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NVIDIA NetQ

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Set Up Your VMware Virtual Machine for an On-premises Server Cluster

First configure the VM on the master node, and then configure the VM on each worker node.

Follow these steps to setup and configure your VM cluster for an on-premises deployment:

  1. Verify that your master node meets the VM requirements.

    Resource Minimum Requirements
    ProcessorEight (8) virtual CPUs
    Memory64 GB RAM
    Local disk storage256 GB SSD with minimum disk IOPS of 1000 for a standard 4kb block size
    (Note: This must be an SSD; use of other storage options can lead to system instability and are not supported.)
    Network interface speed 1 Gb NIC
    HypervisorVMware ESXi™ 6.5 or later (OVA image) for servers running Cumulus Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, and RedHat operating systems

  2. Confirm that the needed ports are open for communications.

    You must open the following ports on your NetQ on-premises servers:
    Port or Protocol Number Protocol Component Access
    4 IP Protocol Calico networking (IP-in-IP Protocol)
    22 TCP SSH
    80 TCP Nginx
    179 TCP Calico networking (BGP)
    443 TCP NetQ UI
    2379 TCP etcd datastore
    4789 UDP Calico networking (VxLAN)
    5000 TCP Docker registry
    6443 TCP kube-apiserver
    30001 TCP DPU communication
    31980 TCP NetQ Agent communication
    31982 TCP NetQ Agent SSL communication
    32708 TCP API Gateway
    Additionally, for internal cluster communication, you must open these ports:
    Port Protocol Component Access
    8080 TCP Admin API
    5000 TCP Docker registry
    6443 TCP Kubernetes API server
    10250 TCP kubelet health probe
    2379 TCP etcd
    2380 TCP etcd
    7072 TCP Kafka JMX monitoring
    9092 TCP Kafka client
    7071 TCP Cassandra JMX monitoring
    7000 TCP Cassandra cluster communication
    9042 TCP Cassandra client
    7073 TCP Zookeeper JMX monitoring
    2888 TCP Zookeeper cluster communication
    3888 TCP Zookeeper cluster communication
    2181 TCP Zookeeper client
    36443 TCP Kubernetes control plane

  3. Download the NetQ Platform image.

    1. On the NVIDIA Application Hub, log in to your account.
    2. Select NVIDIA Licensing Portal.
    3. Select Software Downloads from the menu.
    4. Click Product Family and select NetQ.
    5. Locate the NetQ SW 4.1 VMWare image and select Download.
    6. If prompted, agree to the license agreement and proceed with the download.

    For enterprise customers, if you do not see a link to the NVIDIA Licensing Portal on the NVIDIA Application Hub, contact NVIDIA support.


    For NVIDIA employees, download NetQ directly from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal.

  4. Setup and configure your VM.

    VMware Example Configuration This example shows the VM setup process using an OVA file with VMware ESXi.

    1. Enter the address of the hardware in your browser.

    2. Log in to VMware using credentials with root access.

    3. Click Storage in the Navigator to verify you have an SSD installed.

    4. Click Create/Register VM at the top of the right pane.

    5. Select Deploy a virtual machine from an OVF or OVA file, and click Next.

    6. Provide a name for the VM, for example NetQ.

      Tip: Make note of the name used during install as this is needed in a later step.

    7. Drag and drop the NetQ Platform image file you downloaded in Step 1 above.

    8. Click Next.

    9. Select the storage type and data store for the image to use, then click Next. In this example, only one is available.

    10. Accept the default deployment options or modify them according to your network needs. Click Next when you are finished.

    11. Review the configuration summary. Click Back to change any of the settings, or click Finish to continue with the creation of the VM.

      The progress of the request is shown in the Recent Tasks window at the bottom of the application. This may take some time, so continue with your other work until the upload finishes.

    12. Once completed, view the full details of the VM and hardware.

  5. Log in to the VM and change the password.

    Use the default credentials to log in the first time:

    • Username: cumulus
    • Password: cumulus
    $ ssh cumulus@<ipaddr>
Warning: Permanently added '<ipaddr>' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
cumulus@<ipaddr>'s password:
You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
System information as of Thu Dec  3 21:35:42 UTC 2020
System load:  0.09              Processes:           120
Usage of /:   8.1% of 61.86GB   Users logged in:     0
Memory usage: 5%                IP address for eth0: <ipaddr>
Swap usage:   0%
WARNING: Your password has expired.
You must change your password now and login again!
Changing password for cumulus.
(current) UNIX password: cumulus
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
Connection to <ipaddr> closed.

    Log in again with your new password.

    $ ssh cumulus@<ipaddr>
Warning: Permanently added '<ipaddr>' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
cumulus@<ipaddr>'s password:
  System information as of Thu Dec  3 21:35:59 UTC 2020
  System load:  0.07              Processes:           121
  Usage of /:   8.1% of 61.86GB   Users logged in:     0
  Memory usage: 5%                IP address for eth0: <ipaddr>
  Swap usage:   0%
Last login: Thu Dec  3 21:35:43 2020 from <local-ipaddr>
cumulus@ubuntu:~$

  6. Verify the master node is ready for installation. Fix any errors indicated before installing the NetQ software.

    cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo opta-check

  7. Change the hostname for the VM from the default value.

    The default hostname for the NetQ Virtual Machines is ubuntu. Change the hostname to fit your naming conventions while meeting Internet and Kubernetes naming standards.

    Kubernetes requires that hostnames are composed of a sequence of labels concatenated with dots. For example, “en.wikipedia.org” is a hostname. Each label must be from 1 to 63 characters long. The entire hostname, including the delimiting dots, has a maximum of 253 ASCII characters.

    The Internet standards (RFCs) for protocols specify that labels may contain only the ASCII letters a through z (in lower case), the digits 0 through 9, and the hyphen-minus character ('-').

    Use the following command:

    cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname NEW_HOSTNAME

    Add the same NEW_HOSTNAME value to /etc/hosts on your VM for the localhost entry. Example:

    127.0.0.1 localhost NEW_HOSTNAME

  8. Run the Bootstrap CLI. Be sure to replace the eth0 interface used in this example with the interface on the server used to listen for NetQ Agents.

    cumulus@:~$ netq bootstrap master interface eth0 tarball /mnt/installables/netq-bootstrap-4.1.0.tgz

    Allow about five to ten minutes for this to complete, and only then continue to the next step.

    If this step fails for any reason, you can run netq bootstrap reset [purge-db|keep-db] and then try again.

    If you have changed the IP address or hostname of the NetQ On-premises VM after this step, you need to re-register this address with NetQ as follows:

    Reset the VM, indicating whether you want to purge any NetQ DB data or keep it.

    cumulus@hostname:~$ netq bootstrap reset [purge-db|keep-db]

    Re-run the Bootstrap CLI. This example uses interface eth0. Replace this with your updated IP address, hostname or interface using the interface or ip-addr option.

    cumulus@:~$ netq bootstrap master interface eth0 tarball /mnt/installables/netq-bootstrap-4.1.0.tgz

  9. Consider the following for container environments, and make adjustments as needed.

    Flannel Virtual Networks

    If you are using Flannel with a container environment on your network, you may need to change its default IP address ranges if they conflict with other addresses on your network. This can only be done one time during the first installation.

    The address range is 10.244.0.0/16. NetQ overrides the original Flannel default, which is 10.1.0.0/16.

    To change the default address range, use the CLI with the pod-ip-range option. For example:

    cumulus@hostname:~$ netq bootstrap master interface eth0 tarball /mnt/installables/netq-bootstrap-4.1.0.tgz pod-ip-range 10.255.0.0/16
    Docker Default Bridge Interface

    The default Docker bridge interface is disabled in NetQ. If you need to reenable the interface, contact support.

  10. Verify that your first worker node meets the VM requirements, as described in Step 1.

  11. Confirm that the needed ports are open for communications, as described in Step 2.

  12. Open your hypervisor and set up the VM in the same manner as for the master node.

    Make a note of the private IP address you assign to the worker node. You need it for later installation steps.

  13. Verify the worker node is ready for installation. Fix any errors indicated before installing the NetQ software.

    cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo opta-check-cloud

  14. Run the Bootstrap CLI on the worker node.

    cumulus@:~$ netq bootstrap worker tarball /mnt/installables/netq-bootstrap-4.0.0.tgz master-ip <master-ip>

    Provide a password using the password option if required. Allow about five to ten minutes for this to complete, and only then continue to the next step.

    If this step fails for any reason, you can run netq bootstrap reset [purge-db|keep-db] on the new worker node and then try again.

  15. Repeat Steps 10 through 14 for each additional worker node you want in your cluster.

The final step is to install and activate the NetQ software. You can do this using the Admin UI or the CLI.

Click the installation and activation method you want to use to complete installation:

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