Virtual AED 7.1.0.0 Installation Guide
Virtual AED 7.1.0.0 Installation Guide
Installation Guide
Version 7.1.0.0
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Preface
How to Use the Documentation 5
Command Syntax 6
Contacting the Arbor Technical Assistance Center 7
Index 65
This guide explains how to install and configure the NETSCOUT® Virtual Arbor Edge
Defense (vAED). vAED contains all of the AED software packages and configurations.
Audience
This guide is intended for system administrators who are responsible for installing,
configuring, and maintaining AED and vAED.
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
Related publications
After you install vAED, see the following documentation for information about how to use
AED:
Reference documentation
Document Contents
AED Online Help Online help topics from the AED User Guide. The Help is context-
sensitive to the AED UI page from which it is accessed.
AED API Programmer Reference information plus a simple code sample that you can
Guide experiment with to learn the basics of the AED API quickly.
This guide is installed with AED. You can access it at the
following link:
https://IP_address/help/AED_PG_HTML5/AED_PG.htm
IP_address = the IP address of hostname for your AED
Online AED API Complete commented code for the AED API.
Documentation This guide is installed with AED. You can access it at the
following link:
https://IP_address/api/aed/doc/v3/endpoints.html
IP_address = the IP address or hostname for your AED
Command Syntax
This guide uses typographic conventions to make the information in commands and
procedures easier to recognize.
The following table shows the syntax of commands and other types of user input. Do not
type the brackets, braces, or vertical bars that indicate options and variables.
Convention Description
Monospaced bold Information that you must type exactly as shown.
[ ] (square brackets) A set of choices for options or variables, all of which are
optional. For example: [variable1 | variable2].
Contact methods
You can contact the Arbor Technical Assistance Center as follows:
n Phone US toll free — +1 877 272 6721
n Phone worldwide — +1 781 362 4301
n Support portal — https://my.netscout.com
Example
vAED Installation Guide
vAED-IG-7100-2023/10
Page 9
This section describes vAED and its key features and licensing options. vAED is the version
of AED that runs on a hypervisor or in the cloud.
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
For installation and configuration instructions, see the Virtual AED Installation Guide.
Licensing vAED
vAED uses cloud-based flexible licenses, which you configure in the vAED UI. You need to
configure the cloud-based licenses for each vAED instance.
If vAED does not have a valid license, then the system does not pass traffic or process
mitigations.
Note
Software bypass only works when you deploy vAED in inline mode. If you deploy vAED in
monitor mode, then vAED does not initiate a software bypass. See “About the monitor
mode” in the AED User Guide.
System Requirements
Before you install vAED on a host in your network, the host and the hypervisor that runs
on the host must meet the requirements in this section.
Configuration requirements
The configuration requirements for the hypervisor and host hardware are as follows:
n 4 physical CPUs
n 100 GB hard disk space
n 12 GB RAM
n 4 interfaces (4 x virtio on KVM, 4 x E1000 on VMware)
With this configuration, vAED can support up to 50 protection groups. For information
about changing these settings, see the KVM documentation or the VMware
documentation.
Supported interfaces
vAED provides the following interfaces:
n 2 management interfaces: mgt0 and mgt1
n 2 protection interfaces: ext0 and int0
In the UI, the inline deployment mode appears as Inline Bridged and the layer 3
deployment mode appears as Inline Routed.
Without a valid license in layer 3 mode, vAED does not pass traffic or process mitigations.
For instructions on how to configure the routes for traffic in layer 3 mode, see
“Configuring Static Routes” in the AED User Guide.
For routing information, see “Configuring GRE Tunneling” in the AED User Guide.
For information about the deployment modes, see “Setting the Deployment Mode” in the
AED User Guide.
Important
If you configure GRE tunneling when vAED is set to the layer 3 mode, then vAED uses the
IP address for the external interface as the GRE tunnel destination. See “About GRE
Tunneling and Cloud Signaling” in the AED User Guide.
To delete the IP addresses and routes for all of the protection interfaces:
n In the CLI, enter / services aed mitigation clear
Note
Software bypass only works when you deploy vAED in inline mode. If you deploy vAED in
monitor mode, then vAED does not initiate a software bypass. See “About the monitor
mode” in the AED User Guide.
1. Log in to the CLI with your administrator user name and password.
2. Enter / services aed bypass software {enable | disable}
{enable | disable} = Enter disable to disable software bypass. Enter enable
to allow AED to use software bypass if a software failure occurs.
Accessing vAED
After you install and configure vAED, you can access it through any supported web
browser.
For a list of the capabilities and limitations of vAED, see “About Virtual AED” on page 9.
For vAED installation instructions, see “Installing vAED on KVM” on page 21 and “Installing
vAED on VMware” on page 30.
This section describes how to create and configure vAED on a Kernel-based Virtual
Machine (KVM).
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
1 Gather the information to use when you configure vAED on “Collecting the configuration
KVM. information” on the next
page
2 Ensure that the host server on which you install the virtual “Enabling hardware
machine has a processor that supports hardware virtualization on your CPU”
virtualization. below
n qemu-kvm
n libvirt-bin
n bridge-utils
4 Ensure that the MTU on the hypervisor is configured properly. KVM documentation
6 Download the vAED .qcow2 disk image file. “Downloading the vAED disk
image file” on page 21
7 (Optional) If you plan to use a data source to initialize vAED, “Creating a User Data File for
create a user date file. cloud-init” on page 37
To determine if your processor supports one of these extensions, enter the following
command on your system command line:
egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
If the command returns 0, your CPU does not support hardware virtualization. If the
command returns 1 or greater, your CPU supports hardware virtualization. In this case,
you must enable hardware virtualization in the host server’s BIOS.
Default router (or The IP address of the first router hop that sends
gateway) outbound network traffic. Typically, this is the
subnet switch or router.
Administrator user The credentials for administrative access to vAED. The default user name
name and password is admin and the
default password is
arbor.
The network bridges use the eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3 interfaces on the host server. You
map the network bridges to the vAED mgt0, mgt1, ext0, and int0 interfaces on KVM.
1. In a text editor on the Linux shell, edit the interfaces file as follows:
/etc/network/interfaces
# loopback
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# Specify 4 interfaces.
iface eth0 inet manual
iface eth1 inet manual
iface eth2 inet manual
iface eth3 inet manual
bridge_ports eth2
bridge_stp off
bridge_fd 0
bridge_ageing 0
After you configure the network bridges, you can install vAED on KVM. See “Installing
vAED on KVM” on the next page.
To install vAED, you create a virtual machine on a KVM hypervisor and then configure its
settings. You must perform the installation steps for each virtual machine that you want
to create.
Note
For information on the system requirements, see “System Requirements” on page 10.
For an overview of the steps to install vAED, see “Preparing to Install vAED on KVM” on
page 17.
After you complete the installation, you can configure vAED. See “Configuring vAED on
KVM” on page 23.
4. On the Licensing, Downloads and Documents page, select the appropriate version from
the list, and then locate the files to download.
1. After you download the disk image file, copy the file to the host on which you are
going to install vAED. The default KVM storage location on the target host is
/var/lib/libvirt/images/.
2. Enter the following commands:
Command Description
sudo virt-install --connect Start the installer on the host server command line.
qemu:///system
--name hostName Enter the host name for vAED as a simple host
name or a fully qualified domain name. For
example: host.example.com
Command Description
--vcpus=2,sockets=1,cores=2,maxvcpus=2 Indicate the number of virtual CPUs that are
allocated to the virtual machine.
--cpu CPU Specify a CPU that has the MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
(PNI), and SSSE3 instruction sets. The following CPUs
have the required instruction sets:
n AMD CPUs: Bulldozer or later
--disk path=filepath/fileName.qcow2, Specify the path to and file name of the disk image
device=disk,bus=virtio,size=100,format=q as well as the size and bus type of the image.
cow2
--network bridge=vmbr0,model=virtio Assign the virtual bridges to the virtual machine and
--network bridge=vmbr1,model=virtio assign the virtual network.
--network bridge=vmbr2,model=virtio See “Configuring Network Bridges on KVM” on
--network bridge=vmbr3,model=virtio page 19.
After the commands finish executing, you should see the following output, which
indicates that the virtual machine is running:
Domain creation completed. You can restart your domain by running:
virsh --connect qemu:///system start systemName
After you complete the installation and configuration, you can access vAED at any time.
See “Accessing vAED” on page 15.
Configuring vAED
To configure vAED:
1. At the CLI login prompt, enter admin
2. At the password prompt, enter arbor
3. Change the default administrator password as follows:
a. Enter / services aaa local password admin interactive
b. At the prompts, enter the new password.
Important
To use vAED, you must change the default administrator password.
4. To configure the management port, enter ip interfaces ifconfig port
ipAddress {netmask | prefix_length} up
port = The management port to configure, in this case, mgt0.
ipAddress = The address of the management port. For example: 198.51.100.2
or 2001:DB8::2.
netmask = For IPv4 addresses, the netmask in dotted-quad format. For example:
255.255.255.0.
prefix_length = For IPv6 addresses, the prefix length for the management
port’s address. For example: /64.
5. (Optional) Repeat the previous step for the mgt1 management port.
6. Enter / ip route add default ipAddress
ipAddress = The IP address for the default gateway. For example: 198.51.100.1
or 2001:DB8::1.
{mgt0 | mgt1 | all} = The name of the management interface on which to apply
a service or to apply the service to all of the interfaces.
CIDR = The address range from which you want to allow communications to a
service.
Caution
We strongly recommend that you do not use 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0, because these
address ranges allow unrestricted access to a service. To restrict access, specify the
narrowest address range that you can.
8. Repeat the previous step for each service that you want to add on the appliance.
9. To commit the IP access rules, enter / ip access commit
10. To assign a host name to the vAED, enter / system name set hostname
hostname = The simple hostname for the vAED or a fully qualified domain name.
For example: host.example.com.
11. (Optional) To configure a DNS server, enter / services dns server add IP_
address
IP_address =The IP address for the DNS server.
12. Configure the SSH host keys in one of the following ways:
n To have vAED generate the SSH host key files, enter / services ssh key
generate
n To import a file that contains the SSH host keys, enter / services ssh key
host set disk:fileName
fileName = The name of the file that contains the SSH host keys.
13. To start ssh services, enter / services ssh start
14. To save the configuration changes, enter / config write
15. To log out of the CLI and close the hypervisor, enter / exit
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
Preparation process
Prepare to install and configure vAED on VMware as follows:
1 Gather the information to use when you “Configuration information to collect” on the
configure vAED. next page
5 Download the vAED .ova file. “Downloading the vAED .ova file” on page 30
6 On the VMware server, configure a virtual “Configuration Requirements for the VMware
network for vAED. Virtual Network” on page 28
Default router (or The IP address of the first router hop that sends
gateway) outbound network traffic. Typically, this is the subnet
switch or router.
Administrator user The credentials for administrative access to vAED. The default user
name and password name is admin and
the default password
is arbor.
Network mappings The associations between the virtual networks that you mgt0:
create and the vAED interfaces. mgt1:
When you create the virtual networks for the interfaces ext0:
as described in “Configuration Requirements for the int0:
VMware Virtual Network” on the next page, record the
network names here.
The use of management interface mgt1 is optional.
This document assumes that you have some knowledge of virtual network configuration
or you have access to someone who has this knowledge.
Important
If you are an experienced VMware user, you may choose to configure your networks
differently. If you use a different configuration, then you must account for those
differences during the vAED installation.
When you create vAED, you map the source networks in the virtual image to the virtual
networks (destination networks) that you configured. The source network names are the
same as the vAED interface names (that is, mgt0, mgt1, ext0, and int0).
The use of management interface mgt1 is optional.
By default, vAED is installed in monitor mode. If you plan to keep the system in monitor
mode, then you can map all of the source networks to the same virtual network.
If you map these interfaces to the same virtual network during the initial installation, you
can remap them at any time. See “Remapping VMware Virtual Networks” on page 33.
Note
In inline mode, we tested the ext0 and int0 interfaces as physical interfaces dedicated to
separate virtual ports. However, other configurations should work, including the use of
VLANs to share a single physical interface, as long as the platform and hypervisor
support the configuration. Because vAED performance varies by platform and
configuration, confirm that the performance is acceptable for your situation.
To avoid dropped packets in this configuration, set the Forged Transmits option for the
virtual network to Accept. When Forged Transmits is set to Accept, the vswitch does not
compare the source MAC addresses to the VNIC address.
For instructions on how to set the Forged Transmits option, see your VMware
documentation.
Important
Because vAED performance varies by platform and configuration, we recommend that
you confirm that the performance of vAED in this configuration is acceptable for your
situation.
To install vAED, you create a virtual machine on a VMware hypervisor and then configure
its settings. You must perform the installation steps for each virtual machine that you
want to create.
When you create the virtual machine, you map the source networks in the virtual image
to the virtual networks (destination networks) that you configured. For more information
about configuring the networks, see “Configuration Requirements for the VMware Virtual
Network” on page 28.
Note
For information on the system requirements, see “System Requirements” on page 10.
For an overview of the steps to install vAED, see “Preparing to Install vAED on VMware”
on page 26.
After you complete the installation, you can configure vAED. See “Configuring vAED on
VMware” on the next page.
4. On the Licensing, Downloads and Documents page, select the appropriate version from
the list, and then locate the files to download.
1. Copy the .ova disk image file that you downloaded to the host on your network on
which you will run the VMware hypervisor.
2. Install the .ova file using the Deploy OVF Template feature in VMware vSphere. For
instructions, see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/index.html and
search for the topic “Deploy an OVF or OVA Template”.
Important
If you notice reduced performance on vAED when other virtual machines are running on
the host, then you might want to enable hyperthreading and configure latency settings
in vSphere. For instructions, refer to your vSphere documentation.
After you complete the installation and configuration, you can access vAED at any time.
See “Accessing vAED” on page 15.
Configuring vAED
To configure vAED:
1. At the CLI login prompt, enter admin
2. At the password prompt, enter arbor
3. Change the default administrator password as follows:
a. Enter / services aaa local password admin interactive
b. At the prompts, enter the new password.
Important
To use vAED, you must change the default administrator password.
4. To configure the management port, enter ip interfaces ifconfig port
ipAddress {netmask | prefix_length} up
port = The management port to configure, in this case, mgt0.
ipAddress = The address of the management port. For example: 198.51.100.2
or 2001:DB8::2.
netmask = For IPv4 addresses, the netmask in dotted-quad format. For example:
255.255.255.0.
prefix_length = For IPv6 addresses, the prefix length for the management
port’s address. For example: /64.
5. (Optional) Repeat the previous step for the mgt1 management port.
6. Enter / ip route add default ipAddress
ipAddress = The IP address for the default gateway. For example: 198.51.100.1
or 2001:DB8::1.
{mgt0 | mgt1 | all} = The name of the management interface on which to apply
a service or to apply the service to all of the interfaces.
CIDR = The address range from which you want to allow communications to a
service.
Caution
We strongly recommend that you do not use 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0, because these
address ranges allow unrestricted access to a service. To restrict access, specify the
narrowest address range that you can.
8. Repeat the previous step for each service that you want to add on the appliance.
9. To commit the IP access rules, enter / ip access commit
10. To assign a host name to the vAED, enter / system name set hostname
hostname = The simple hostname for the vAED or a fully qualified domain name.
For example: host.example.com.
11. (Optional) To configure a DNS server, enter / services dns server add IP_
address
IP_address =The IP address for the DNS server.
12. Configure the SSH host keys in one of the following ways:
n To have vAED generate the SSH host key files, enter / services ssh key
generate
n To import a file that contains the SSH host keys, enter / services ssh key
host set disk:fileName
fileName = The name of the file that contains the SSH host keys.
13. To start ssh services, enter / services ssh start
14. To save the configuration changes, enter / config write
15. To log out of the CLI and close the hypervisor, enter / exit
When you map a virtual network, you connect it to a network adapter that is associated
with a vAED interface. The associations between the network adapters and the interfaces
are predefined in vAED, as shown in the following table.
1. Open VMware vSphere Client and log in, using your credentials for the VMware
server.
2. In the vSphere Client navigation tree, right-click the virtual machine and select Edit
Settings.
3. In the Virtual Machine Properties window, on the Hardware tab, select a network
adapter.
See “Associations between network adapters and interfaces” above to determine
which network adapter to select, based on the interface whose virtual network you
want to remap.
4. In the Network Connection section, in the Network label list, select the virtual
network to which you want to map the source network.
5. In the Virtual Machine Properties window, click OK.
This section describes how to use cloud-init to initialize a vAED on supported hypervisors
the first time that you start the system.
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
After you create a user data file, you create a data source that vAED supports. Cloud-init
uses the data source to pass the configuration settings in the user data file to vAED.
You can use an orchestration environment such as OpenStack to create the data source.
You also can use the NoCloud data source, which does not require an orchestration
environment. See “Using Cloud-Init with an Orchestration Environment” on page 43 and
“Using Cloud-Init without an Orchestration Environment” on page 44.
Requirements
To use cloud-init to initialize vAED, ensure that you meet the requirements for installing
and running vAED on a supported hypervisor. See “Preparing to Install vAED on VMware”
on page 26 and “Preparing to Install vAED on KVM” on page 17
For information about data sources, see “Supported cloud-init data sources” below.
In the user data file, you can include any of the AED CLI commands. For example, you can
use CLI commands in the user data file to perform the following actions:
n Add a password for the system administrator
n Add user accounts and passwords
n Add SSH keys
n Create API tokens
n Set the IP access rules
n Set the deployment mode
n Assign IP addresses to the protection interfaces and configure routes
n Configure the protection ports
n Start AED services
The data sources that vAED supports, in the order in which cloud-init searches for them,
are as follows:
Supported data sources
ConfigDrive Mounts a file system when you start vAED. Cloud-init finds the
mounted drive and uses the configuration settings on the drive to
initialize vAED. You configure the ConfigDrive data source in the
OpenStack orchestration environment.
For instructions on how to create the drive and attach it to vAED,
see the OpenStack documentation: http://docs.openstack.org/
In addition to the keys in the supported modules, vAED supports the fqdn and final_
message keys. See “About the fqdn key and final_message key” on page 40.
You create the user data file in the YAML format, and save the file with a .yaml extension.
For information about the YAML format, see http://www.yaml.org/.
After you create a user data file, cloud-init uses a data source to pass the configuration
settings in the file to vAED. See “Supported cloud-init data sources” on page 35.
Module Purpose
users: To create user accounts on vAED.
In addition to the keys in the supported modules, vAED supports the following keys:
Additional keys
Key Purpose
fqdn: To specify a fully qualified domain name for vAED.
These modules and keys are optional, and you can add them to the YAML file in any
order.
Important
These modules are the only cloud-init modules that are supported in a user data file.
Key Description
name: Enter the name of the user account.
passwd: Enter a password hash for the user account. See “Creating a
password hash” on page 41.
n ddos_admin
n system_user
n system_none
Key Description
lock_passwd: Enter False for this command to allow the user to access
vAED. To lock access to the account, enter True for this
command.
ssh_authorized_ Add this section to define public SSH key pairs for the user.
keys: You can enter key pairs in the following forms:
n ssh-rsa publicKey
n ssh-dsa publicKey
The following example shows the keys in the users module that you can add to a user
data file:
#cloud-config
users:
- default
- name: user_1
priv: system_admin
passwd: passwordHash
lock_passwd: False
ssh_authorized_keys:
- ssh-rsa publicKey user@host
Command Description
n port number
n authentication method
Important
When you use cloud-init to initialize vAED, DHCP is enabled by default for management
port mgt0 only.
The following example shows how to use CLI commands in the comsh module:
#cloud-config
comsh:
- ip access add http all 192.0.2.0/24
- ip access add https all 192.0.2.0/24
- ip access add ping all 192.0.2.0/24
- ip access add ping all 198.51.100.0/24
- ip access add ssh all 192.0.2.0/24
- ip access add ssh all 198.51.100.0/24
- ip access commit
- services aaa local password admin encrypted 'passwordHash'
- services aaa local add user_2 ddos_admin encrypted 'passwordHash'
- services aaa local apitoken generate api token for user_2
- services ssh key generate
- services ssh start
- services start - license --license-server-id 12345678901 --mbps
1000 --aif-level Advanced
- config write
Use the fqdn key to specify a fully qualified domain name for vAED. For example: fqdn:
myhost.example.com
Use the final_message key to display a message that appears after the cloud-init process
is complete. This message appears in the orchestration environment console and in the
cloud-init log. See “Viewing the Cloud-Init Log” on page 47.
#!/usr/bin/env python
from __future_ _ import print_ function
import sys
# Using bcrypt
# https://pypi.python.org/pypi/bcrypt
from bcrypt import gensalt
from bcrypt import hashpw
# Generate a hash for each argument passed in.
for pw in sys.argv [1:]:
# Explicitly using 12 rounds.
salt = gensalt (prefix=b"2a")
print("{0}:\t {1}".format (pw, hashpw (pw.encode ('utf- 8'), salt).decode ("utf- 8")))
This user data file sets the deployment mode to layer 3 (Inline Routed).
Important
The user data file that the None/Fallback data source uses does not start AED services.
You must change the default password on vAED before you can start SSH and AED
services.
For information about creating a user data file and data sources, see “Creating a User
Data File for cloud-init” on page 37 and “Supported cloud-init data sources” on page 35.
For information about the hypervisors that vAED supports, see the AED Release Notes.
Note
You also can use cloud-init without an orchestration environment. See “Using Cloud-Init
without an Orchestration Environment” on the next page.
After you use cloud-init to initialize vAED, you can view the cloud-init log. See “Viewing the
Cloud-Init Log” on page 47.
For an overview of data sources, see “Supported cloud-init data sources” on page 35.
The disk image requires a metadata file, but the metadata file can be empty. For
information about the metadata file, see the cloud-init documentation at
https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
1. Create the user data file, and name the file user-data.
See “Creating a User Data File for cloud-init” on page 37.
2. Create the metadata file and name the file meta-data. This file can be empty, but
you must include a metadata file in the disk image.
3. Save the user-data file and the meta-data file in the same folder.
4. At the same level as the folder in which you saved the files, enter $ genisoimage -
output seed.iso -volid cidata -joliet -rock user-data meta-data
This command creates a disk image for an ISO 9660 file system or a VFAT file system
with the system label cidata.
Note
This command is for use with a Linux operating system. If you use a different
operating system, then see the operating system documentation for the correct
command.
Command Description
--disk path=filepath/filename.iso, device=cd- Specifies the path and file name of the
rom,perfs=ro NoCloud disk image that contains the
user-data file and the meta-data file.
See “Creating a disk image for the
NoCloud data source” on the previous
page.
After cloud-init executes the commands, you should see the following output, which
indicates that the virtual machine is running:
# virt-install --connect qemu:///system --name <vm-hostname> -r 6144 --
vcpus=2,sockets=1,cores=2,maxvcpus=2 --arch=x86_64 --import --os-type
linux --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/Arbor-vaed-#.#.#-
xxxx.qcow2,bus=virtio,size=100,format=qcow2 --disk
path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/filename.iso,device=cdrom,perms=ro --
network bridge=vmbr0,model=virtio --network bridge=vmbr1,model=virtio -
-network bridge=vmbr3,model=virtio --network bridge=vmbr4,model=virtio
--vnc --noautoconsole
7. In the Upload Items window, select the disk image file (.iso) and click Open. If an
upload warning message appears, then click Yes to continue.
8. In the left navigation pane, expand the host server section in which the vAED resides.
9. Under the host server name, right-click the vAED name and click Edit Settings.
10. In the Virtual Machine Properties window, select the Hardware tab and click Add.
11. In the Add Hardware wizard, on the Device Type page, select CD/DVD Drive, and then
click Next.
12. On the CD/DVD Media Type page, select the Use ISO Image option, and then click
Next.
13. On the Select ISO Image page, click Browse, and then select your NoCloud disk image.
14. Select the Connect at power on option, and then click Next.
15. In the Virtual Device Node box, select IDE (1:0), and then click Next.
16. On the Ready to Complete page, click Finish
17. To save your settings and close the Virtual Machine Properties window, click OK.
1. Log in to the CLI with your administrator user name and password.
2. Use one of the following commands to view the cloud-init log:
n To view the entire log, enter / services log view cloud-init-output.log
n To view only vAED information in the log, enter / services log view cloud-
init-output.log tail #
# = (Optional) The number of lines of text that you want to view. If you do not
specify a number, this command displays a maximum of 10 lines.
An example of the information that might appear in the cloud-init log is as
follows:
################################################################
##
Local users:
admin system_admin Password set
user1 system_admin Password set
user2 system_user Password set
Apitokens:
user1:
apiToken# apitoken for user1
user2:
apiToken# apitoken for user2
Management IP:
Inet: 198.51.100.8
Inet6: 2001:DB8::2
System name:
vaed_1
################################################################
##
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
Without a valid license in layer 3 mode, vAED does not pass traffic or process mitigations.
You configure the cloud-based licenses on the Licenses page (Administration >
Licenses). See “Configuring Cloud-Based Licenses” on page 52.
On each vAED, you connect to the license server and request a portion of the total
licensed throughput, which the server allocates. The license information on a specific
vAED is referred to as the local license.
When you purchase an AIF subscription, you can configure access to a cloud-based AIF
license that corresponds to the subscription level (Standard or Advanced). The
subscription level determines which components of the AIF are included when you
receive AIF updates.
Because you do not need to download and install a license file, you can change and
upgrade your deployment’s capabilities and capacities easily. You can add multiple
licenses to the cloud-based license server to reach the desired throughput for a
deployment.
vAED requires contact with the cloud-based license server to function correctly. vAED
communicates with the license server every 24 hours to refresh the local license
information.
When you change your licenses in any way, the updated capabilities or capacities are
applied to your deployment during the refresh. You also can force a license refresh.
On the Licenses page, the Expiration fields display the dates on which the licenses expire
on the cloud-based license server. If the license server contains multiple licenses for a
capability, then the Expiration field reflects the first date on which a licensed capability
expires. After a license expires, the Expiration field reflects the next date on which a
license for that capability expires.
If no licenses for a capability are available on the license server, then the Expiration field is
cleared. If the local throughput licenses expire, then vAED does not pass traffic or process
mitigations.
Important
Before you decommission a vAED, release its local licenses. If you do not release the
licenses first, then the capacity that is assigned to the instance is unavailable until its
local licenses expire.
The licenses expire 10 days after you decommission the vAED. See “Releasing local
licenses” on page 55.
Method Description
expired, and the AIF level that is available after the expiration
date (Standard, Advanced, or None)
(Cloud-based licenses only) If a local license expires within the
next 9 days, then a message appears on the Licenses page, in the
Cloud-Based License Server section. This message provides the
following information:
n the date and time of the last successful refresh
n the date and time when the local license expires or expired
System alerts and If license issues occur, then alerts appear on the Summary page
notifications and System Alerts page. For example, a system alert is generated
when a license expires or when the amount of traffic that the
instance forwards exceeds 90 percent of its licensed limit. See
“Viewing Alerts” in the AED User Guide.
You can configure notifications to send messages when a license
alert occurs. License alerts are included when you configure
bandwidth notifications. See “Configuring Notifications” in the AED
User Guide.
Status messages Status messages indicate the result of an event: success, failure,
or already in progress. Any messages about problems that need
further action remain until the problem is resolved.
Status messages appear in the following locations on the Licenses
page:
n Messages that indicate the result of an event, such as a request
Capabilities section.
n (Cloud-based licenses only) Server connection issues appear in
Step Action
2 Request a local license for a throughput limit. This limit is the amount of clean
traffic that a vAED is licensed to forward.
Clean traffic refers to traffic that is not dropped by a protection setting.
See “Requesting a throughput limit” on the next page.
3 Request a local license for an AIF level. See “Requesting an AIF license” on
page 54.
4 (Optional) Refresh the local license information when needed. See “Refreshing
local license information” on page 54.
Step Action
2 Request a new throughput limit. This limit is the amount of clean traffic that a
vAED is licensed to forward. See “Requesting a throughput limit” on the next
page.
To change any of the license server settings that you configured previously, click
Edit.
3. Click Save.
Setting Description
Cloud-Based License Type the license server ID that you received after you
Server ID box purchased a cloud-based license.
Use Proxy Server check Select this check box to connect to the license server
box through a proxy server.
Proxy Server box Type the IP address or the hostname for the proxy server.
Port box Type the port number for the proxy server.
Proxy Username box If necessary, type the user name that is required to access
the proxy server.
Proxy Password box If necessary, type the password that is required to access
Verify box the proxy server, and then re-type the password to confirm
it. To delete an existing password and leave the password
empty, click (Clear Password).
n Basic
n Digest
n NTLM
You can request from 20 Mbps up to 1 Gbps. The amount of available throughput
depends on the throughput limit that you purchased.
3. Click a throughput rate: Mbps or Gbps.
4. Click Save.
If the cloud-based license server is processing a request from another user, then a
message notifies you that your request cannot be saved. When this message
disappears, click Save again.
The Throughput Limit for Clean Traffic field displays the throughput limit that was acquired.
If the throughput limit that you request is not available, then a message displays the
throughput limit that was acquired instead.
In this case, your original throughput request remains in the Requested Throughput
Limit box. If more throughput becomes available, then the vAED increases the
throughput, up to the requested amount.
To increase the throughput limit, you can purchase additional throughput licenses. You
also can reduce the throughput limit on other vAED instances that are connected to the
same license server.
If the license server cannot acquire the requested AIF level, then a message displays the
level that the vAED can acquire. The Current AIF Level field displays the AIF level that was
acquired or None, if no AIF license is available.
Your original AIF request remains in the Requested AIF Level field. This allows the vAED
to change to the requested level if it becomes available on the license server.
To obtain a different AIF level, you can purchase additional AIF licenses.
A refresh might take several minutes. If the vAED can communicate with the cloud-based
license server, then the Last Successful Refresh section of the Licenses page displays the
new date and time.
If the vAED cannot communicate with the license server, then a message notifies you that
the refresh was unsuccessful. In this situation, contact the Arbor Technical Assistance
Center (ATAC) at https://my.netscout.com.
You also can view information about the cloud-based license server.
Note
You also can access the Licenses page from any license limit alerts that might appear on
the Summary page and System Alerts page. If you are a system administrator, then a
(context menu) icon appears to the right of the alert name on these pages. The View
Limit option on this context menu opens the Licenses page.
Information Description
Throughput Limit The amount of clean traffic that the instance is licensed to
for Clean Traffic forward. Clean traffic refers to traffic that is not dropped by a
protection setting. See “About the throughput information on the
Licenses page” on page 58.
Expiration The first date on which a throughput license will expire on the
cloud-based license server. If no throughput license was
requested or if no throughput license is available, then this field is
empty. If the throughput license on the license server does not
have an expiration date, then this field shows No Expiration.
Current AIF Level The AIF level that is configured for your system (None, Standard, or
Advanced).
Requested AIF Level The AIF level that you requested. If the requested level is not
available, then this level differs from the Current AIF Level.
See “Requesting an AIF license” on page 54.
Information Description
Expiration The first date on which an AIF license will expire on the cloud-
based license server. If no AIF license level was requested or if no
AIF license is available, then this field is empty. If the AIF license
on the license server does not have an expiration date, then this
field shows No Expiration.
Information Description
Last Successful The last date on which vAED was able to connect to the cloud-
Refresh based license server, to refresh the local license information. If
vAED cannot connect to the license server, then a message
displays the amount of time, in days and hours, until the local
licenses expire.
Refresh Local Click this button to refresh the connection to the cloud-based
Copy of License license server. You might want to refresh the connection in the
following situations:
n after a network change occurs, to ensure that vAED still can
refresh to fail
See “Refreshing local license information” on page 54.
Cloud-Based License The ID of the cloud-based license server on which the licenses
Server ID reside.
Proxy Server, Port, If you configure a proxy server for the cloud-based license
Proxy Authentication server, then these fields show the IP address or hostname, port
Method number, and authentication method for the server.
Note
To view additional details about licenses, use the command line interface (CLI). See
“Viewing License Details in the CLI” on page 59.
You also can use this information to verify the success of an upgrade to a license that has
a higher throughput limit.
Below the graph, the Throughput Limit for Clean Traffic section indicates the amount of
throughput for which vAED is licensed. A black horizontal line identifies this limit on the
graph. This throughput limit is not absolute; it allows for a buffer that accommodates
occasional traffic spikes.
Note
If you restart your system, then the horizontal line might drop to zero. After the restart is
complete, the correct limit is restored.
vAED continues to forward clean traffic until the traffic exceeds the buffer. At that point,
vAED might start to drop clean traffic. The traffic segments in blue represent the clean
traffic that vAED forwarded. The traffic segments in red represent the clean traffic that
vAED dropped after the buffer was exceeded.
Field Description
License Name The licenses that are available on the cloud-based license server:
n AED.mbps – a license for the throughput limit
Field Description
Expires The date at which the licensed capability expires on the cloud-
based license server.
If the license does not have an expiration date, then permanent
appears instead of a date.
Total The combined throughput amount for all of the licenses on this
Throughput vAED.
Borrowed until The expiration date for a local cloud-based license. This
information appears only when you view a specific local license.
This section provides information about the vAED performance benchmark tests.
In this section
This section contains the following topics:
We configured the host server for the vAED benchmark tests as follows:
CPU configuration
Component Configuration
CPUs 4
RAM 12 GB
Test Setup
The test components consisted of an Ixia appliance and the device under test (DUT). The
DUT was vAED on VMware or KVM. The Ixia chassis was connected directly to the DUT
with no physical switch between the two devices. The physical cabling varied, based on
the DUT and the test that was being run.
Each vAED interface used its own virtual switch or Linux bridge, which was bound to a
physical interface on the host server. The virtual switches were not shared among vAED
virtual machines.
Throughput testing
The purpose of the inspection throughput metric is to establish and illustrate the
maximum traffic throughput that the vAED can inspect.
Note
This test differs from a pure network throughput test, in which the raw packet handling
capacity is determined without inspection.
Latency testing
Traffic delays can trigger timeout conditions, which may cause critical applications to fail.
In some cases, time-to-live values may cause traffic to be re-sent, which can make traffic
problems worse. For these reasons, latency is an important consideration for an inline
network security device.
Note
Latency can vary due to the hardware configuration of the virtual machine’s host server
and the number of virtual machines that the server is hosting.
Note
We incorporated latency improvement measures during the installation process.
The performance benchmark results for VMware on a host server with 4 CPUs are as
follows:
VMware results
B E
benchmark testing 62 expiration, licenses
bypass, software 14 cloud-based licenses 50
messages 51
C viewing 56
cloud-based license
srequesting throughput limit 53 F
cloud-based license server flexible license
communications 49 viewing 56, 59
configuring access for AED 52
configuring access for vAED 52 H
proxy server 53
hardware requirements for vAED 10
viewing information 57
cloud-based licenses
about 49 I
configuring 52 inspected throughput
expiration 50 limits, viewing for local license 56
expiration messages 51 installation
local licenses, viewing 59 vAED on KVM virtual machine 17, 21
refreshing local copies 54 vAED on VMware 26, 30
releasing 55 interfaces
status 51 vAED 9
throughput, viewing 56 interfaces, protection
viewing 56 configuring 12
viewing details in the CLI 59 IP addresses 12
Cloud-Init IP addresses
about 35, 43-44, 47 protection interfaces 12
K O
KVM overview of vAED 9
using QEMU guest agent with 22
KVM virtual machine P
configuring network bridges 19
password hash for Cloud-Init 41
installing vAED on 17, 21
performance benchmarks 62
performance benchmarks 64
KVM virtual machine 64
VMware virtual machine 64
L protection interfaces
layer 3 mode configuring 12
about 11 IP addresses 12
deleting 13 proxy server
deleting settings and routes 13 cloud-based license server 53
license
cloud-based licenses 49 Q
expiration 50
QEMU guest agent, using with KVM 22
expiration messages 51
expiration, viewing 56
refreshing local copies 54 R
status 51, 56 routes
throughput, viewing 56 deleting for layer 3 13
viewing 56
viewing details in the CLI 59 S
license server server, license
about 49 about 49
communications 49 software bypass 9, 14
configuring access for AED 52 status
configuring access for vAED 52 cloud-based license 51
configuring access for vAED 52 support, contacting 7
proxy server 53 syntax, commands 6
viewing information 57
license, ATLAS Intelligence Feed (AIF)
expiration messages 51
T
requesting 54 throughput
viewing 56 limits, viewing for local license 56
viewing details in the CLI 59 viewing licensed amount 56
license, local throughput limit
viewing information 56 requesting 53
viewing throughput limit 56 typographic conventions
Licenses page commands 6
configuring cloud-based licenses 52
viewing license information 56 U
licensing 52 user data file
limits creating for Cloud-Init 37, 42
throughput, viewing for local license 56 password hash 41
local license supported Cloud-Init modules 38
releasing 55 user data file for Cloud-Init 35
user input, syntax 6
N
network bridges
configuring for KVM virtual machine 19
V
vAED
about 9
accessing 15
configuring VMware virtual network 28
CPU instruction sets 10
hardware requirements 10
initializing with Cloud-Init 35
installation on KVM virtual machine 17, 21
installation on VMware 26, 30
performance benchmarks 62
supported interfaces 9
VMware virtual network configuration 33
vAED license
local licenses, viewing 59
virtual machine (vAED)
about 9
Also see vAED 9
installing on KVM 17
installing on VMware 26, 30
VMware
installing vAED on 26, 30
performance benchmarks 64
remapping virtual networks 33
requirements for virtual network 28
You can read the complete end user license agreement online at
https://www.netscout.com/sites/default/files/2018-06/NetScout-Systems-End-User-
Product-License-Agreement.pdf.