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Configure external network traffic with a PCI passthrough to allow Virtual Network Sensor to monitor data.

Note
Note
The following instructions are valid as of October 2023.
These instructions are only for Virtual Network Sensors deployed on a KVM host machine.
Before you begin, make sure you have prepared a vSwitch.

Procedure

  1. Access Terminal on the host machine.
  2. Verify if IOMMU is turned on.
    You can use one of two methods to check if IOMMU is turned on or off.
    • cat /proc/cmdline
      Example output if IOMMU is on: intel_iommu=on
    • dmesg | grep -i mmu
      Example output if IOMMU is on: iommu: Default domain type: Passthrough
  3. If IOMMU is turned off, configure grub and reboot.
    1. Configure grub.
      sudo grubby --update-kernel ALL --args 'intel_iommu=on iommu=pt'
    2. Reboot the machine.
      sudo reboot
    3. After reboot completes, verify that IOMMU is turned on.
      cat /proc/cmdline or dmesg | grep -i mmu
  4. Check bus-info of the network interface you want to use for PCI passthrough.
    ethtool -i eth1
    An example output is: bus-info: 0000:1b:00.0
    Note
    Note
    The example code uses eth1 as the target network interface. You can choose the network interface that best suits the needs of your deployment.
  5. Find the iommu group of the PCI passthrough network interface.
    dmesg | grep '0000:1b:00.0'
  6. Get the PCI info of other iommu group members.
    For example, if the network interface is in group 8, use the command:
    dmesg | grep 'iommu group 8'
  7. Detach all iommu group members.
    sudo virsh nodedev-detach <pci-info>
    For example, to detach the eth1 port example used in these steps, use the command sudo virsh nodedev-detach pci_0000_1b_00_0
  8. On the host machine, open the Virtual Machine Manager.
  9. Double-click your Virtual Network Sensor.
  10. Click Add Hardware.
  11. Go to PCI Host Device and select the position of the PCI passthrough.
    If you were using the example in the previous steps, you would need to locate and click on 0000:1b:00.0.
  12. Click Finish.