Introduction

So you've downloaded the latest version of the Opmantek Virtual Appliance from https://opmantek.com/network-tools-download/ and now you want to set it up and take it for a test drive to see how NMIS and the Opmantek networking modules can help you administer your network.  No problem.  Easy.

1. Unzip the virtual appliance file
2. Use the OVF (Open Virtualization Format) file (VMware and VirtualBox examples provided)
3. Fire up the new VM and set the IP address
4. Load NMIS in your browser

Let's assume you've got step 1 under control (unzipping) and move to step 2.

Using the OVF file

After unzipping the file you should see a folder with a structure like this:

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Because the file is in an open format it should be recognized by your virtualization software or by a conversion tool provided by your virtualization software.  

VMware

There are several options for VMware software.  Options 2 & 3 require the VMware OVF Tool, see here for some links or hit up google or vmware's site, the other requires VMware Fusion (for Mac).  Options 2 & 3 assume you have it installed and know where it is.

1. VMware Fusion

Recent versions of VMware Fusion allow importing .ovf files directly from the application.  If this option does not exist or work you will need to use option # 2.  

To import: Select File->Import, then "Choose File", find NMIS8-OVF/NMIS8.ovf as the file to import, then select continue.  Fusion will import the file and then present you with the VM's default configuration.

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2. Convert OVF to VMX

This option is for non-Fusion (or older) VMware products that do not support the OVF format directly; in this case you have to convert the appliance into VMware's native format VMX. As mentioned above this conversion requires the VMware ovftool.

mkdir NMIS8
ovftool NMIS8-OVF/NMIS8.ovf NMIS8/NMIS8.vmx 

You should now be able to import/load the vmx file with your VMware software and skip to step 3.

3. Transfer OVF to ESXi

ovftool --name="NMIS" -dm="thin" -ds=datastore_number ./NMIS8-OVF/NMIS8.ovf vi://user:password@host_ip_address

Remember to set the name you like, the datastore you want and point it at the server you want to deploy to

VirtualBox

VirtualBox will import directly from an OVF file so you can just fire up VirtualBox and select "Import Appliance..."

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Browse to where you unzipped the file and select the ovf file

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Select the file, you should see a screen something like this:

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It should be safe to Import.  The import process took a couple of minutes to complete, just enough time to grab a cup of coffee I'd say.

If you have any trouble the VirtualBox documentation is here: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#ovf

Important Note regarding Ext4: if your virtualbox host is Linux and your VMs are stored on XFS or Ext4 file systems, then it is absolutely necessary that you enable the "Host I/O Cache" for all virtual disk controllers after importing the OVF file, or you run the risk of file system corruption in your guest. On one of our test systems (Linux kernel 3.14.23, Virtualbox 4.3.14) the VM wouldn't even fully get through the first boot before the virtual disks got corrupted - but with Host I/O Cache on everything is fine.

Other Hypervisors

To use OVF files with other virtualisation systems like KVM you may have to convert the OVF file to a native format; Two well-known tools for this purpose are virt-v2v (available in CentOS6/RHEL) and virt-convert (in Debian).

Hyper-V

The Windows Hyper-V technology does not fully support the OVF industry standard. Microsoft documents a complex and somewhat limited procedure on their page about converting OVF files to Hyper-V. There are third-party conversion tools available that simplify this deployment scenario, for example StarWind's free V2V Converter  which worked well in our tests.

Fire up the VM and set the IP Address

At this point the VM has DHCP enabled so the easiest way to access it is from the VM software terminal.  We will set the IP so we can easily login from any terminal.  So go ahead and boot the VM, after the VM is finished booting you will be welcomed by a login prompt, login:

User: root
Password: NM1$88

Root's home directory contains 2 example network configurations, one for static IP's and one for DHCP.  Copy the one you require (because we already have dhcp enabled the example sets up a static IP address):

cp ifcfg-eth0.static /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0   

Now set the IP, netmask, gateway, and DNS if you like ( to add DNS you can add two lines, one for each server: DNS1=ip , DNS2=ip)

Alternately

You could also install a text based UI to help you:

yum install netconfig
# after installation complete:
system-config-network  

Troubleshooting Network Problems

The most common problem is with how CentOS 6 handles interface discovery, it wants to hang onto MAC addresses which of course in a virtual environment you want managed by the Hypervisor.

Run the command "ifconfig -a", the result should look like this:

[root@nmis64 ~]# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:E8:CF:F9 
    inet addr:192.168.1.42 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
    inet6 addr: 2001:470:1f05:5a0:20c:29ff:fee8:cff9/64 Scope:Global
    inet6 addr: fe80::20c:29ff:fee8:cff9/64 Scope:Link
    UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
    RX packets:6640287 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
    TX packets:4282058 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
    collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
    RX bytes:974072080 (928.9 MiB) TX bytes:606513312 (578.4 MiB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback 
    inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
    inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
    UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
    RX packets:2337305 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
    TX packets:2337305 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
    collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
    RX bytes:371309377 (354.1 MiB) TX bytes:371309377 (354.1 MiB)

If you do not see an interface called eth0 then run this command and reboot your VM.

rm -f /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
reboot

Accessing the NMIS8 and Open-AudIT VM

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You can either use this menu, or navigate directly to NMIS: open your favourite web browser and navigate to:

http://<vm_ip_address>/nmis8/

User: nmis
Password: nm1888

Configuring Modules

The first step to using a module is knowing how to open it, the next is to get a license for it. This process is simple and painless: all products on the appliance (except opFlow) now support free licenses (which are not time-limited but limited to 20 nodes). For these applications the initial dialog offers the generation of such a free license; For opFlow please use the Trial License system as described below.

Opening a module

There are two ways to open the modules, by using the drop-down in the NMIS page (make sure you do not have pop-up's blocked for this page):

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or by manually entering the url into your browser:

http://<vm_ip_address>/omk/

The latter url will present you with a clickable list of installed Opmantek application modules and their versions.

Getting a trial license (opFlow only)

opFlow shows a page similar to the following when no license is installed:

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You will now need to get a license key and enter it into the licensing system, the easiest way to do this is by clicking "View and Enter Licenses" button.  This will open a new tab/page containing the opLicensing module.  On this page you will again need to click a button, it's time to choose if you want a trial license or if you would like to buy a license.

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This will bring you to https://opmantek.com/trial, select the products you would like to try and click "Get Trials".  If you are not logged in you will need to do so now, you can join our community if you haven't already done so by clicking the "Join Now!" link in the login window.

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After logging in and clicking "Get Trials" you should see a page notifying you that you have sucessfully added a trial to your account.  To activate a license for a module click the "Activate" button for that module.

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Enter your company name and then select "Activate"

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You will now be presented with your license key for the product you selected.  You will now want to select the key text (right click -> select all) and copy it to the clipboard (right click on selected text -> copy)

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Now it's time to return to the opLicense tab and click "Enter a License Key"

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Paste the license key into the textbox provided and click "Add License".

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You should now have a sucessfully installed key!

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Now return to the tab/window of the module you were activating and click "License Entered, Continue"

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Accept the EULA:

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And you're Done!  The next step is to make sure the configuration for the module you activated is correct & complete.

opFlow Configuration

Configure your Cisco Router

For reference: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_3t/netflow/command/reference/nfl_a1gt_ps5207_TSD_Products_Command_Reference_Chapter.html#wp1160995

I will discuss a very basic configuration.

On the interface you want to collect flow traffic from, add:

ip flow ingress
ip flow egress

Now that you have an interface setup to gather netflow information you have to tell the router to send it somewhere:

ip flow-export version 9
# replace the ip address in the following line with your VM's ip address 
ip flow-export destination 192.168.0.10 12345

If you enable that configuration netflow traffic should now be sent to your VM.

By default netflow will send information about flows after they are finished, if you would like to see information more often you can set the flow-cache timeout, in minutes, so this will send flow info every minute (see the docs for more details):

ip flow-cache timeout active 1

opFlow will now be displaying your data!  Visit http://<vm_ip_address>/cgi-omk/opFlow.pl and take a look! (also make sure you have a license)

ps. Authentication info for Opmantek modules is the same as it is for NMIS, the default is:
username: nmis
password: nm1888 

For more information and help with opFlow see its community homepage 

 This content has been moved to the following new location: Opmantek Virtual Machine: Installation and Getting Started.