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Version: 2.10.2

NFO Installation Guide

Installation Guide

Intended Audience

This information is intended for anyone who wants to install, configure, or maintain NetFlow Optimizer (NFO). The information is written for experienced Linux or Windows system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and data center operations.

Before You Install NFO

Pre-Installation Checklist

You can install NetFlow Optimizer on premises (Linux or Windows server) or in your cloud environments (AWS, Azure, Oracle OCI, or Google GCP). Please be sure to have the following before you begin the installation of the NetFlow Optimizer software:

Sizing Host for NFO Deployment

This the minimum specifications for a production NFO deployment (Virtual machine or physical server):

  • 2 physical CPU cores or 4 vCPU at 2Ghz or greater speed per core
  • 8GB RAM
  • 20GB disk space

When you plan for hardware or virtual machine size, consider the following guidelines:

OptionNumber of VMs or HostsNetFlow Ingest RateCPU / vCPUsMemory
Small2002,000 flows/sec2 / 48GB
Medium2,00020,000 flows/sec4 / 816GB
Large5,000+50,000+ flows/sec8 / 1632GB

Supported Platforms

NFO is distributed as Amazon Machine Image (AMI), as RPM or TAR.GZ for Linux, or as EXE for Windows.

You can install the NetFlow Optimizer software on a platform with the following specifications.

SpecificationDetails
AWS EC2 ImageRHEL 8
Linux

Linux kernel 2.17+ on

OSes which support systemd:

  • Rocky Linux 8.x, 9.x
  • CentOS 7.x, 8.x
  • RHEL 7.x, 8.x, 9.x
  • Debian 9.x
  • Ubuntu Server 18.04
  • SLES 12.x
  • Oracle Linux Server 7.x
  • Others (not certified)

OSes which support OpenRC:

  • Gentoo 17

    and higher

WindowsWindows Server 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022

Supported Browsers

You can use one of the following browsers to connect to the NFO Web user interface.

  • Mozilla Firefox 38.0 and up
  • Safari 6.0, 7.0
  • Google Chrome 34.0 and 43.0 and up
  • IE10, IE11, and MS Edge

Required Network Ports

The following network ports must be accessible.

PortDescription
8443/TCPNetFlow Optimizer GUI
9995/UDPNetFlow/IPFIX Ingestion (plus all ports for ingestion as necessary)
161/UDP and 162/UDPSNMP polling and SNMP traps
9001/TCPConfiguration Data Base, port is opened on loopback interface 127.0.0.1
20047/TCP and 20048/TCPNetFlow Optimizer internal services, ports are opened on loopback interface 127.0.0.1
20047/UDP and 20048/UDPNetFlow Optimizer outputs for Kafka, OpenSearch, etc., ports are opened on four loopback interfaces 127.17.0.1 - 127.17.0.4

To change ports 20047/20048 perform the following after you install NFO:

  1. Add or change the following lines in /opt/flowintegrator/server/etc/server.cfg

    CONTROLLER_PORT 20047
    CONFIG_PORT 20048
  2. Change controller port and PCE port in /opt/flowintegrator/tomcat/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/conf/application.properties

    # Controller listener port number
    **coss.controller.port = 20047**
    # Controller connection timeout in milliseconds
    coss.controller.connectionTimeout = 60000
    # Default PCE configuration notification changes listener port number
    **coss.pce.port = 20048**
    # Default PCE configuration notification changes host
    coss.pce.host = 127.0.0.1
note

Restart NFO and Tomcat after applying these changes as follows:

  1. Stop NFO using GUI
  2. Restart Tomcat using one of the following commands: /etc/init.d/tomcat_nfo restart or service tomcat_nfo restart
  3. Start NFO using GUI