Configuring IP settings for appliances

This article provides instructions for how to configure the IP address of a Vectra appliance.

Vectra appliances, whether a Brain, Sensor, or Stream, need an IP address configured to permit them to be accessible over the network. This IP address is used for Sensor-to-Brain communication, for the SSH command line interface and, in the case of the Vectra Brain (running the Quadrant UX), the web user interface.

There are six ways to access the console of the appliance to be able to configure an IP address:

1. KVM or "crash cart" using USB keyboard / VGA monitor.

   • Use a keyboard/monitor if the appliance is an X series appliance. The S series appliances do not have keyboard/monitor functionality.

2. Use a serial console cable, at 115200 baud, 8 data bits, no parity bit, one stop bit, and no flow control.

   • Serial console is supported for S2, X29/M29, and the X80 appliances. All other Vectra appliances do not officially support serial console.

3. CLI using the MGT2/LAN2 interface, which has the default IP address of 169.254.0.10/16.

   • Manually set the host's IP/subnet mask that you will connect to MGT2 from using something like 169.254.0.11 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0

   • This method is described further in this article.

4. IPMI/iDRAC - Connect to the IPMI port (HTTP) and use Serial-over-LAN console access.

5. Console access via your hypervisor (Hyper-V or VMware) for virtual Sensors.

6. Use DHCP, enabled by default on the MGT1/LAN1 interface

   • Find the IP address that was assigned to MGT1 from your DHCP server logs

   • You can also find the IP address by logging into the Brain via KVM, serial console, MGT2, or IMPI

     • Use the "show interface mgt1" command to display the address that was assigned via DHCP

• Some additional detail is available in Console access on Vectra Cognito appliances.

• Once connected you should authenticate using the default credentials found in this article.

Setting the IP address

!! Please note: As of version 8.3, Vectra appliances support IPv6 addressing for the MGT1 interface. Syntax examples for setting a IPv6 address are included below.

• IPv6 support for the MGT1 interface is not enabled by default and needs to be enabled at the CLI before setting an IPv6 address. Please see "Enabling/Disabling IPv6 support for MGT1" further below for details.

• For additional details around IPv6 management support, please see: IPv6 Management Support for Vectra Appliances

Once logged in to the appliance you can view command syntax for the "set interface" command as shown:

set interface -h
Usage: set interface [OPTIONS] {mgt1|mgt2} {dhcp|static} [IP] [SUBNET_MASK]
                     [GATEWAY_ADDRESS]

  Sets network interfaces to either dhcp or static ip configuration

Options:
  -h, --help  Show this message and exit.

Execute the following command to set the MGT1 or MGT2 interface to the desired static IP address:

IPv4 Syntax:
set interface mgt1 static x.x.x.x y.y.y.y z.z.z.z
set interface mgt2 static x.x.x.x y.y.y.y

Where:
x.x.x.x is the desired interface IP address
y.y.y.y is the desired interface network mask
z.z.z.z is the desired gateway

IPv6 Syntax:
set interface mgt1 static [IPv6 IP] [Subnet Mask] [Gateway]

Example:
set interface mgt1 static 2001:0db8:0:f101::25 64 2001:0db8:0:f101::1

Enabling/Disabling IPv6 Support for MGT1

The following commands can be used to enable and disable IPv6 support for MGT1 as well as check the status.

# show ipv6 enabled
IPv6 is disabled

# set ipv6 enabled
Response: ok

# show ipv6 enabled
IPv6 is enabled

# set ipv6 disabled
Response: ok

Notes

The interface MGT2 does not accept gateway, it must have the gateway set on MGT1. Sensors can be paired to MGT2, but still requires MGT1 to up and running to have connectivity in case the sensors are in a different network.

You should now be able to connect to the appliance over SSH or, if it is a Brain device, the web user interface. Please note that X80 appliances are capable of operating their MGT1 interface only at 1G and 10G speeds as discussed here.

Setting DHCP

Execute the following command to set the MGT1 or MGT2 interface to DHCP:

set interface mgt1 dhcp
set interface mgt2 dhcp

Setting the IP address in v6.3 or earlier

Once logged in to the appliance execute the following command to set the MGT1 interface to the desired IP address:

set interface mgt1 static ip x.x.x.x netmask y.y.y.y gw z.z.z.z