vSTREAM Agent on Linux

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.

 

Solution

 

 

 

Before you install

Some considerations before we start:

• We don't want to use NetScout's default communication ports as they are reltively common and could be in use on the host, now or in the future.
• We prefer using the hostname to identify the vSTREAM Agent (VSTA) in Device Configuration.
• We know the IP address of the nGeniusONE Server (NGS).
• You are familiar with nGeniusONE
• You are familiar with Linux CLI

 

Firewall

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

From NGS to VSTA (basic communication = required):

• tcp/7080
• tcp/7443
• tcp/7501

From VSTA to NGS (NetScout Discovery Protocol = recommended):

• udp/395 

From VSTA to any Next Generation InfiniStream (NGIS)  (packet forwarding = recommended)

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

 

Pre-configuration considerations

• vSTREAM Agent offers the posibility to store session detail records (XDR) 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:

• VSTA will be configured with a 1GB Session Details store
• VSTA will be configured with a 10GB Packet store
• Interface eth0 is used for both management and monitor interface
• VSTA is allowed to use 1vCPU and 2GB of memory on the host

 

1 to 16 vCPU can be assigned to VSTA to reduced the load on each processor but this will use additional licenses.  Valid ranges for allocated memory are 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 10240, 12288, 14336 and 16384).

 

 

Create storage path

The path where to store XDR records and packets must be created upfront.  In our example, we decided to use /opt/nsagentstrore for that matter:

# mkdir /opt/nsagentstore

 

Create configuration files

Create the file /tmp/nsagent_config.cfg with the follwing content.  Replace <IP_NGS> with the IP address of NGS:

export NSCOMM_PORT=395
export NSCONSOLE_PORT=7501
export HTTP_PORT=7080
export HTTPS_PORT=7443
export NSCONFIG_SERVER_IP=<IP_NGS>
export MON_INF=eth0
export MGMT_INF=eth0
export NUM_CPUS=1
export MEM_SIZE=2048
export STORAGE_PATH=/opt/nsagentstore
export XDRSTORE_SIZE=1000
export PKTSTORE_SIZE=10000
export NUM_FWD_CPUS=1

Create the file /tmp/nsprobeid with the following content. Replace HOSTNAME with the actual hostname or any string value you need to proper identify this vSTREAM Enbedden in nGeniusONE. The name can be up to 127 characters long.  It can only contain alphanumerical characters, period (.) and hyphen (-). NO SPACES, NO UNDERSCORE (_), NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS:

<hostname>

 

Installation

Place the most recent version and build of the *.rpm in the /tmp directory on thehost. We recommend to keep the original file name for future reference.

# cd /tmp
# wget https://comcert.box.com/shared/static/something.rpm
# mv something.rpm is-6210-xxx-vSTREAM_agent.x86_64.rpm
# md5sum is-6210-xxx-vSTREAM_agent.x86_64.rpm

Run the rpm. There are no dependencies to be installed. If you omit the --prefix argument, the installation directory will be /usr/lib/NetScout/.  If you specify for example --prefix=/opt vSTREAM Embedded will be installed in /opt/NetScout/

# yum localinstall is-6210-xxx-vSTREAM_agent.x86_64.rpm --nogpgcheck --prefix=<target directory>

 

Test

Check if the vSTREAM Agent service is running:

# systemctl status vstream

Stop/Start/Restart the service:

# systemctl stop vstream
# systemctl start vstream

[or]

# systemctl restart vstream

 

Clean-up

We recommend removing all the temporary configuration files from the /tmp direcotory after verification.  These files cannot be used to reconfigure the agent.

 

Modifying the configuration

To modify the configuration, edit this file and restart the agent:

# vi /usr/lib/NetScout/rtm/config/nsagent_config.cfg

 

Uninstall

If for any reason the agent needs to be uninstalled, run the following command:

# cd /usr/lib/NetScout/rtm/bin
# ./vstream_uninstall.sh