Installing the Packet Forwarder

The Discover Packet Forwarder packet forwarder is used to forward web traffic that is transmitted between a client and a cloud-based web server to a cloud-based DNCA.

The Discover packet forwarder is packaged with the DNCA software and shares the same requirements as the DNCA software.

Cloud-based installation with a reverse proxy server

If your cloud-based web solution includes a reverse proxy server, you can install the packet forwarder software to the reverse proxy server and to the DNCA server. After the packet forwarder software is installed, you must configure packet forwarder transmitter instance on the reverse proxy server and the packet forwarder receiver instances on the DNCA.

Cloud-based installation with no reverse proxy server

If your cloud-based web solution does not include a reverse proxy server, you can install the packet forwarder software to each web server in your cloud-based environment and to the DNCA server. After the packet forwarder software is installed, you must configure the packet forwarder transmitter instances on your web servers and the packet forwarder receiver instances on the DNCA. Each transmitter instance requires a dedicated receiver instance.

Run the following command to install the discover-pktfwdr package.

  • If you are using Red Hat Package Manager, enter the following:
    rpm -ivh discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm
rpm -ivh --prefix=/opt/discover discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm

    Where:

    • <nn.n.n> is the version number.
    • <rrr> is the RPM revision number. This is usually a single digit number.
    • <distro> is an identifier for the Linux™ distribution, such as "RHELn" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ release n.
  • If you are using Yellowdog Updater Modified (Yum), enter the following:
    yum install discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm
yum install --prefix=/opt/discover discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm

    Where:

    • <nn.n.n> is the version number.
    • <rrr> is the RPM revision number. This is usually a single digit number.
    • <distro> is an identifier for the Linux™ distribution, such as "RHELn" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ release n.

By default, the DNCA software is installed in /usr/local/dncauser.

You can relocate the package to a directory other than the default /usr/local/dncauser. You specify the alternate directory by using the rpm command's --prefix option along with the installation and upgrade commands.

The following are some sample rpm invocations.

rpm -i --prefix=/opt/discover discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm
rpm -U --prefix=/home/discover discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686.rpm

Where:

  • <nn.n.n> is the version number.
  • <rrr> is the RPM revision number. This is usually a single digit number.
  • <distro> is an identifier for the Linux™ distribution, such as "RHELn" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux™ release n.

When you do not use the --prefix option during an install or upgrade, RPM uses the default installation directory that is specified in the package file, which is /usr/local/dncauser. If you relocate a package, you must make sure that you always specify the alternative directory so that the package can accurately check for and update any previous installations.

If a custom installation directory is not used, the following directory structure is created.

/opt/discover/
		/bin/pktfwdr
		/bin/dcxstats
		/etc/fwdr-conf.xml
		/etc/fwdr-conf-defaults.xml
		/sbin/

The following core files are installed:

Note: This is not a complete list of every file that the installer copies to the disk.
Table 1. Installed file components
File name Description
pktfwdr

Packet Forwarder daemon

To start a Packet Forwarder instance, run /user/local/dncauser/bin/pktfwdr -t as a root user.
dcxstats Operational statistics/metrics
fwdr-conf.xml Packet Forwarder configuration file
fwdr-conf-defaults.xml Default configuration file
Note: If you are using a 64-bit version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux™, run one of the following commands to install the required 32-bit compatibility libraries:
yum install glibc.i686
yum install zlib.i686
or
yum install rpm -ivh --prefix=/opt/disover  discover-pktfwdr-<nn.n.n>-<rrr>.<distro>.i686_24thApr14.rpm

After the installation is complete, you must configure the packet forwarder instances.