User Guide

The neteye Command

The neteye CLI command is used from the CLI to carry out a few tasks related to the NetEye Installations, both Single Nodes and Cluster. Various sub-commands are available and are analysed in this section:

neteye status

neteye status is used to list the NetEye services and their status, either UP or DOWN.

neteye start | stop

The neteye start and neteye stop command are used to start or stop all NetEye services at once.

neteye update

The neteye update command runs a number of tasks as listed below in order of execution.

Task

Order

Single Node

Cluster

Description

Health checks

#1

yes

yes

Carry out health checks to verify that NetEye installation is healthy and eligible for update

Standby and fencing

#2

no

yes

puts all nodes in standby except the NetEye Active Node, and disables fencing, if enabled

Update RPM

#3

yes

yes

Installs all RPM updates (bugfixes) for the current version

.rpmsave and .rpmnew check

#4

yes

yes

Searches for any .rpmsave and .rpmnew files

Secure install

#5

yes

yes

Execute neteye_secure_install to complete update and initialise all NetEye modules

If any of these tasks is unsuccessful, a message will explain where the command failed, allowing you to manually fix the corresponding step, then launch again the neteye update command. Check also the Troubleshooting section for more information and directions about fixing the problems.

neteye upgrade

The neteye upgrade is called after neteye update and carries out a number of tasks that differ when it is executed on a Single Node or on a Cluster node.

Warning

The neteye upgrade command may take a long time before it completes successfully, so please do not interrupt it until it exits.

The tasks carried out by the neteye upgrade command are listed below in order of execution. It is also mentioned if they run on Clusters or Single Nodes.

Single Nodes and Cluster

Task

Order

Single Node

Cluster

Description

Health checks

#1

yes

yes

Carry out health checks to verify that NetEye installation is healthy and eligible for update

Check update status

#2

yes

yes

NetEye is fully updated and there are no minor (bugfix) updates to be installed, otherwise it will install the available updates

Upgrade eligibility

#3

yes

yes

Verify that NetEye is eligible for upgrade: it checks which is the installed version (e.g., 4.20) and that the last upgrade was finalized

Standby and fencing

#4

no

yes

puts all nodes in standby except the Active Node, and disables fencing, if enabled

Active Node node check

#5

no

yes

Make sure the Active Node is active (i.e. non in standby mode, please refer to section The NetEye Active Node below to understand which node is considered as the Active Node.

Repo update

#6

yes

yes

Update all the NetEye repositories to the next version to which it is possible to upgrade (e.g., 4.21)

Packages check

#7

yes

yes

Check for new software packages in the repositories

Package install

#8

yes

yes

Install new packages

Yum groups install

#9

yes

yes

Install new packages that belong to the NetEye yum groups

.rpmsave and .rpmnew check

#10

yes

yes

Searches for any .rpmsave and .rpmnew files

Finalise installation

#11

yes

yes

The neteye_secure_install and neteye_finalize_installation scripts are executed

If the neteye upgrade command is successful, a message will inform you that the upgrade procedure concludes successfully. Otherwise, if the commands breaks at some point, you need to fix the failed tasks manually and then launch again the command. Check also the Troubleshooting section for more information and directions about fixing the problems.

What neteye update and neteye upgrade do not do on Clusters

The following tasks are required to bring a cluster back to the correct operative status after an update or an upgrade and need to be carried out manually:

  • Unstandby nodes

  • Restore stonith on cluster

Additionally, the commands can not be launched on Elastic-only or a Voting-only nodes. Please note that, however, even if the two commands can be executed on operative nodes only, the update/upgrade procedure is performed also on Elastic-only and Voting-only nodes.

neteye update vs. neteye upgrade

The main difference between the two commands is that the neteye update installs all available packages in the current version of NetEye. On the other side, neteye upgrade installs all available packages in next version of NetEye.

For example, given a NetEye version 4.20, neteye update fully updates NetEye 4.20 with the latest packages in the 4.20 repository, while neteye upgrade installs and configures all new packages available in the 4.21 repository.

neteye node

The command neteye node is responsible for performing operations on the node on which it is executed such as updating the operating system. The only sub-command available is system-upgrade.

neteye node system-upgrade

The command neteye node system-upgrade executed on a specific node is responsible for the upgrade of NetEye from version 4.22 to 4.23 and also of the upgrade of the operating system from CentOS 7 to RHEL 8.

As described in the upgrade procedure it will upgrade the operating system from NetEye 4.22 on CentOS 7 to RHEL 7 and then to RHEL 8 with NetEye 4.23. After each change of operating system, a reboot is required. In the case of a cluster, the command must be executed node by node and before starting with a new node, the previous one must have finished the upgrade to RHEL 8.

This command does not carry out any task on versions 4.23 onwards.

neteye node tags

The sub-commands of neteye node tags allow the management of the tags that are used for the registration to Red Hat and that are uploaded to Red Hat Insights.

neteye node tags set

Option

Description

--customer_id

The customer ID

--type

The machine type. One of [‘physical’, ‘virtual’]

--deployment

The deployment type of the machine. One of [‘prod’, ‘demo’, ‘dev’, ‘poc’, ‘qa’]

--nuuid

The neteye UUID assigned to this machine. this argument is not required on a ‘dev’ machine.

Hint

Please refer to the consultants, or support portal to obtain the NUUID and customer_id associated to your NetEye installation.

For all options that aren’t provided with the command, you will be prompted by the wizard.

The neteye node tags set command must be executed to successfully register a NetEye Node to Red Hat and to Red Hat Insights. The command asks the user to enter all the necessary tags that can’t be generated by the system itself. After the user has entered all the tags, it will call neteye node tags regenerate to generate the file that will be used by Red Hat Insights.

neteye node tags regenerate

This command will generate some system tags automatically and then merges the custom tags provided by the user and then merges them with the custom tags provided by the user into a single file that will be used by Red Hat Insights. The system tags will be generated on each run. If the custom tags are not provided, it will throw an error and ask the user to first execute neteye node tags set to generate the custom tags. This command can be used if some system specifications change to propagate those tags to Red Hat Insights.

This command will also be called during neteye_secure_install if the system is not registered to Red Hat Insights and the registration is not disabled.

neteye node tags list

This command lists all the tags that are collected and sent to Red Hat Insight.

neteye node register

The command neteye node register registers the RHEL 8 subscription and sets up Red Hat Insights. By default it uses the NetEye activation key. If the node is registered with another organization, this behaviour can be changed by modifying /neteye/local/os/conf/subscription-manager.toml.

[subscription-manager]
enable_auto_rhel_subscription = false

If the setting enable_auto_rhel_subscription is set to false the Red Hat registration and the Red Hat Insights subscription are skipped.

This command will also be called during neteye_secure_install if it is not disabled.

Supporting Scripts

Two scripts complement the abilities of the neteye update and neteye upgrade commands:

For more details, refer to the next two sections.

neteye_secure_install

neteye_secure_install is a wrapper around a number of scripts that take care of the initial configuration of a NetEye installation and then start all services that are required for NetEye to operate correctly.

While this command is the first to be executed after the NetEye’ initial configuration, it must never be used in the update and upgrade procedures, because it is called automatically by the neteye update and neteye upgrade commands

In a nutshell, the tasks carried out by the script are:

  • To register the machine to RHEL 8

  • To set up Red Hat Insights

  • To reconfigure NetEye services and/or migrate configurations and databases after important changes

  • To restart services that were stopped or modified

  • To create certificates for secure communication

Before making any changes, the secure install script will also run a subset of light and deep health checks to ensure that NetEye will not be adversely affected due to a transient problem like low disk space or custom configurations.

Note

This automatic set of check is not intended to replace the good practice of running a separate, manual deep health check both before and after an update or upgrade.

The neteye_secure_install script is automatically called by the neteye update and neteye upgrade commands right after the installation of any new RPM packages from NetEye repositories

To run it manually, just type in the name of the script in a shell as root:

# neteye_secure_install

neteye_finalize_installation

neteye_finalize_installation is the last command executed during an upgrade procedure and makes sure that the correct NetEye version is stored. It is the last task of neteye upgrade.

Note

This command should never be used in the update and upgrade procedures, as it is called automatically by the neteye update and neteye upgrade commands. In case you need to launch it manually, follow the steps described below.

Complete the upgrade process by launching the following script:

# neteye_finalize_installation

Note

You should launch the finalize command only if you want to perform the upgrade manually and only if all previous steps have been completed successfully. If you encounter any errors or problems during the upgrade process, please contact our our service and support team to evaluate the best way forward for upgrading your NetEye system.

The NetEye Active Node

During the update and upgrade operations, it is mandatory that one of the operative nodes is always active during the procedures. The nodes of a cluster are listed in the /etc/neteye-cluster file, for example like the following.

{
  "Hostname" : "my-neteye-cluster.example.com",
  "Nodes" : [
     {
        "addr" : "192.168.47.1",
        "hostname" : "my-neteye-01",
        "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-01.example.com",
        "id" : 1
     },
     {
        "addr" : "192.168.47.2",
        "hostname" : "my-neteye-02",
        "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-02.example.com",
        "id" : 2
     },
     {
        "addr" : "192.168.47.3",
        "hostname" : "my-neteye-03",
        "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-03.example.com",
        "id" : 3
     },
     {
        "addr" : "192.168.47.4",
        "hostname" : "my-neteye-04",
        "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-04.example.com",
        "id" : 4
     }
  ],
  "ElasticOnlyNodes": [
     {
        "addr" : "192.168.47.5",
        "hostname" : "my-neteye-05",
        "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-05.example.com",
        "id" : 5
     }
  ],
  "VotingOnlyNode" : {
       "addr" : "192.168.47.6",
       "hostname" : "my-neteye-06",
       "hostname_ext" : "my-neteye-06.example.com",
       "id" : 6
  }
}

The NetEye Active Node will always be the first node appearing in the list of Nodes, in this case it is the node with FQDN my-neteye-01.example.com and it is the one that must be always active during the update/upgrade procedure.

Therefore, before running neteye update and neteye upgrade, log in to my-neteye-01.example.com and make sure that it is not in stand-by mode. To do so, first execute the command to check the status of the cluster

cluster# pcs status

Then, if my-neteye-01.example.com is in standby, make it active with command

cluster# pcs node unstandby my-neteye-01.example.com

See also

How nodes are managed by the NetEye update/upgrade commands is described with great details in a NetEye blog post: https://www.neteye-blog.com/2021/10/hosts-and-neteye-upgrade/