Pulsar

The probes come with a Command Line Interface named Pulsar. This allows the user to check the probe state and configure it when needed.

Connect to the Probe

If this is your first encounter with the probe, you will have to, for the first time only, access the probe physically (just use a screen and keyboard plugged to the probe). Log in with user admin and default password admin. Once the network address of the probe has been set up, you will be able to access it directly through SSH on port 22, with the same user admin.

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Note: Pulsar uses three colors to display information:

• Green outputs are informational.
• Yellow outputs are warnings.
• Red outputs are errors.

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If needed, you can set the keyboard mapping with the kb < mapping > command. Typing kb displays the list of available mappings.

Pulsar lets you change the administration password through the passwd command. This should be your first command. Typing passwd in the Pulsar shell launches the standard UNIX password-change process.

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Note: The default admin password will be changed once the Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance Sensor Capture (formerly Skylight sensor: capture) is registered by what is contained in the default profile of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance (formerly Skylight). If you have never set the password for admin in the default profile of Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance, the admin account’s password will be disabled.

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CAUTION: At this point, there is no way to retrieve the password. If you lose or forget the password, the support team can generate a new one. See Support access through VPN. You can also restore the probe; see Restore Probe State.

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If your Assurance Sensor Capture appliance comes with a serial port, a console should also be available on it since the 4.1 release. The serial connection should be done at 115200 Bd with 8 data bits, without parity, with one stop bit and without flow control.

From a Linux or macOS computer, the following GNU Screen command is enough to connect to the serial console, replace /dev/X with your corresponding serial port:

screen /dev/X 115200

From a Windows computer, PuTTY could be used.

Configure the Probe

Use the config command to set up the probe.

capture# config
service:
  Enter  1 for all [default]
  Enter  2 for dns
  Enter  3 for interfaces
  Enter  4 for network
  Enter  5 for ramen
  Enter  6 for support
Your choice?

Typing enter will launch the whole interactive configuration process.

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CAUTION: This command is mandatory as it will configure key elements needed for proper operations (DNS servers, hostname, IP address, Proxy settings, NTP, SMTP, etc.).

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Some changes in configuration require a reboot of the probe (command: reboot).

Configure proxy settings

The Capture Sensor supports defining a basic authentication or no authentication https websockets proxy server to use for its connectivity towards the Provider Connectivity Assurance instance. These settings will apply both for the normal management of the sensor as well as for the VPN connection usable by customer support.
The parameters available for the proxy are:

• Proxy Host (hostname or IP address of the proxy service)
• Proxy Port (tcp port of the proxy)
• Proxy Method ( basic auth or no auth)
• Proxy Username
• Proxy Password

Example configuration using the "config proxy" command

To show the current proxy settings, use the "proxy" command

Restore Probe State

You may need to restore the probe’s original configuration.

There are two ways of achieving this. Since these are destructive commands a strong confirmation will be requested.

You may erase data from previous network captures. This preserves configuration settings and GUI user accounts.

Capture# reset 
logs pcap
...
Stopping services...
Deleting data...
Done.

Reset pcap : Delete autopcap and tcpdump files
Reset logs : Delete logs files from the sensor

The command reset all will destroy both your configuration and capture database. You will have a fresh new database. Configuration settings, users and captures will be reset to default values.

pulsar# reset all
...
Stopping all services...
Resetting...
Creating default settings...
Done.

Formating Data Hard Drive Disks

This is to be used when new data disks are delivered. Any existing data (both Capture Sensor and configuration data) will be lost. Default values will be restored. A reboot is required to perform this operation.

PVX# format_data_disk
!! WARNING !! You are about to format the data HD. All data will be erased.
Type 'yes!' to confirm, without quotes: yes!
Datadisk marked to be formatted, please reboot now to execute the formatting.

Listing Running Processes

The process command lists all of the processes running on the appliance as well as their uptime.

pulsar# process
distribute                       RUNNING   pid 4546, uptime 8 days, 3:56:33
storage                          RUNNING   pid 4547, uptime 8 days, 3:56:33
junkie                           RUNNING   pid 10892, uptime 2 days, 2:39:19
nevrax                           RUNNING   pid 93442, uptime 2 days, 0:54:49
machine-status                   RUNNING   pid 4542, uptime 8 days, 3:56:33
junkie-dumper                    RUNNING   pid 10859, uptime 2 days, 2:39:25
dumptimer                        RUNNING   pid 6206, uptime 2 days, 2:51:35
low-space-watchdog               RUNNING   pid 4544, uptime 8 days, 3:56:33
monitor-nevrax                   RUNNING   pid 130617, uptime 1:57:06
notifications                    RUNNING   pid 355, uptime 2 days, 2:58:51

You can see in this example that some processes have been restarted recently.

The table below provides a brief explanation of the most important processes:

Name	Also runs on a capture	Role
distribute	No	Deploys configuration and collects CSV files on traffic statistics
storage	No	Stores new data into the RDBMS and handles data aggregation
junkie	Yes	Network sniffer that computes various statistics about the traffic
nevrax	No	Web interface

The followig table references most of our internal processes:

Name	Also runs on a capture	Role
machine-status	Yes	Gathers statistics about the probe
junkie-dumper	Yes	Part of the sniffer data aggregation process
dumptimer	Yes	Part of the sniffer data aggregation process
low-space-watchdog	Yes	Monitors the available disk space
monitor-nevrax	No	Ensures good resources usage of nevrax
notifications	Yes	Web interfaceHandles the notification system

More About Pulsar

The help command provides both global and command-specific assistance. Tab-completion is enabled for commands and subcommands such as help, config and show.

Available commands

Configuration Example

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CAUTION: As of release 4.1, most of the configuration should always be performed on the Nodes Management page of the web interface since the datastore stores the master configurations of its captures!
See How to configure a capture probe.

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Here’s an example of network configuration:

Capture-1# config network
[NETWORK] (type '?' for help)
Interface selection:
  Enter  1 for eth0
  Enter  2 for eth1
  Enter  3 for exit network configuration
Your choice? 1
Which configuration would you like to change on eth0?:
  Enter  1 for up the interface
  Enter  2 for down the interface
  Enter  3 for IPv4
  Enter  4 for IPv6
  Enter  5 for configure another interface
  Enter  6 for exit network configuration
Your choice? 3
How do you want to configure the interface?:
  Enter  1 for disable IPv4
  Enter  2 for static IP
  Enter  3 for IP via DHCP [default]
Your choice? 2
IPv4 address: 192.168.1.1
netmask: 255.255.255.0
gateway (type 'empty' to remove): 192.168.1.254
Which configuration would you like to change on eth0?:
  Enter  1 for up the interface
  Enter  2 for down the interface
  Enter  3 for IPv4
  Enter  4 for IPv6
  Enter  5 for configure another interface
  Enter  6 for exit network configuration
Your choice? 6

Configuration summary
[NETWORK]
eth0 (up)
  IPv4
    mode        : dhcp --> static
    address     : None --> 192.168.1.1
    netmask     : None --> 255.255.255.0
    gateway     : None --> 192.168.1.254
  IPv6
    mode        : auto

Capture-1 (uncommitted changes)# commit
System configuration changes have been committed successfully.
Successfully applied the changes to the system.
Network changes will not be effective until next probe reboot.
Reboot now?:
  Enter  1 for yes
  Enter  2 for no [default]
Your choice? 1
Pulsar is going to reboot the machine...

Support Access Through VPN

The probes come with an already configured, but disabled, VPN connection to allow access for support operations. The VPN address is set by default and should normally not be changed. If you need to, you can change it with the config support command in Pulsar. The VPN service is disabled by default. You can start or stop it at any given moment using the corresponding support start or support stop commands in the Pulsar shell. There is also an on/off switch for the VPN in the graphical user interface, see Sensor Management
When the VPN connection is enabled, this is visible in the user intrface where a VPN icon will appear next to the sensor. Via the VPN connect, support can log in and manage or troubleshoot the Capture Sensor because they can use super user rights.

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Note: For the VPN connection of the probe to work properly, you will probably have to configure your network and/or security equipment, including your firewalls. Default DNS Host is vpn.performancevision.com and default port is 443.
If VPN access should not be allowed at any point in time, block the above port and FQDN for outgoing traffic in your firewall.

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Support with No Remote Access

In case the probe is not accessible from the Internet, you can use the diag command. It will generate a tarball containing all necessary information for the support team to do diagnostics. Once the tarball is generated, you will have to download the file using FTP with the classical admin account (in the /diag directory) and send it to the support team by email or any file sharing platform (file size can be large).

probe# diag
Creating a diagnostic package, could be long...
Download the diagnostic file with a FTP client: DIAG-E2A346A2-55F7-5834-40AE-B1EC5967FB61-20140610131029

What Information to Give to the Support Team

Use the info command. This summarizes all the basic information needed for support assistance, such as state of the probe, IP address of support tunnel and other useful data.

probe# info
UUID                           E2A346A2-55F7-5834-40AE-B1EC5967FB61
Platform                       vmware
Role                           Datastore
Release                        3.0.9-r1-internal
License                        Valid license (2015-01-02 00:00:00)
/ usage                        42%
Datadisk present?              True
/srv usage                     27%
Admin interface                192.168.80.119 / 255.255.255.0 - 192.168.80.255
Support interface              10.10.0.5 / 255.255.255.0
Sniffer state                  RUNNING
Distribute state               RUNNING
Storage state                  RUNNING
GUI state                      RUNNING
Database state                 RUNNING

How to Configure User Interface Language

The User Interface is available in both English and French. The language is automatically detected based on the default language of the browser used to access the probe. So, to make the user interface apply the desired language, the administrator should check and configure the default language of the browser.