Brain deployment in other KVM Virtual Machine Managers

Generic instructions for how to deploy a KVM virtual Brain in virtual machine managers other than the recommended ones.

This information is provided for reference and will not match your software exactly. You will have to be familiar with setting up virtual virtual machines using your software so that you can find the settings that correspond to the generic information documented here.

Please Note for 32 core KVM Brains:

Per the Performance and KVM Requirements section, 32 core Brains may need their NUMA settings adjusted after deployment, before the initial power on. If deploying a 32 core Brain, please see 32 Core NUMA Configuration for details on checking and, if required, setting the NUMA autosize parameter.

Downloading the latest KVM Brain OVA or QCOW2 image

You may use either the OVA or the QCOW2 images, depending on what your virtual machine manager supports.

The current Brain images can be downloaded from the Vectra Customer Support Portal after logging in.

The URL for the download page is: https://support.vectra.ai/vectra/additional-resources.

• Click on the Download tab.
• Click on the VMWare and KVM (Proxmox) .ova Brain Image or KVM (Generic) .qcow2 Brain Image and then the File: Download link.

  • A SHA256 hash is also provided to allow you to verify the download completed successfully.

Always download a current copy when you go to deploy a new KVM Brain for your organization. This will save time during deployment as fewer updates will need to be downloaded after deployment. Make this file available via a URL or the local filesystem where you will run the vSphere client from.

If Deploying the OVA

• Import the OVA to your virtual machine management software.
• Deploy the OVA to a new virtual machine. Do not power it on yet.
• Proceed to Virtual hardware configuration

If Deploying the QCOW2

• Import each disk to your virtual machine management software.
• Create a new virtual machine. Enter a name of your choice.
• Add Disk 0 to the virtual machine first, followed by Disk 1.
• Do not power on the virtual machine yet.
• Proceed to Virtual hardware configuration

Virtual hardware configuration

Make sure the hardware configuration of your virtual machine matches the following:

Hardware Item	Configuration
Boot type	Legacy BIOS
Operating system (if available)	Closest match to "Linux 5.4 64-bit" or "Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit"
CPU	For less than 32-core Brains: 1 socket Number of cores from KVM deployment details and considerations For 32-core Brains: see 32 Core NUMA Configuration
Memory	Amount from KVM deployment details and considerations
Memory Ballooning	disabled
Disks	disk-0 disk-1 Controller: virtio-scsi-single or virtio-scsi or virtio Note: disk 0 must have a lower address on the controller than disk 1. Adding them in order should work for most virtual machine managers.
Network	Connected to management network Controller: virtio-net or virtio (multiqueue enabled, number of queues equal to the number of CPU cores of the virtual machine)
Console	VGA (optional but recommended)
QEMU Guest Agent	Enabled (only network interface info and power control will be allowed by the Brain)
Cloud Init	None
Boot order	Disk 0 first

Once the virtual hardware configuration is correct, you may start the virtual machine.

32 Core NUMA Configuration

Please Note:

This section applies to the 32 core Brain only. No changes are required for other Brain sizes.

If your host system does not have enough resources in one NUMA node for the entire Brain, you will need to configure the Brain VM with two NUMA nodes as follows:

Resource	NUMA Node 0	NUMA Node 1
Socket	0	1
vCPUs	0-15	16-31
RAM	50%	50%
NUMA distance	Match host topology	Match host topology

Make sure the vCPUs in each NUMA node correspond to physical CPU cores on the same NUMA node on the host system.

Please Note:

The 32 core Brain only supports 1 or 2 NUMA nodes. If the virtual NUMA configuration is incorrect, you might experience one of the following symptoms:

• Reduced Brain performance
• The VM reboots frequently, every 3 to 4 min
• The output of show system-health at the CLI of your KVM Brain contains a message about NUMA