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

Keep in mind that vSTREAM Agent uses up to the equivalent of 100% of the number of vCPUs assigned to it. vSTREAM Agent processes may appear on more than the number of vCPUs assigned, but the total usage will never exceed 100% of the total vCPUs assigned.

 

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 storage path

The path where to store XDR records and packets must be created upfront. In our example, we decided to use E:\nsagentstore for that purpose.

 

Create configuration files

Create a file %temp%/.nsprobeid with the following content. Replace HOSTNAME with the actual hostname or any string value you need to proper identify this vStream Agent in Device Configuration. 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:

Open a command prompt as administrator:

cd %temp%
C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp>notepad .nsprobeid

Content:

<hostname>

 

 

Installation

Prerequisits

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 (x64):

• 2015
• 2017
• 2019

This redistributable may already be present on the target machine. 

Download the vStream Agent msi installer to the target machine's c:\temp folder.

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

C:\temp\> msiexec /i vStream_agent.msi /qn INSTALLDIR=C:\NETSCOUT NSHTTP_PORT=7080 NSHTTPS_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 STORAGE_PATH=E:\nsagentstore XDRSTORE_SIZE=1000 PKTSTORE_SIZE=10000 NUM_FWD_CPUS=1

To see of the installation has finished, check MSI***.log or look for the running services (see Test).

 

Test

Logs are located in  %temp%

To check if vStream Agent is running, open Task Manager > 

Stop/Start/Restart the service:

To stop the agent, run the following batch file:

<tbv>

To start the agent, run the following batch file:

<tbv>

 

Clean-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:

C:\is-6210-xxx-vStream_agent-x64.exe /s /x /v/qn

The original  install directory (c:\NETSCOUT) should be empty after successful removal of the agent.