Emulator Virtual Appliance Installation and Configuration Guide

Transcription

1 Emulator Virtual Appliance Installation and Configuration Guide Global Support Regional Telephone Hotline Support: Americas: EMEA: +44 (0)

2 NOTICE itrinegy provides this publication "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. itrinegy will not be liable (i) to you for any incidental, consequential, or indirect damages (including damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, and the like) arising out of the use of or inability to use this product even if itrinegy or any authorised itrinegy representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or (ii) for any claim by any other party. Further, itrinegy reserves the right to make changes or improvements to the product described in this guide and to this publication without obligation of itrinegy to notify any person of such revision or changes. Trademarks itrinegy and itrinegy INE are trademarks of itrinegy Limited. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of the respective manufacturers of the products associated with them. Copyright Copyright itrinegy Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated or distributed without the prior written permission. Edition: V8.3.3 March 2017 Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 1

3 Contents Introduction... 3 Installation... 3 Configuration and Setup... 8 Configure the network management port... 8 Obtain a licence key Install the licence key Configuring VMware Resources Configure the Network Test Environment Routed Configuration Virtual Switch Configuration Emulator Configuration Running the Tests Non-routed Configuration Virtual Switch Configuration Emulator Configuration Running the Tests Router-on-a-stick Virtual Switch Configuration Emulator Configuration Running the Tests Appendix: Tuning VMware for INE Introduction Memory Reserving memory in the Hypervisor CPUs Reserving CPUs in the Hypervisor Latency Sensitivity Advanced Options Locking in CPU s and More Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 2

4 Introduction This guide provides information of how to install and configure the itrinegy Network Emulator (INE) Virtual Appliance. To help get you up and running some example scenarios are included although please remember that detailed product information can be found in the product guides and videos. IMPORTANT: itrinegy INE uses the Intel CPU chipset for high-speed packet processing. The minimum EVC is Sandy Bridge. Installation The following instructions detail how to import the (VA) using VMware s vsphere client. We use the vsphere client throughout this guide although vcenter could equally be used to configure the environment. itrinegy have tested the Virtual Appliance on VMware s ESXi server products. 1. Download the from or copy the link in preparation for step Using vsphere client connect to the ESXi host where you would like to deploy the INE. 3. Click File/Deploy OVF Template and select the OVA file or insert the URL. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 3

5 Click Next; you should see the following information. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 4

6 Click Next; provide a name for the virtual machine. The default is itrinegy Network Emulator but it can be changed to a name of your choice. Click Next; select the datastore that you would like to use. We recommend that you use Thin Provisioning so that capacity is only used when data is written to disk. Click Next; the INE has three network interfaces defined that connect to the VM Network. If your network uses a different name then select the applicable network in your environment. If you re unsure then don t worry too much about this step as we will review the virtual network configuration later on. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 5

7 Click Next; the final screen provides a summary of your choices. Click Finish to build the INE Virtual Appliance. The following dialogue box will appear that provides an indication of how long it will take to deploy the INE VA. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 6

8 Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 7

9 Configuration and Setup The is preconfigured with 1 CPU with 4 cores, 16GB RAM, 16GB SCSI hard disk and 3 virtual network interface cards. This configuration is usually sufficient for most emulations and should only be changed under guidance from your support representative. To achieve performance and scalability comparable to the INE hardware appliance, the VMware virtual machine should be allocated system resources equivalent to the physical appliance. Because Network Emulators are real-time products it is highly recommended that VM resources are dedicated and not shared or oversubscribed across multiple VMs. See Appendix: Tuning VMware for INE on page 51 for more information on this. There are three stages to complete before you can use the INE: 1. Configure the network management port 2. Obtain and install a licence key 3. Configure the network test environment Configure the network management port The network management or netmgt port is connected to your LAN so that you can access the INE using a web browser. We therefore need to connect the first virtual network interface to your LAN. 1. Login to the ESXi/ESX host using the vsphere Client and edit the INE VM settings. 2. Click on Network adapter 1 and check that the Connect at power on is ticked. Select an applicable network under Network Connection: Network label that is connected to a LAN that you can reach from your web browser. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 8

10 3. Click on Network adapter 2 and 3 and check that the Connect at power on is unticked. Don t worry about these network adapters for now as we will configure them later on. Click on OK and then Power On the INE VM. 4. Using the INE console, login as user itrinegy, password itrinegy. 5. Select option 2 Set Network Management Address and then select either Static or DHCP configuration. The default is set to DHCP so you may already have an IP address allocated. 6. Once set confirm that you can ping the INE from your workstation. Do not exit the Console as we will need it in the next step. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 9

11 Obtain a licence key 1. Select Option 5, List Host ID (for licensing). The following screen is displayed. 2. Make a note of the Host Id, in this case the Host Id is A92F7A. Send an to that includes your name, contact telephone number and Host Id. You cannot continue to the next stage until itrinegy Support have sent you an confirming that the license key is ready for download. 3. Using a web browser connect to 4. Enter your Username and Password. If you haven t received your login credentials please contact. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 10

12 5. Hover-over the Menu item so that the drop-down menu appears. Check that the Key Code is identical to your Host Id. Select the Create Key option. 6. The Support Portal will create the licence key file and your web browser will automatically download a file named license.txt. The licence file will also be ed to you. Install the licence key 1. Using a web browser navigate to the INE specifying the IP Address or hostname that you have previously configured. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 11

13 2. Login using the below credentials: Username: admin Password: admin 3. From the menu click on the License option, then click on the Browse button and select the licence file that was created from the support site. 4. Click on the Install button, the license is verified and the INE reboots. 5. Login using the console and check that Emulator is Licensed and Ready is displayed at the top of the page. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 12

14 Configuring VMware Resources The INE ova (or ovf) provided is set up to not require too much in the way of CPU or Memory resources from the VMware hypervisor. However, in certain high performance (high packet rate, high bit rate, high burst rate) applications, or where there is too much competition for resources between the VMware guests, then you may need to provide more resources to the INE VM than configured by default. How to do this is explained in Appendix: Tuning VMware for INE on page 51. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 13

15 Configure the Network Test Environment Before you start using the INE it is necessary to configure the network in VMware. The following two examples show a routed and non-routed configuration. Routed Configuration In this example we need to recreate the following scenario where a client computer is accessing a server over a WAN. IP: WAN IP: Client IP: /8 GW: Server IP: /8 GW: The INE has two ESXi virtual network interfaces defined for emulation so we can now think of the above scenario like this: IP: IP: Client IP: /8 GW: Server IP: /8 GW: In our virtual test environment we need: 1 x ESXi Virtual Switch 1 x Virtual INE VM 1 x Client VM 1 x Server VM For best performance we will only use one virtual switch as it uses less CPU and network overhead. The INE will route traffic between the client and server. Virtual Switch Configuration 1. Log into the ESXi server using the vsphere Client. 2. Click on your ESXi server and select the Configuration tab. Now click on the Networking link and click the Add Networking link at the top right of the page. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 14

16 3. Select Virtual Machine and click on Next. 4. Select a physical NIC that this virtual switch will use. In this example we re going to create a virtual only network and don t require any physical connection. Click Next. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 15

17 5. Enter a name for this network, for example Test Network, click Next and then click Finish. 6. Click on your new switch, in this example vswitch1, and select the Properties link. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 16

18 7. Click on Edit button. 8. Select the Security tab. In the Promiscuous Mode drop-down box select Accept and click on OK. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 17

19 9. Now that the Virtual Switch is configured we need to connect the INE to it. Click on the INE VM, select Edit Settings and connect Network adapter 2 and 3 to the Test Network. Also tick the Connect at power on button. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 18

20 Now that the INE VM is configured we need two endpoints for our scenario, in our case Client1 and Server virtual machines, connected to the Test Network. Both have one virtual network interface which is connected to the Test Network. These are configured to route their traffic through the INE. Client Configuration Server Configuration If you click on the vswitch1 properties you should now see that your Test Network has three Virtual Machines connected to it. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 19

21 Emulator Configuration 1. Start the INE Drawing GUI. If you don t have a copy then please download it from the itrinegy Customer Support Site. 2. When prompted enter the INE s IP Address and click on OK. 3. Enter the default username of admin, password admin. The following message should be displayed click on OK. 4. Drag two objects from the left-hand pick list onto the canvas. These will represent our Client and Server. Now drag the line with two arrows and join the two objects. You should now have something similar to the following. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 20

22 We now need to configure the INE so that it will route traffic between Client1 and Server. 5. Click on Test/Virtual Ports: 6. Now click on the drop down box next to Port 0 and select Default:Hardware IPv4 Routing: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 21

23 7. Click on Add Port: 8. Click on Add and enter the IP Settings: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 22

24 Click on OK Repeat the above steps for Port 1 You should now have something similar to the below: From Client1 we can now ping the INE s local IP address: 9. We now need to configure each end-point. Click on the left-hand object, click on the Routing section and select the Port In parameter. From the drop-down box select the applicable item, in our example Repeat this step for Port Out, selecting again. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 23

25 Repeat this step for the right-hand object so you should now have something similar to the below: To start the emulation click on the Test/Start menu item and enter an emulation name. Click on OK to accept the default Port Layout. The emulation is now running and you should be able to ping from the client to server and vice versus with < 1ms latency. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 24

26 Running the Tests Now that the virtual network, INE and test machines are configured we can impede the network traffic. First try changing the latency to something that s more representative of a WAN. Click on the Latency section and enter 5 for the Minimum Delay and 10 for the Maximum Delay for both directions. This means that the latency will randomise between 10 and 20ms. Now click on the Bandwidth and Queuing section and select an applicable Link Type. Remember to repeat this step for the uplink and downlink. Click on the Test/Update menu item. The latency round trip time is now affected. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 25

27 Non-routed Configuration In this example we need to recreate the following scenario where a client computer is accessing a server over a LAN. LAN Client Server IP: /24 IP: /24 The INE has two ESXi virtual network interfaces defined for emulation so we can now think of the above scenario like this: Client IP: /24 Server IP: /24 In our virtual test environment we need: 2 x ESXi Virtual Switch 1 x Virtual INE VM 1 x Client VM 1 x Server VM Although using two ESXi virtual switches does not provide the best performance compared to using only one virtual switch, as shown in the routed configuration, it is necessary otherwise traffic would not pass through the INE. Virtual Switch Configuration 1. Log into the ESXi server using the vsphere Client. 2. Click on your ESXi server and select the Configuration tab. Now click on the Networking tab and click the Add Networking link. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 26

28 3. Select Virtual Machine and click on Next. 4. In this scenario we won t bind the virtual switch to a physical network adapter so ensure that none are ticked. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 27

29 5. Enter a name for this network, for example Net 0 as we ll use this to connect to port 0 on the Emulator, click Next and then click Finish. 6. Click on your new switch, in this example vswitch1, and select the Properties link. 7. Click on Edit button. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 28

30 8. Select the Security tab. In the Promiscuous Mode drop-down box select Accept and click on OK. If you haven t used a physical NIC then click on Yes to continue. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 29

31 Repeat steps 2 through to 8 to add a second virtual switch but this time name it Net 1 as we will connect it to port 1 on the INE. 9. Now that the Virtual Switches are configured we need to connect the INE s port 0 to net 0 and port 1 to net 1. Click on the INE VM, select Edit Settings and connect Network adapter 2 to Net 0 and Network adapter 3 to Net 1. Also tick the Connect at power on button for both adapters. In our test environment we will use Client1 and Server virtual machines. Both have one network interface with the Client connected to Net 0 and Server connected to Net 1. We can now see that we have two virtual switches configured and that the Emulator is connected to both basically acting as a bridge between the two switches. Therefore any traffic passing between vswitch1 and vswitch2 must go via the switch allowing the Emulator to impede the traffic. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 30

32 Now that the INE VM is configured we need two endpoints for our scenario, in our case Client1 and Server virtual machines, connected to the Net 0 and Net 1 networks respectively. Note that we have not specified a default gateway as both machines are on the same subnet. Client Configuration Server Configuration Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 31

33 Emulator Configuration 1. Start the INE Drawing GUI. If you don t have a copy then please download it from the itrinegy Customer Support Site. 2. When prompted enter the INE s IP Address and click on OK. 3. Enter the default username of admin, password admin. The following message should be displayed click on OK. 4. Drag two objects from the left-hand pick list onto the canvas. These will represent our Client and Server. Now drag the line with two arrows and join the two objects. You should now have something similar to the following. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 32

34 5. Click on the left-hand object, click on the Routing section and select the Port In parameter. From the drop-down box select port 0. Repeat this step for Port Out, selecting port 0 again. Repeat this for the right-hand object so you should now have something similar to the below: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 33

35 To start the emulation click on the Test/Start menu item and enter an emulation name. Click on OK to accept the default Port Layout. The emulation is now running and you should be able to ping from the client to server and vice versus. To prove that the client to server traffic is going through the INE stop the running emulation by clicking on the Test/Stop menu item. We can see that the ping requests from the client to server have started to fail. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 34

36 Running the Tests Now that the virtual network, INE and test machines are configured we can impede the network traffic. First try changing the latency to something that s more representative of a WAN. Click on the Latency section, select the Random Delay function and enter 5 for the Minimum Delay and 10 for the Maximum Delay for both directions. This means that the latency will randomise between 10 and 20ms. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 35

37 Click on the Bandwidth and Queuing section and select Manual for the Link Type. Enter 9600 bps for the Link Speed. Click on the Test/Update menu item. You can now see that the latency round trip time is increased because of queuing. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 36

38 Router-on-a-stick In this example we need to recreate the following scenario where multiple clients are accessing, over the internet, an application hosted at a data centre in Spain. Users are usually based at home in the US, UK and Germany with different network bandwidths and latency. The application also allows for peer-to-peer communication whereby a user in Germany can communicate directly with another user at another location. Client IP addresses are allocated by a local DHCP server. Data Centre Server 1 mbps 1 Gbps Internet Client1 Client2 Client3 In our virtual test environment we need: 1 x ESXi Virtual Switch with VLAN tagging capability 1 x Virtual INE VM 3 x Client VMs 1 x Server VM Router-on-a-stick is a term frequently used to describe a setup that consists of a router and switch connected using one Ethernet link configured as an 802.1q trunk link. In this setup, the switch is configured with multiple VLANs and the router performs all routing between the different networks/vlans. We will configure the INE as a router-on-a-stick so that the INE will route and impede traffic between the end-point devices. We will create five VMware port groups with different VLAN ids to represent the four locations and allocate one as a trunk port. The INE s port 0 will connect to the trunk VMware VLAN The INE has two ESXi virtual network interfaces defined for emulation so we can now think of the above scenario like this: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 37

39 For best performance we will only use one virtual switch as it uses less CPU and network overhead. Virtual Switch Configuration 1. Log into the ESXi server using the vsphere client. 2. Click on your ESXi server and select the Configuration tab. Now click on the Networking link and click the Add Networking link at the top right of the page. 3. Select Virtual Machine and click on Next. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 38

40 4. In this scenario we won t bind the virtual switch to a physical network adapter so ensure that none are ticked. 5. Enter a name for this network, for example Client1 and enter a VLAN ID. Click Next and then click Finish. 6. Click on your new switch, in this example vswitch1, and select the Properties link. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 39

41 7. Click on Edit button. 8. Select the Security tab. In the Promiscuous Mode drop-down box select Accept and click on OK. If you haven t used a physical NIC then click on Yes to continue. 9. Click on the switch Properties link and click on the Add button and then Next. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 40

42 Enter Client2 and a VLAN id of 602, click Next and then Finish. Repeat step 9 for Client3 VLAN 603 and the Server VLAN 604. Finally add the port group for the VLAN Trunk using VLAN You should now have the following configuration: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 41

43 10. Connect the virtual network interface card for each client to the corresponding port group. 11. Connect the INE s virtual network interface 2 to the TRUNK port group. You should now have the following configuration: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 42

44 Emulator Configuration 1. Start the INE Drawing GUI. If you don t have a copy then please download it from the itrinegy Customer Support Site. 2. When prompted enter the INE s IP Address and click on OK. 3. Enter the default username of admin, password admin. The following message should be displayed click on OK. 4. Click on Test/Virtual Ports and select Default:Hardware VLAN Routing. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 43

45 5. Click Add Port. The VLAN Interfaces Array Editor dialogue box appears. 6. Click the Add button, enter the details for client1 and click on OK. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 44

46 7. Now click the drop down box next to P0_601 and select Default:Hardware IPv4 Routing. 8. Click Add Port. The IPv4 Interfaces Array Editor dialogue box appears. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 45

47 9. Click the Add button, enter the details for client1 and click on OK twice. Repeat these steps for each client and the server. You should now have a configuration as shown below: Click on OK. Virtual ports are available as soon as they are defined so you should now be able to ping from the clients and server to the local virtual port IP address. Here you can see that client1 can ping Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 46

48 10. Using the drawing GUI create a network that represents the locations and data centre. 11. Click on the most left-hand computer, select Routing, Port In and select the virtual port PO_601_ for Client1. Also set the Port Out to the same as Port In. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 47

49 12. Repeat this for each computer and the building (server). You should now have the below configuration. Right-click on the cloud object and select delete as we re going to add it back in. Drag a cloud object onto the canvas but do not connect it to any of the links. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 48

50 Click on the cloud object, select Routing and change the function to IPv4 Routing. Now drag the cloud object to the centre of the links so that it joins them up. Click on the cloud, select Routing and click on the to list the Routes. The following dialogue box appears. Click on the Edit button to add the network address for the building object, which is client4. Enter the network details for the server and click on OK Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 49

51 Repeat the above step for each client. You should now have a table of routes as shown below. Click on OK. Running the Tests Now click on Test/Start. The emulation will start and you will be able to ping from any client to any client and from client to server. Here we can see the server can ping client1. Each link can now be set to the applicable bandwidth, latency and any other impedance that s required. Please review the INE Drawing GUI Guide for further information. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 50

52 Appendix: Tuning VMware for INE Introduction When itrinegy provides the OVAs/OVFs for INE our primary concern is that if you start them up, their VMware footprint (i.e. CPU and Memory requirements) should not be too large. This is so that they will not have a large impact on the other VMs (Guests) in your VMware environment. The truth is that that INE is a real time product and going by the VMware tuning guide for real time products we should lock in both the CPU and memory resources, as far as possible. If you need more information itrinegy has a separate technical paper on tuning for VMware; here we concentrate on the steps to take, not the reasons. Memory Reserving memory in the Hypervisor This is done using vcenter. With the INE powered off - right click on the INE s VM icon and choose Edit Resource Settings... Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 51

53 And you get the resource settings dialog box where you should make the following changes with regard to memory: Set Memory Shares to High (or better still Custom and then choose the maximum value from the dropdown box containing the shares value). This is so that the INE gets priority access to memory resources Change reservation (from 0) to match the actual size of the INEs VM (normally 8192GB for the INE). It will be the largest value you can set in the dropdown. Make sure Limit is set to Unlimited Before you say OK to this read on as the CPU resources are changed from the same dialog CPUs Reserving CPUs in the Hypervisor We take the same approach as for memory i.e. Use Edit Resource Settings... to raise the priority of the INE s VM in CPU and reserve as much CPU as we can: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 52

54 Here we: Set the CPU shares to High (but Custom, followed by choosing the maximum value for custom is even better) and Set the Reservation to the maximum available in the dropdown menu. In our example the actual CPU is a ~2.2667MHz clockspeed which is a total of 9064Mhz with 4 CPUs and that s close enough for small calculation differences especially noting that the INE only drives N-1 (3 in this example) of the CPUs hard. Make sure Limit is set to Unlimited Now we can click on OK. Latency Sensitivity The VMware system treats INE as a normal host, but in fact it ideally needs to be treated as a latency sensitive host. This is done in Edit Settings for the INE s VM via vcenter, but this time switching to the VM Options tab: Here we set the latency sensitivity to High. NOTE: If you don t have access to the vcenter Web Client then you can use the below procedure in the vsphere client: Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 53

55 1. Make sure the VM is "Powered OFF" 2. VM ==> Edit Settings ==> Options ==> Advanced ==> General 3. Hit the configuration button. 4. Look for the named parameter: sched.cpu.latencysensitivity, if you don't see it, hit the add row button and add it. 5. Set the value = high Advanced Options Locking in CPU s and More It is possible to also lock in certain fixed hardware CPUs into the VM, but this is advanced and usually not required, please contact Support if you wish to do this, or would like any further guidance on tuning INE s VMs or reducing their Memory/CPU footprints, where feasible. Copyright Itrinegy Limited Page 54