GUIDE 2 – XPLG on Amazon Linux 2

Adding Log Data to PortX/XpoLog

XPLG Log Management Product Suite

In this guide, you can find how to install PortX/XpoLog on a standalone, bare metal Amazon Linux 2 EC2 instance.

The steps described here are generally applicable for other Linux distributions.

* Learn more about XpoLog’s Log Analysys features or PortX Log Collection and management

Demo Server

For simplicity, the setup assumes PortX/XpoLog will be installed on a single EC2 instance, running in a single public subnet in a non-default VPC. 

The instance will be publicly accessible and have an associated elastic IP. 

The instance type is m4.2xlarge, which has 8 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM.

The optimal memory size for a PortX/XpoLog machine depends on the ingested log volume per day and retention period.

Generally, a memory size not less than 8 GB and no more than 64 GB is recommended. Standard PortX/XpoLog machines utilize 4 to 8 CPU cores. 

Increasing the root volume size to 500 GB will ensure the configuration is suitable for moderate workloads.

The security group attached to the instance allows incoming traffic on ports 22 (SSH), 30303 (PortX/XpoLog web access), and 30443 (PortX/XpoLog secured web access)

Other ports like 25 (needed for SMTP server access), 162 (needed for SNMP traps) or DB ports have not been added to the security group because those features are not going to be used here.

A production PortX/XpoLog environment will be quite different from this setup. In a typical production setup, an XpoLog instance:

• May reside in a private subnet or the network edge.
• May be accessible from the corporate network as well as the outside world. In the first case, network traffic rules would allow traffic from one or more internal IP address ranges. In the second scenario, users will need to log in with two-factor authentication or similar security features.
• May use a larger storage volume.

The simplified setup is for demonstration purposes only.

Downloading PortX/XpoLog | XPLG

You can download the PortX/XpoLog binary to a local directory from this URL: https://www.xplg.com/download/.

For Amazon Linux 2:

• Choose  Linux 64 from the drop-down list.
• Provide your business e-mail address, name and select the checkbox to accept XPLG terms and conditions.
• Click the “DOWNLOAD FREE”  button.

Once downloaded, you can un-compress the installer in your local workstation and copy the executable file (.bin extension) to the target machine using tools like SCP or WinSCP.

You can also download the PortX/XpoLog installer directly from the target machine. To do this:

• Log in to the instance as ec2-user and switch to root user or a user with root privileges.
• Run the following command to download PortX/XpoLog 64-bit Linux installer:

wget

http://get.xpolog.com/downloads/xpolog/GA/linux/XpoLogCenterSetup-64.bin.gz

• Next, uncompress the installer:
  
  gzip -d XpoLogCenterSetup-64.bin.gz

Once the binary file is copied from the local workstation or directly downloaded and uncompressed in the target machine, it needs to be converted into an executable.

To do this, run this command: chmod +x XpoLogCenterSetup-64.bin

Installing PortX/XpoLog | XPLG

Note:

The PortX/XpoLog installer binary has already Java embedded in it, and so the installation process will automatically set up the runtime.

However, it is also possible to manually install and configure Java before installing PortX/XpoLog.

This is typically the case for customers who need to use a specific Java distribution as part of organization-wide configuration standard.

XpoLog comes with a generic installer without built-in JVM.

During setup, the installer will prompt for the Java location which then has to be provided.

Please note that PortX/XpoLog supports Java version 1.8 or later.

• Ensure you are logged into Linux as the root user or as a user with root privileges.
• Navigate to the directory where the PortX/XpoLog installer binary is located
• Run the following command to start PortX/XpoLog installer:
  ./XpoLogCenterSetup-64.bin
• The following messages will appear:

• Press Enter as prompted. The wizard will ask about the installation directory. In this example, the directory is created under the root folder:

• The installer double checks the location. Type Y if you agree :

• Next, the wizard wants to know if it should start PortX/XpoLog after installing it. Press Enter to accept the default (Yes)

• The pre-installation summary is displayed. Press Enter to begin the installation:

• The installation progress will be shown. Once successfully completed, the wizard will prompt to press Enter to exit:

• Press Enter to exit the wizard.

Accessing PortX/XpoLog After Installation

To see if PortX/XpoLog is running, open a browser window and navigate to this address:

The main PortX/XpoLog Center interface will come up:

Conclusion

As you can see, installing PortX/XpoLog on Linux is very simple.

Almost all the steps described here are the same for other flavors of Linux.

As an administrator, your next task will be performing a number of post-install configurations.

This is what we will see in chapter 4 – the quick start guide. 

All chapters:

You might also like: