This discussion has been locked. The information referenced herein may be inaccurate due to age, software updates, or external references.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a similar question you can start a new discussion in this forum.

QoE Packet Analysis Sensor, Sensor Status

hammerrw1 over 9 years ago

On our network sensor, it shows that the Agent Status is connected but the sensor status indicates Down. How would you fix this issue?

Top Replies

travisj over 9 years ago +1

Here is my story on the network sensor. I worked with the tech team for a couple days.... Hello Everyone, Just wanted to share my story with everyone about how I was able to setup and configure…

0 smittyman over 9 years ago
I was getting ready to post a similar question. I loaded the agent on a Windows 7 64-bit system as a network sensor and am getting the same thing. I've opened a case with Solarwinds support and their first response is that Windows 7 is not a supported OS, referencing the following document at http://www.solarwinds.com/documentation/en/flarehelp/npm/#orionagentrequirements.htm where it states:

Supported operating systems:
Windows Server 2008, 64-bit
Windows Server 2008 R2, 64-bit
Windows Server 2012, 64-bit
Windows Server 2012 R2, 64-bit
Notes:
Agents are not officially supported on workstation operating systems.
Agents run as a Windows service
Agent communication to the Orion Server uses FIPS compatible encryption
However, the Network Sensor requirements documented in the Solarwinds Packet Analysis Sensor Deployment Guide located at http://www.solarwinds.com/documentation/Orion/docs/SolarWindsPacketAnalysisSensorDeploymentGuide.pdf state the following on page 4 for system requirements:
     Windows 7 64-bit or later
     Windows Server 2008 64-bit or later
     Note: 32-bit operating systems are not supported.
I'd like clarification from a PM on which of these statements is actually accurate, and if it's the former, then I'd definitely recommend correcting the documentation in the PDF deployment guide. If it does take a server OS to run a remote network sensor agent then I'm afraid I won't be deploying these in my environment as server OS licensing is much more expensive than desktop OS.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel
0 HolyGuacamole over 9 years ago in reply to smittyman

Did you deploy the agent manually or from the web console? If you did it manually, uninstall and do it from the web console using the sensor deployment wizard. The agent only provides the communication channel back to the polling engine / orion server. The sensor runs on top of that.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel
0 smittyman over 9 years ago in reply to HolyGuacamole

I deployed the agent via the web console. I added the node to NPM, then provided the appropriate credentials and it pushed it to the remote Windows 7 sensor agent. I may uninstall it and then try it again just to see if something went awry the first time.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel
0 HolyGuacamole over 9 years ago in reply to smittyman

When you re-install, do it from the Settings, QoE settings, manage sensors page.
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel
0 travisj over 9 years ago in reply to smittyman

Good Morning, I had the same issue with mine, you can't deploy a network sensor on a Windows 7 64 bit machine. I wrote a post on this Friday. I will send it to you when I find it. You can only deploy a server agent on a Windows 7 64 bit. You have to have at least Windows Server 2008 R2 or higher. Make sure your firewall has the correct ports open or just disable it and also check your "UAC" I had that also blocking the agent. Hope this helps!
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel
0 travisj over 9 years ago

Here is my story on the network sensor. I worked with the tech team for a couple days.... Hello Everyone, Just wanted to share my story with everyone about how I was able to setup and configure a network analyzer using NPM 11.0. So for my analyzer I used a Dell OptiPlex 9020 which has an i5 gen 4 processor with 8 gigs of Ram. I installed server 2008 R2 on it as you are not able to deploy this agent to a Windows 7 machine. So our network Infrastructure consist of about 75 end users and 23 servers 12 which are VM's. The reason I wanted to use this analyzer is at the end of every month our order entry system will start locking up on random PC's all across our call center. Never seems to be the same person just happens at random the last 3 days of the month. So we had that wonderful question that everyone loves.... Was it the network causing the issue or the application? Being that our order entry system is installed on Windows Server 2003 R2 we are unable to just deploy an agent to this server as it has to be 2008 64bit or higher. So we have three Power Connect 5548 switches in a closet in the call center where our graphics, marketing, and sales are all connected to. Then I have a 10 gig fiber connection running to the server room where I have another 3 stack of 5548's. So for testing purposes I thought I would just port mirror the fiber line connecting to two switches as I should be able to capture a lot of packets. So I tried configuring the OptiPlex server I built called "Tryphon" to capture that data coming across that fiber line. One major problem, I had no success running this setup with only one NIC. So I decided to use a dongle to get another network port on this server. So I configure Solar Winds to monitor Tryphon with the dongle NIC which I set the ip to x.x.x.211 and set the on board NIC to x.x.x.210. When I was trying to use just one NIC as soon as I enabled port mirroring it would kick me out of the RDP session. Being that I put Tryphon in the server room I wasn't able to see what was going on. However it didn't seem to be getting blown up with network traffic so not sure why that was the case. So now I RDP into the server using the same IP that Solar Winds is monitoring and it working like a charm! One key thing, you will need to edit the sensor and change the connection that it uses to make sure it is set to the right one that you want it to capture data with. To do that go the QoE under the home tap and check the box beside the Server or analyzer that you want to change and the click edit senor. From there you will be able to choose which NIC, the amount of memory and how many processors you want to dedicate to this. I set mine to 6 gig's and 3 processors. That seems to be working great for me as the machine is still running fine and isn't slow or sluggish at all. The max CPU usage is about 5 percent at times and memory around 15 percent over a span of 3 hours during out busy time of the day. So then the fun part, I was able to capture packets from Facebook from out marketing team. Also found some packets coming from Pandora.... Which they are not suppose to be doing that lol. I was able to answer the question about our order entry system. It wasn't the network at all causing the issue it is coming from within the server and SQL. So this was able to eliminate my network questions about our order entry system. I think this is a great tool and everyone should give this a try. You will be amazed at what kind of traffic is floating around your network. I am new to "networking" I have only been in the field for about a year and this is so much easier to analyze that using Wire shark for newbie's like me :-). Thanks Solar Winds!!!!
Cancel
Vote Up +1 Vote Down

Cancel
0 FormerMember over 9 years ago in reply to travisj

Hey travisj,
It's great to see such feedback! You might want to write a product review in the Spread the Word forum to earn a $25 card from Amazon
Cancel
Vote Up 0 Vote Down

Cancel