Installation and Upgrade Guide

2.1 Overview

Fidelia NetVigil is a distributed application that has three basic components:

BVE Provisioning database
Web application (and report processing)
Data Gathering Elements (DGE pollers)

NetVigil System Components

Depending on the size of your network, you can install all of these components on a single server, or install each component on independent servers. You can start by installing all three components on the same machine. Alternately, you can install the provisioning database and web application on one server with the DGE on a separate physical server.

For distributed installations, you must configure the individual components separately instead of using the Quick-Install method (described in Chapter 3, "Configuration and Operations")

2.2 Supported Platforms

NetVigil is currently supported on the following platforms:

Windows 2000 (Professional and Server) and XP (Professional Only)
Solaris 2.6 and above on UltraSparc platforms.
RedHat Linux 7.1 and above on Intel x86 platforms. Other Linux distributions based on 2.2. and 2.4 kernel should work also, but they are not officially supported by Fidelia.

Note Linux kernel 2.2.14 has a bug in the I/O implementation and can cause database corruption. Please upgrade to Linux kernel 2.2.19 or higher.

When using multiple CPUs (SMP kernel), RedHat 7.3 is strongly recommended to avoid known bug in the LinuxThreads library. You can use uname -s -r to determine the kernel version.

2.3 Recommended Hardware

For a small setup (about 100 devices), the entire application can be installed and run from a single server.

Pentium 3 (600 Mhz), 256M memory, 9G disk

OR

Sun UltraSparc II, 256M memory, 9G disk

The system should have at least 2G of free disk space in one partition.

For better performance, adding memory is the most critical factor. SCSI drives are strongly recommended in large environments.

Note Some desktop class processors like the Celeron or SPARC-IIe, which have minimal onboard cache, are not suitable for a NetVigil installation.

2.3.1 Disk Space Requirements

The software installation (all platforms) requires 500M of disk space. If you distribute NetVigil components (provisioning database, Web server, and DGEs) across several hosts, each host must have 500M of available disk space.

The following directories, which are created when NetVigil is installed, have variable size requirements:

NETVIGIL_HOME/database, provisioning data

Allow 1 MB for every 1,000 tests.

NETVIGIL_HOME/database, DGE historical data

For instructions on calculating disk space requirements for a DGE database, see Section 6.1.4, "Disk Space Requirements for DGE Aggregation" on page 6-3.

NETVIGIL_HOME/logs

Allow 1GB of disk space for log files.

2.3.2 Sizing Considerations for Large Sites

Note The information that follows applies to sites with at least 30,000 - 50,000 tests.

For large installations with several thousand devices, it is recommended that an additional DGE (for monitoring) is added for every 1000-1500 devices. The actual capacity depends on the number of tests on each device since a server might only have 4-5 tests but a large switch with 500 ports can have 5000 tests (bytes, packets, errors). (If the queue sizes start backing up, a message is automatically logged to the error log). See Section 6.1.4, "Disk Space Requirements for DGE Aggregation" on page 6-3 for information on calculating the maximum size to which the DGE database will grow.

A sample DGE server configuration for a large installation would be:

Pentium 3 (800+ Mhz, possibly dual CPU), 1GB memory, 2x9G SCSI drives (or RAID-5/RAID-10)

The provisioning and webapp servers are not disk intensive, but do use the CPU intensively for processing and generating reports.

2.4 Additional Software Requirements

The following packages must be installed for proper operation of NetVigil:

Perl version 5.005 and above programming language/interpreter (available from www.perl.com) should be installed on Linux/Solaris platforms. A Perl interpreter is bundled with the Windows version and need not be pre-installed.

2.5 Recommended System Performance Tuning

You can increase performance by running a caching nameserver on the servers that run the DGE component.
On RedHat 7.x systems, file descriptors should be increased to 8192 by editing the following files:
Edit /etc/security/limits.conf, and add the lines:

			*       soft    nofile  8192 
			*       hard    nofile  8192 

Edit /etc/pam.d/login, and add:

		session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so 

Increase the system-wide file descriptor limit by adding the following three lines to the /etc/rc.d/rc.local startup script:

			# Increase system-wide file descriptor limit.
			echo  4096 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
			echo 16384 > /proc/sys/fs/inode-max 

On RedHat 7.x systems, if you are using IDE drives, you can increase I/O performance by turning on 32bit io, direct memory access and multi block reads using:

			hdparm -c1 -d1 -m16 /dev/hda 

Make sure to replace /dev/hda with the proper device name appropriate for your system. This command should be added to /etc/rc.local.

On Solaris systems, the following patch should be installed:

Solaris patches for NetVigil installation

Solaris Version	Patch Id	Note	Description
Solaris 7 (5.7)	106327-06	required	Shared library patch for C++
Solaris 2.6 (5.6)	105591-07	required	Shared library patch for C++

In addition, make sure the patches appropriate for your Solaris version listed at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/install-solaris-patches.html have been installed.

2.5.1 Security Issues

It is strongly recommended that all daemons not required on the servers running NetVigil be shutdown and disabled on startup (this includes telnet, ftp, etc.). All logins and file transfers should be done using 'ssh' or 'scp' into your servers. For advanced firewall rules, please see the Section 3.9, "Operating NetVigil Behind Firewalls" on page 3-21.

2.6 First-time Installation

For instructions on upgrading an existing installation, see Section 2.7, "Upgrading From Previous Versions" on page 2-9.

Note Make sure that there is no web server or database running on the NetVigil Server else you will get a port conflict and NetVigil will not start.

The NetVigil distribution for Linux/Solaris consists of two compressed archives (tar.gz) provided either on a CDROM or downloadable via HTTP/FTP:

netvigil-base-OS.tar.gz
netvigil-x.y.z-OS.tar.gz

Where x represents major, y is the minor version of the software, z is the maintenance release number and OS is the operating system. Example, netvigil-3.5-linux.tar.gz.

For Windows platforms, NetVigil is distributed as a single executable file.

In addition to the installation files, you need a license key. This can be either a limited-time trial key, or a permanent key based on the terms of your purchase.

2.6.1 Planning Checklist

Prior to your install, you should ensure that you have complete information about your IT environment where NetVigil is being installed.

NetVigil Installation Checklist

Item	Notes
Number of geographical locations with significant concentration of devices:	Instead of geographical locations, can consider network topology instead. Put a DGE in each location with a concentration of devices, and for small remote locations, use a single centralized DGE
Number of devices to be monitored in each location:	This is for sizing the DGE at each location. Each DGE can handle 500-1500 devices on an average.
Any large switches, routers or servers in each location?	A large switch with 500 ports will have close to 3000 tests (6 tests per port) which is the same as the number of tests on 100 devices.
Number of departments accessing system:	You need to decide on the permissions each department will have- view only or full control. Will they own their device configuration and management in NetVigil or will a central department do it for them?
Any existing custom monitors that need to be migrated to NetVigil?	Use the various APIs to interface any custom monitoring scripts to NetVigil (see Advanced Development Guide).
Do you need to interface with any existing provisioning system?	When you add new devices on the network, do you have an existing inventory system which can be tied into NetVigil directly.

2.6.2 Linux & Solaris Installations

The table that follows lists the tasks that you must perform in order to install NetVigil on a Unix system, and the shell command corresponding to each task.

NetVigil Unix Installation Tasks

Installation Task	Shell Command
Change to a temporary location with at least 100 MB disk space	cd /var/tmp
Copy the downloaded archives to the temporary directory	cp /download/dir/netvigil-x.y.z- OS.tar.gz . cp /download/dir/netvigil-base- OS.tar.gz .
Extract the OS software package. Do not uncompress/extract the files within the base package netvigil-base-OS.tar.gz	gunzip -c netvigil-x.y.z-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
Change into the directory with newly extracted files. The package will be extracted into a directory named netvigil-x.y.z	cd netvigil-x.y.z
If you need to make any changes to the software license key, you should make them before running the installation script. If the terms of your license have changed (e.g. change in expiration date, number of devices, etc.), a new license file would be provided to you by Fidelia customer support. The new key should be saved into netvigil-x.y.z/etc/licenseKey.xml file, replacing any existing file.
Run the installation script (as root)	su root sh ./install.sh
The installation script will ask a series of questions to determine your requirements. When asked for the location of the base package, specify /var/tmp/netvigil-base.tar.gz. Once all necessary information has been collected, the software package will be installed under the specified directory and you are ready to start using NetVigil. This directory will have the following general layout:

2.6.3 Windows Installation

The Windows distribution consists of a single self-extracting archive:

netvigil-x.y.z-windows.exe
To begin installation:
Double-click on netvigil-x.y.z-windows.exe.
Provide answers to the requested information.
After the files have been copied and the installer has quit, reboot the machine (Start | Shutdown | Reboot).

Note You MUST reboot the machine before starting NetVigil.

2.7 Upgrading From Previous Versions

Before beginning the upgrade process from a previous version of NetVigil, you must ensure that you have a current and verified backup of your existing NetVigil installation available, so that you can recover from a failed upgrade. To accomplish this, you can simply make a copy of the <netvigil_directory>/database and <netvigil_directory>/mysql/data directories to a safe location. Once it has been verified that a backup exists, follow the method outlined in Section 2.6, "First-time Installation" on page 2-5 to install the new package. Make sure to specify the same locations as your existing NetVigil installation as the destination path, and answer y (or yes) when asked if you wish to preserve the existing database.

2.8 Quick Start

The following quick start steps will enable you to start using the NetVigil system immediately if all components are installed on a single server, and you don't have any other conflicting applications running on the host (such as another web server or SQL database). For a distributed installation (e.g. the DGE on a different physical server), please see Chapter 3, "Configuration and Operations" for proper configuration since this requires editing several configuration files.

The installation process creates default configuration files suitable to run all the NetVigil components on the same server. (For detailed information, see Section 3.4, "Configuration Files" on page 3-4.) The default database configuration will contain one DGE location named Default Location, one DGE component named localhost and a User-Class named Default User Group.

Make sure that your NetVigil license key is not expired (NETVIGIL_HOME/etc/licenseKey.xml), and you are not running any other web server on the NetVigil host which might prevent NetVigil's web service from starting up (on TCP port 80).
Start NetVigil components. On Linux/Solaris platform execute the commands
cd NETVIGIL_HOME;
etc/netvigil.init start

On Windows platforms select Start | Programs | Fidelia NetVigil | Start Fidelia NetVigil.

Check for proper operation of different components using the netvigil.init status command on Unix or looking at the output of net start | more on Windows platforms. (For additional information, see Section 3.3.3, "Verifying proper operation" on page 3-4.) The most common reason for not starting up is either the license is expired (you can get new evaluation license by E-mailing support@fidelia.com) or else some other web server is running and using the httpd port. If the components did not start, you will have to fix the cause and then restart NetVigil using netvigil.init restart
Use your web browser to connect to http://your_host/ where your_host is the fully qualified name or ip address of the server that the NetVigil web application component is running on.
Log into the website using end-user name localuser and the password localpassword
Populate the system with devices. The AutoDiscovery script (utils/runNetworkDiscover.sh for Unix, runNetworkDiscover.cmd for Windows) will automatically discover all devices and available tests on them, and create them with default thresholds. You need to edit the config files (probe_subnets.txt and probe_community.txt) before running the discovery program. (For additional information, see Section 3.5.1, "Device and Test AutoDiscovery" on page 3-12.)
Once you are comfortable with the operation of the Web Application as an end-user, you may login as superuser with password netvigil which will provide you with access to administrative interfaces that enable you to create additional Departments, groups, etc. For additional information on the Administrator and superuser roles, see Chapter 4, "Users and Departments".

2.9 What Next

The installation process creates default configuration files suitable to run all the NetVigil components on the same server. (For information on these configuration files, see Chapter 3, "Configuration and Operations".) The default database configuration will contain one DGE location named Default Location, one DGE component named localhost and a User-Class named Default User Group. It creates a default end-user called localuser with the password localpassword and a superuser login with password netvigil.

You must edit the following configuration parameters for your site:

DGE controller password (see Section 3.4.8, "DGE controller port/password" on page 3-8)
Mail Server (see Section 3.4.11, "E-mail servers" on page 3-10)

Scheduled tasks (cron jobs)

Note: This section is applicable to Linux and Solaris platforms only

There is a sample crontab file NETVIGIL_HOME/etc/crontab.netvigil that should be installed into all your servers. The file contains periodic maintenance tasks and ensure a smooth and trouble free operation of the NetVigil system. Depending on which components you are running on a particular host, you will need to uncomment (remove '#') appropriate sections of the file after you import it into root's crontab.