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Quickstart: Linux and other platforms

Overview

The data collected by the Netprobe depends on the plug-ins you choose to run. For most cases, the Netprobe needs to be installed onto the machine or server to be monitored.

This guide walks you through the full installation and setup of a Netprobe on the following platforms:

  • Linux
  • Linux on IBM POWER8
  • IBM AIX

To install and set up Netprobes in orchestrated environment, see Installation in a Kubernetes or OpenShift environment.

Prerequisites

Caution: Beginning Geneos version 5.0.0, this component is only compatible with other Geneos components that are version 3.6.0 or higher. For more information, see the Geneos Compatibility Matrix.

System requirements

The following table lays out the minimum requirements for machines running the Netprobe:

Specification Minimum requirement
CPU Multi-core
Memory 4 GB
NIC 100 Mbps
Disk 200 MB
Port

A port must be open on any system running a Netprobe.

The default Netprobe port is 7036. Each system should be visible to the Gateway.

For more information on supported Linux and other platforms, see the 5.x Compatibility Matrix.

Java requirements

Java may be required in order to run certain plug-ins. For more information, see Application and plug-in specific information in Geneos Compatibility Matrix.

Download the Netprobe files

On Linux platforms, you can install the Netprobe through the following:

  • Through an RPM package (geneos-netprobe-<version>.linux-x64.rpm), which you can deploy using YUM.
  • Through a tarball:
    • geneos-netprobe-<version>.linux-x64.tar.gz for Linux
    • geneos-netprobe-<version>.linux-ppc64le.tar.gz for Linux on IBM POWER8

On IBM AIX, you can install the Netprobe through a tarball:

  • geneos-netprobe-<version>.aix-ppc64.tar.gz

You can get the latest binaries from ITRS Downloads. For more information on what a download package includes, see Files included in the Netprobe package.

Install a new Netprobe

You can install a Netprobe in two ways:

Deploy the RPM package

Ubuntu

Below are the steps to deploy the Netprobe RPM package in Ubuntu.

  1. Generate .deb file.

    sudo alien <np rpm package name>.rpm

  2. Install the Netprobe.

    sudo dpkg -i <geneos-netprobe_5.10.0-2_amd64>.deb

    This installs the Netprobe on /opt/itrs/geneos.

  3. Run the Netprobe executable in the background.

    ./netprobe.linux_64 &

    This runs the Netprobe on its default port (7036) and prints its log entries on stdout.

Other Linux operating systems

Below are the steps to deploy the Netprobe RPM package in other Linux operating systems. You can opt to use YUM or a similar package manager to deploy the RPM package:

  1. Create or update the local YUM repository.
    2. [root@server1 ~]# mv <rpm-dir>/* <repo-dir>/
[root@server1 ~]# chown -R root.root <repo-dir>/
[root@server1 ~]# createrepo <repo-dir>/
[root@server1 ~]# chmod -R o-w+r <repo-dir>/

    The <rpm-dir> contains the RPM package to be added to the local YUM repository.

  2. Create or update the /etc/yum.repos.d/local/repo folder.
    3. [local]
name=<repo-name>
baseurl=file://<repo-dir>
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
  3. Install or upgrade the Netprobe.
    4. yum install geneos-netprobe
  4. Run the Netprobe executable in the background:
    5. ./netprobe.linux_64 &

    This runs the Netprobe on its default port (7036) and prints its log entries on stdout.

Note: If you want to run the Netprobe on a different port, customise its target Netprobe directory, as well as change other variables, see Netprobe variables.

You can also create and configure a start script to set Netprobe variables when you start the Netprobe. For guidance, see Start the Netprobe.

 

Success: The Netprobe is now running as a process. You may stop or start the Netprobe at any time.

If needed, you can uninstall the Netprobe using the following command:

yum remove geneos-netprobe

Unpack the tarball

  1. Download the tarball:
    • geneos-netprobe-<version>.linux-x64.tar.gz for Linux platforms
    • geneos-netprobe-<version>.linux-ppc64le.tar.gz for Linux on IBM POWER8
  2. Using the Linux console, unpack the tarball into your desired Netprobe working directory. For example:
    3. gunzip geneos-netprobe-5.0.x.linux-x64.tar.gz
tar -C /netprobe-directory -xvf geneos-netprobe-5.0.x.linux-x64.tar

    Note: Once the tarball is unpacked, it is no longer needed and can be deleted.

  3. Run the Netprobe executable in the background:
    4. ./netprobe.linux_64 &

    This runs the Netprobe on its default port (7036) and prints its log entries on stdout.

    Note: If you want to run the Netprobe on a different port, customise its target Netprobe directory, as well as change other variables, see Netprobe variables.

    You can also create and configure a start script to set Netprobe variables when you start the Netprobe. For guidance, see Start the Netprobe.

     

    Success: The Netprobe is now running as a process. You may stop or start the Netprobe at any time.

Upgrade an existing Netprobe

Stop the Netprobe process

Before you upgrade a Netprobe, make sure to stop the Netprobe first:

  1. On the terminal, run ps to find the pid for the Netprobe process. By default, the process name is netprobe.linux_64.
  2. Stop the Netprobe process using the kill command. In the following example, replace <pid> with the process number of the Netprobe process you want to terminate:
    3. kill <pid>

You can upgrade the Netprobe using either the RPM package or the tarball.

Upgrade the Netprobe using the RPM package

When you upgrade the Netprobe using the RPM package, do the following:

  1. Check that the Netprobe process is stopped. For guidance, see Stop the Netprobe process.
  2. Follow the steps in Deploy the RPM package, and make sure to provide the same <repo-dir> from when you first installed the Netprobe.

Success: The Netprobe is upgraded and is once more running as a process. You may stop or start the Netprobe at any time.

Upgrade the Netprobe using the tarball

When you upgrade the Netprobe using the tarball, do the following:

  1. Check that the Netprobe process is stopped. For guidance, see Stop the Netprobe process.
  2. Follow the steps in Unpack the tarball. However, it is recommended to unpack the tarball in a different directory from where you first unpacked the Netprobe tarball.
  3. Copy over the configuration files, scripts, and other local resources that the Netprobe uses from the old working directory to the new working directory.

    4. Note: Upgrading via tarball in the same directory does not remove old files from the previous version. This step ensures that you get a clean upgrade and allows you to rollback to the old directory if you encounter any issue while upgrading.

  4. Run the Netprobe executable in the background once more:
    5. ./netprobe.linux_64 &

Success: The Netprobe is upgraded and is once more running as a process. You may stop or start the Netprobe at any time.

Start the Netprobe

On Linux and similar platforms, you have to start the Netprobe on the machine after installing it. There are two ways that you can do this:

Command line

In a shell, navigate to the Netprobe working directory and run netprobe.linux_64. For example:

./netprobe.linux_64 -setup <full path or URL to the file> &

The Netprobe process is run in the background as a best practice.

Startup script

A startup script enables you to pre-set any Netprobe settings into a script before running the Netprobe. You can find a template for it in templates/start_netprobe.tmpl.

Once you have set the startup script to your preferences, you can run it to start the Netprobe. For example:

./start_netprobe

Start options

Considerations for Linux

Library dependencies

The Linux version of the Netprobe depends on certain libraries to run. Not all libraries are packaged with the Netprobe. Therefore, you may need to install these libraries independently.

For more information on the library files included with the Netprobe, see Files included in the Netprobe package.

The following tables list the library dependencies for common Linux distributions:

CentOS

Library name Package name
libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++
libutil.so.1 glibc-2.5-34.el5_3.1.i686
libnsl.so.1 glibc-2.5-34.i686
libpthread.so.0 glibc-2.5-34.i6826
libdl.so.2 glibc-2.5-34.i686
libcrypt.so.1 glibc-2.5-34.i686
libz.so.1 zlib-1.2.3-3.i386
libm.so.6 glibc-2.5-34.i686
libgcc_s.so.1 libgcc-4.1.2-44.el5.i386
libc.so.6 glibc-2.5-34.i686
ld-linux.so.2 glibc-2.5-34.i686

SUSE Linux

Library name Package name
libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++
libutil.so.1 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libnsl.so.1 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libpthread.so.0 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libdl.so.2 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libcrypt.so.1 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libz.so.1 zlib-32bit-1.2.3-15.2
libm.so.6 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
libgcc_s.so.1 libgcc-4.1.0-28.4
libc.so.6 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2
ld-linux.so.2 glibc-32bit-2.4-31.2

Security-Enhanced Linux

When Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is running in Enforcing mode, it may deny certain functions of Geneos depending on the implemented configurations and policies. To see which functions SELinux denies, check the audit log. The log is typically located in /var/log/audit.log, where the log type entry is AVC. The audit log provides the details of any denied access. For example, denied connection to the TCP port. If you experience issues related to this mode, you may opt to disable SELinux, or create policy modules to grant the required access. Please contact your administrator or security team for assistance.

Run Netprobe under elevated privileges in Linux

When the privileges of Netprobe is raised (e.g. via setcap/setuid), the runtime loader of Linux (ld.so) will not be able to load the libraries from the <netprobe directory>/lib64, as it will ignore RPATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH. This is the way ld.so has been designed.

In order for the libraries to be loaded, the path to the lib64 folder has to be added to the trusted paths of ld.so. This can be done by doing the steps below, as root user.

  1. Create a conf file in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/. The conf file should contain the path to the lib64 folder inside your netprobe directory.
    2. [root@localhost netprobe]# echo /home/inbound/binaries/netprobe/geneos-netprobe-4.0.0.linux-x64/netprobe/lib64/ > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/netprobe.linux_64.conf
  2. Rebuild the ld runtime cache by executing ldconfig.
    3. [root@localhost netprobe]# ldconfig

After these steps, the netprobe can be run using the desired user and can load the runtime libraries without issues.