ESXi

The Plixer FlowPro virtual appliance for ESXi is provided as an all-in-one OVA template to streamline the deployment process.

Deploying the OVA Template

To deploy the Plixer FlowPro virtual appliance in ESXi, follow these steps:

  1. Contact Plixer Technical Support and use the link they provide (https://files.plixer.com/PACKAGE_PATH_AND_FILENAME) to download the latest VMware virtual appliance package.

  2. Extract the contents of the package to a location on the ESXi server.

  3. In vSphere or vCenter, right-click the host to deploy the appliance to and select Deploy OVF Template from the menu.

  4. Select Local file and browse to the Plixer FlowPro OVF and VMDK files before clicking Next.

  5. Provide a name for the Plixer FlowPro virtual appliance and continue to follow the deployment wizard.

  6. When prompted, select the datastore, set the disk format to Thick Provision, and then click Next.

  7. Select the network to be used by the virtual appliance, and then verify the configuration in the summary before clicking Finish to import the Plixer Scrutinizer virtual appliance. This may take a few moments.

  8. Configure additional interfaces as needed, and then connect them to the observation point(s).

  9. Power on the Plixer FlowPro virtual machine.

After the Plixer FlowPro virtual appliance has been deployed and configured in ESXi, proceed to configuring the appliance.

Note

The virtual appliance’s default configuration has one network adapter (MGMT). Any additional interfaces will be labeled monX and automatically used to listen for traffic. This can be verified by checking Flowpro.Interfaces in ~/flowpro/flowpro-settings.yaml after the appliance is deployed. If a different network needs to be monitored, a mirror port of a virtual distributed switch or a mirror port using a physical NIC on the ESXi server will need to be configured.

Adding new interfaces

To add one or more new interfaces to the ESXi Plixer FlowPro virtual appliance, follow these steps:

  1. In vCenter, right click on the Plixer FlowPro VM, and then select Edit Settings….

  2. Select Add New Device, and then select Network Adapter from the dropdown.

After the new interface(s) have been added, they can be connected to observation points as needed.

Note

When adding interfaces to an existing deployment, use the Plixer FlowPro setup utility’s auxiliary runmodes to configure them for use.