Stop/start/restart

To stop the agent, run the following batch file:

<INSTALLDIR>\rtm\bin\stop.bat

To start the agent, run the following batch file:

<INSTALLDIR>\rtm\bin\start.bat

 

Cleaning up

We recommend removing all the temporary configuration files from the c:/temp direcotory after verification.

 

Uninstall

If for any reason the agent needs to be uninstalled, open Control Panel > Programs > Uninstall a program. This is the preferred way for removing the agent.

Use the following command to perform a silent uninstallation of vStream Agent:

msiexec /x is-6210-xxx-vSTREAM_agent-x64.msi /qn

The original  install folder <INSTALLDIR> should not exist or be empty after successful removal of the agent.  We recommend removal of this folder once verified.