Simplified installation of vSCOUT on Windows

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 as packet forwarder to any InfiniStream NG.

The procedure below is a siplified installation procedures tested by our engineers and in accordance with our best practises. Supported OS and Harware as specified by NETSCOUT.

Please read the article on vSCOUT resource usage before you start.

This article assumes familiarity with Windows server operations systems.

 

Solution

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
• Windows Server 2012 R2 (minimum of R2 required regardless of SP level)
• Windows Server 2016

 

Supported Hardware

• vSCOUT is only supported on hosts based on 64-bit Intel x86 processors

 

Before you begin

Serial number

Open a command prompt (CMD) as Administrator.

Create a file .nsprobeid containing the hostname of the target host.  Pay special attention to the leading dot and abscence of any extension in the name of the file. This text inside the file will be used to identify the vSCOUT in NGS Device Configuration:

C:\> notepad %temp%\.nsprobeid

Content of the file:

HOSTNAME

Save and exit.

Installation parameters

Before we start, make a list of these installation depending parameters:

 

Table 1

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

(*) After setting these options and starting the agent, 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 will no longer appear in the file.  If the target host has only one network interface, both MON_INF and MGMT_INF will be set to 1.

Installing vSCOUT using the EXE file 

Download, save and checksum the EXE installation file to a directory on the host (suggested C:\Temp). 

Run the folllowing command while substituting the correct values from Table 1: 

C:\Temp>is-6110-336-vSCOUT-x64.exe /s /v/qn /v"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 your changes.

The log file for vSCOUT installation using the EXE file is stored at the path %TEMP%\vSCOUT.log.  

 

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). 

Run the folllowing command while substituting the correct values from Table 1: 

msiexec /i 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 your changes.

The log file for vSCOUT installation using the MSI file is stored at the path %TEMP%\MSI???.log.  

 

Removing vSCOUT from Windows

vSCOUT, vSTREAM Embedded and vSTREAM Agent are completely different products with different capabilities and different licenses.  Before moving to vSTREAM Embedded or vSTREAM Agent, vSCOUT must be removed entirely.

To remove vSCOUT from Windows, please read the article.