Deploying a Standalone Sensor Collector

To set up a Sensor Collector (formerly Roadrunner) instance run without connecting to a Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance system, configure Sensor Collector to send its metrics to a customer-provided SFTP server, rather than into the Cisco Provider Connectivity Assurance ingestion pipeline.

Download a Standalone Sensor Collector Bundle

Standalone Sensor Collector bundles can be downloaded from: https://software.accedian.io/?prefix=roadrunner

Extract The Bundle

Copy the Sensor Collector tarball to the location from which you will be running your Sensor Collector, and uncompress it with the following command:

> tar -xzvf adh-roadrunner-sa-{VER}.tar.gz

Prepare Your Configuration

Environment Variables

The following environment variables can be overridden if needed by changing their default values in the .env file included in the Sensor Collector bundle. In most cases, there will be no need to change the defaults, however, it might be necessary to do so if, for example, you are attempting to run multiple standalone Sensor Collector instances on the same machine and need to avoid container name and port conflicts.

Sensor Collector Configuration File

The adh-roadrunner.yml configuration file includes some parameters related to the SFTP server that must be set initially:

sftpserver:
  host: {_SFTP_SERVER_HOST_}
  port: {_SFTP_SERVER_PORT_}
  user: {_SFTP_SERVER_USER_}
  keyfile: "ssh_host_sftp"
  filepath: "/upload"
  compress: true

Set the host, port, and user parameters to the appropriate values for your SFTP server.

The following parameters also apply to the SFTP server but do not need to be set up unless you need to change the defaults:

• keyfile - If you are using RSA key authentication with the SFTP server and want to use a different filename for your key file, change this value.
• filepath - This is the path on the SFTP server where Roadrunner will write the .csv files to. You can change this default if you need or prefer a different location on the SFTP server.
• compress - determines whether or not gzip compression will be applied to the files when they are written to the SFTP server.

SFTP Server Authentication

Before it can connect successfully to the SFTP server, Sensor Collector must be configured with the appropriate authentication method.

Regardless of which method of authentication you will use between Sensor Collector and the SFTP server, you must configure Sensor Collector to use the appropriate username for its connection.

This is set in the adh-roadrunner.yml file, by setting the sftpserver.user parameter to match the user name set up on the SFTP server.

Once done, the remainder of the setup depends on the authentication method to be used:

RSA Key

If you are using an RSA key to authenticate with the SFTP server, the key must be copied to the expected location so that Sensor Collector can find it on startup.

By default, this is the .rr_ssh directory in the Sensor Collector working directory (that is, the directory where you uncompressed the Sensor Collector tarball, and from where you will run Sensor Collector).

Copy your key to this location as follows:

> mkdir -m 755 ./.rr_ssh
> cp <keyfile> ./.rr_ssh/ssh_host_sftp
> chmod 700 ./.rr_ssh/ssh_host_sftp

Username Password

If you are using a username/password combination for authenticating with the SFTP server, there is no additional configuration to be prepared.

When Sensor Collector is started for the first time, there will be a user prompt to enter the password to use for accessing the SFTP server. Once the password is entered, Sensor Collector will continue its start-up and will attempt to connect to the server with the supplied username and password.

Subsequent restarts of Sensor Collector will not require a password to be entered manually.

Starting Sensor Collector

To start your Sensor Collector instance, the process is the same as for the connected Sensor Collector - execute the [run.sh](http://run.sh) script:

> run.sh

Release 23.04 And Earlier

To make deployment more straightforward, a type of Roadrunner archive has been created, which bundles together the Roadrunner docker image, as well as a docker image for a sidecar service called Postoffice that acts as a stand in for the usual Analytics entry point, and all required configuration files, docker compose files, and scripts.

Documentation related to the Roadrunner bundle can be found in the README.md file for the bundler project.

Download a Standalone Roadrunner Bundle

Stand alone Roadrunner bundles can be downloaded from: https://software.accedian.io/?prefix=roadrunner

Copy the Bundle

Copy your adh-connector-bundle.tar.gz file to the location you will be running your Roadrunner/Shipper from.

Extract the Bundle

Uncompress the tarball with the following command:

> tar -xzvf adh-roadrunner-bundle.tar.gz

Update the Configuration

Open the adh-postoffice-csv.ym file and replace the following placeholder values:

• _SFTP_SERVER_HOST_OR_IP_ - Replace with the hostname or IP address of the SFTP server you want your metrics shipped to.
• _SFTP_SERVER_PORT_ - Replace with the port which we should be connecting to the SFTP server on.
• _SFTP_USERNAME_ - Replace with the username we should use to log in to the SFTP server

If authenticating via username/password:

• uncomment #password: "password" and replace “password” with the password to use for logging into the SFTP server.

If authenticating via public/private key pair:

• uncomment #keyfile: "/.ssh/id_rsa" and replace “/.ssh/id_rsa” with the filepath to the key file to use for authentication

Launch the Services

Start both Roadrunner and its side car shipper service using the provided run script:

> ./run.sh