Install a NetQ On-premises Appliance Cluster

This topic describes how to prepare your cluster of NetQ On-premises Appliances for installation of the NetQ Platform software.

Each system shipped to you contains:

Your NVIDIA NetQ On-premises Appliance (a Supermicro 6019P-WTR server)
Hardware accessories, such as power cables and rack mounting gear (note that network cables and optics ship separately)
Information regarding your order

For more detail about hardware specifications (including LED layouts and FRUs like the power supply or fans, and accessories like included cables) or safety and environmental information, refer to the user manual and quick reference guide.

Install Each Appliance

After you unbox the appliance:

Mount the appliance in the rack.
Connect it to power following the procedures described in your appliance's user manual.
Connect the Ethernet cable to the 1G management port (eno1).
Power on the appliance.

If your network runs DHCP, you can configure NetQ over the network. If DHCP is not enabled, then you configure the appliance using the console cable provided.

Configure the Password, Hostname, and IP Address

Change the password and specify the hostname and IP address for each appliance before installing the NetQ software.

Log in to the appliance that you intend to use as your master node using the default login credentials:
- Username: cumulus
- Password: cumulus

Change the password using the passwd command:

cumulus@hostname:~$ passwd
Changing password for cumulus.
(current) UNIX password: cumulus
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

The default hostname for the NetQ On-premises Appliance is netq-appliance. Change the hostname to fit your naming conventions while meeting Internet and Kubernetes naming standards.

Kubernetes requires that hostnames comprise 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 can 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
```
Identify the IP address.

The appliance contains two Ethernet ports. It uses port eno1 for out-of-band management. This is where NetQ Agents should send the telemetry data collected from your monitored switches and hosts. By default, eno1 uses DHCPv4 to get its IP address. You can view the assigned IP address using the following command:
```
cumulus@hostname:~$ ip -4 -brief addr show eno1
eno1             UP             10.20.16.248/24
```
Alternately, you can configure the interface with a static IP address by editing the /etc/netplan/01-ethernet.yaml Ubuntu Netplan configuration file.

For example, to set your network interface eno1 to a static IP address of 192.168.1.222 with gateway 192.168.1.1 and DNS server as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4:
```
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# For more information, see netplan(5).
network:
    version: 2
    renderer: networkd
    ethernets:
        eno1:
            dhcp4: no
            addresses: [192.168.1.222/24]
            gateway4: 192.168.1.1
            nameservers:
                addresses: [8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4]
```
Apply the settings.
```
cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo netplan apply
```
Repeat these steps for each of the worker node appliances.

Verify NetQ Software and Appliance Readiness

Now that the appliances are up and running, verify that the software is available and the appliance is ready for installation.

On the master node, verify that the needed packages are present and of the correct release, version 4.5.

cumulus@hostname:~$ dpkg -l | grep netq
ii  netq-agent   4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Telemetry Agent for Ubuntu
ii  netq-apps    4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Fabric Validation Application for Ubuntu

Verify the installation images are present and of the correct release, version 4.5.

cumulus@hostname:~$ cd /mnt/installables/
cumulus@hostname:/mnt/installables$ ls
NetQ-4.5.0.tgz

Verify the master node is ready for installation. Fix any errors indicated before installing the NetQ software.
```
cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo opta-check
```

On one or your worker nodes, verify that the needed packages are present and of the correct release, version 4.5 and update 38 or later.

cumulus@hostname:~$ dpkg -l | grep netq
ii  netq-agent   4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Telemetry Agent for Ubuntu
ii  netq-apps    4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Fabric Validation Application for Ubuntu

Configure the IP address, hostname, and password using the same steps as for the master node. Refer to Configure the Password, Hostname and IP Address.

Make a note of the private IP addresses you assign to the master and worker nodes. You need them for later installation steps.

Verify that the needed packages are present and of the correct release, version 4.5 and update 38.

cumulus@hostname:~$ dpkg -l | grep netq
ii  netq-agent   4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Telemetry Agent for Ubuntu
ii  netq-apps    4.5.0-ub20.04u41~1677251815.f5b57862_amd64  Cumulus NetQ Fabric Validation Application for Ubuntu

Verify that the needed files are present and of the correct release.

cumulus@hostname:~$ cd /mnt/installables/
cumulus@hostname:/mnt/installables$ ls
NetQ-4.5.0.tgz

Verify the appliance is ready for installation. Fix any errors indicated before installing the NetQ software.
```
cumulus@hostname:~$ sudo opta-check
```
Repeat Steps 4-9 for each additional worker node (NetQ On-premises Appliance).
The final step is to install and activate the NetQ software using the CLI:

Run the following command on your master node to initialize the cluster. Copy the output of the command to use on your worker nodes:

cumulus@<hostname>:~$ netq install cluster master-init
    Please run the following command on all worker nodes:
    netq install cluster worker-init c3NoLXJzYSBBQUFBQjNOemFDMXljMkVBQUFBREFRQUJBQUFCQVFDM2NjTTZPdVVUWWJ5c2Q3NlJ4SHdseHBsOHQ4N2VMRWVGR05LSWFWVnVNcy94OEE4RFNMQVhKOHVKRjVLUXBnVjdKM2lnMGJpL2hDMVhmSVVjU3l3ZmhvVDVZM3dQN1oySVZVT29ZTi8vR1lOek5nVlNocWZQMDNDRW0xNnNmSzVvUWRQTzQzRFhxQ3NjbndIT3dwZmhRYy9MWTU1a

Run the netq install cluster worker-init <ssh-key> on each of your worker nodes.

Run the following commands on your master node, using the IP addresses of your worker nodes:

cumulus@<hostname>:~$ netq install cluster full interface eth0 bundle /mnt/installables/NetQ-4.5.0.tgz workers <worker-1-ip> <worker-2-ip>

You can specify the IP address instead of the interface name here: use ip-addr <IP address> in place of interface <ifname> above.

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 install CLI on the appliance. This example uses interface eno1. Replace this with your updated IP address, hostname or interface using the interface or ip-addr option.

cumulus@hostname:~$ netq install standalone full interface eno1 bundle /mnt/installables/NetQ-4.5.0.tgz

If this step fails for any reason, you can run netq bootstrap reset and then try again.

Verify Installation Status

To view the status of the installation, use the netq show status [verbose] command. The following example shows a successful on-premises installation:

State: Active
    Version: 4.5.0
    Installer Version: 4.5.0
    Installation Type: Standalone
    Activation Key: PKrgipMGEhVuZXRxLWVuZHBvaW50LWdhdGV3YXkYsagDIixUQmFLTUhzZU80RUdTL3pOT01uQ2lnRnrrUhTbXNPUGRXdnUwTVo5SEpBPTIHZGVmYXVsdDoHbmV0cWRldgz=
    Master SSH Public Key: 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
    Is Cloud: False
    
    Cluster Status:
    IP Address     Hostname       Role    Status
    -------------  -------------  ------  --------
    10.188.44.147  10.188.44.147  Role    Ready
    
    NetQ... Active

Run the netq show opta-health command to verify all applications are operating properly. Allow 10-15 minutes for all applications to come up and report their status.

cumulus@hostname:~$ netq show opta-health
    Application                                            Status    Namespace      Restarts    Timestamp
    -----------------------------------------------------  --------  -------------  ----------  ------------------------
    cassandra-rc-0-w7h4z                                   READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    cp-schema-registry-deploy-6bf5cbc8cc-vwcsx             READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    kafka-broker-rc-0-p9r2l                                READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    kafka-connect-deploy-7799bcb7b4-xdm5l                  READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-api-gateway-deploy-55996ff7c8-w4hrs               READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-app-address-deploy-66776ccc67-phpqk               READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-app-admin-oob-mgmt-server                         READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-app-bgp-deploy-7dd4c9d45b-j9bfr                   READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-app-clagsession-deploy-69564895b4-qhcpr           READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    netq-app-configdiff-deploy-ff54c4cc4-7rz66             READY     default        0           Fri Apr 10 16:08:38 2020
    ...

If any of the applications or services display Status as DOWN after 30 minutes, open a support ticket and attach the output of the opta-support command.

After NetQ is installed, you can log in to NetQ from your browser.