Deploy the ExtraHop Command Appliance with VMware
The ExtraHop Command appliance (ECA) is a virtual appliance that provides centralized management and reporting across multiple ExtraHop appliances distributed across datacenters, branch offices, and the public cloud. For most large ExtraHop deployments, a dedicated ECA is the most efficient way to manage and report across the remote nodes.
The following procedures explain how to deploy an ExtraHop Command appliance with the vSphere client running on a Windows machine. You must have experience administering your VMware ESX and ESXi environments to complete these procedures.
Virtual machine requirements
You must have an existing installation of VMware ESX/ESXi server version 5.5 or later capable of hosting the Command virtual appliance. In addition, you need a vSphere client to deploy the OVF file and to manage the virtual machine.
The ECA is distributed as an OVA package that includes a preconfigured virtual machine (VM) with a 64-bit, Linux-based OS that is optimized to work with VMware ESX and ESXi version 5.5 and later.
- 2 CPUs
- 4 GB RAM
- One 4 GB disk
- One 40 GB disk
- One bridged network interface
Note: | You might need to adjust the preconfigured virtual appliance to scale to your environment. For more information, see the Performance guidelines section. |
The following ESX/ESXi server hardware is required:
- Processor
- One Intel processing core with hyper-threading support, VT-x technology, and a processing speed of 2.5 GHz or higher
- Memory
- 4 GB or higher
- Disk
- 44 GB or higher
- Network
- One 1 Gbps Ethernet network port
- Place in network
- Near one of the managed ExtraHop appliances, but accessible on port 443 to all managed ExtraHop appliances
Performance guidelines
The following table provides guidelines that can help you optimize the performance of the Command appliance. These guidelines are minimum requirements that you might need to adjust based on the size and needs of your environment.
Scalability | Discover Appliances | 1-4 | 5-16 | 17-64 | 65 or more |
Provisioning Requirements | CPU Cores | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 16 GB | 24 GB | |
Boot Disk | 4 GB | ||||
Datastore Disk | 32 GB + (Size of RAM x 2) For example, if you provision the appliance with 16 GB of RAM, the disk requirement is 64 GB. |
||||
Disk Total | 36 GB + (Size of RAM x 2) |
Deploy the Command appliance
Before you begin
If you have not already done so, download the ExtraHop Command appliance firmware file for VMware from the ExtraHop Customer Portal(Optional) Configure a static IP address through the CLI
The ExtraHop appliance is delivered with DHCP enabled. If your network does not support DHCP, no IP address is acquired, and you must configure a static address manually. To configure a static IP address, complete the following steps.
- Establish a console connection to the ExtraHop appliance.
- At the login prompt, type shell and then press ENTER.
- At the password prompt, type default, and then press ENTER.
-
To configure the static IP address, run the following commands:
Register the ExtraHop appliance
Complete the following steps to apply a product key supplied by ExtraHop Support.
Tip: | To verify that your environment can
resolve DNS entries for the ExtraHop licensing server, open a terminal application
on your Windows, Linux, or Mac OS client and run the following
command:nslookup -type=NS d.extrahop.com If the name
resolution is successful, output similar to the following
appears:
Non-authoritative answer: d.extrahop.com nameserver = ns0.use.d.extrahop.com. d.extrahop.com nameserver = ns0.usw.d.extrahop.com. |
- In your browser, type the URL of the ExtraHop Admin UI, https://<extrahop_ip_address>/admin.
- Review the license agreement, select I Agree, and then click Submit.
- On the login screen, type setup for the username.
-
For the password, select from the following options:
- For 1U and 2U appliances, type the service tag number found on the pullout tab on the front of the appliance.
- For the EDA 1100, type the serial number displayed in the Appliance info section of the LCD menu. The serial number is also printed on the bottom of the appliance.
- For a virtual appliance, type default.
- Click Log In.
- In the Appliance Settings section, click License.
- Click Manage License.
- Click Register.
- Enter the product key and then click Register.
- Click Done.
Post-deployment actions
- Connect your Discover appliances. See the ExtraHop Command settings section in the ExtraHop Admin UI Guide.
- Add your Explore appliances. See the Configure an Explore cluster section in the ExtraHop Admin UI Guide.
- Review the Discover and Command Post-deployment Checklist and configure additional Command settings.
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