Network Actor Requirements

The following requirements must be met on a host system for the Network Actor to function properly:

4.14.0.0 or later

Specification	Network Actor Minimum Requirement
Processor	64-bit x86 CPU with at least 2 cores
Memory	2GB*
Disk Storage	Appliance: 60GB of free disk space for Actor files Installer: 20GB of free disk space for Actor files**
Network	Two network interfaces; Static, routable IP addresses required. See Using Multiple Interfaces on the same Subnet for more information.
* If your Actor acts as a proxy for another Actor, make sure the Actor has a minimum 8GB memory before applying the security patch. ** To accommodate the extra log files that are generated, we recommend 40GB of disk storage for Actors that are configured as proxies for other Actors.

4.13.0.0 or earlier

Specification	Network Actor Minimum Requirement
Processor	64-bit x86 CPU with at least 2 cores
Memory	2GB*
Disk Storage	20GB of free disk space for Actor files**
Network	Two network interfaces; Static, routable IP addresses required. See Using Multiple Interfaces on the same Subnet for more information.
* If your Actor acts as a proxy for another Actor, make sure the Actor has a minimum 8GB memory before applying the security patch. ** To accommodate the extra log files that are generated, we recommend 40GB of disk storage for Actors that are configured as proxies for other Actors.

There are also some form-factor specific requirements:

Specification	Form Factor	Actor Minimum Requirement
/opt	Installable software (CentOS & RHEL)	20GB of free disk space This is only required when the /opt is on a separate partition.
/tmp	Installable software (CentOS & RHEL)	8GB This is only required if /tmp is on a separate partition.

Supported environments

The Network Actor can be installed in one of the following environments:

• Linux
• Virtual appliances

Linux

Operating system	Supported releases
Amazon Linux 2	Earlier than 4.14.4.0
CentOS	Earlier than 4.14.4.0: 7-7.x*
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)	Earlier than 4.14.4.0: 7-7.x 8-8.x 9-9.x 4.14.4.0 and later: 8-8.x 9-9.x
Rocky Linux	8-8.x
Ubuntu	Earlier than 4.14.4.0: 18.04 20.04 22.04 4.14.4.0 and later: 20.04 22.04

^{* As of June 30, 2024, CentOS 7, the underlying operating system for Director and Actor appliances prior to 4.14.0.0, will be End of Life (EOL), therefore no longer supported as a base operating system for MSV Director and Actor appliances. Plan to upgrade to 4.14.0.0 or later on the Rocky Linux 8 platform as soon as possible. See Upgrade Security Validation Components to Rocky Linux 8 for more information.}

Virtual appliances

VMware ESXi 7.02, hardware version 19

Proxy Actors

In environments with policy, segmentation, or regulatory requirements, a Network Actor may need to be in its own security zone. As a result, this Actor cannot communicate directly with the Director. The following diagram shows this scenario.

Actor isolated in segmented PCI environment

In this example, if the Network Actor in a security can communicate with another Network Actor in another security zone that can reach the Director, the second Actor can be configured as a Proxy Actor, as shown in the following diagram.

 Actor configured to proxy communication from Director to segmented Actor

Note the following when configuring Actors for proxy communications: 

• The Proxy Actor must be in Push mode
• The Actor connecting to the Proxy Actor can only be in Push mode

See Adding the Network Actor Configuration to Director for more information.

Using Multiple Interfaces on the same Subnet

To allow separation of traffic when setting up Actors, you can specify different management, test, and monitor interfaces. Standard practice when using multiple network interfaces on a single system is to have each interface in a different subnet. Having a system with multiple network interfaces in the same subnet requires special configuration to avoid asymmetric routing. To have multiple network interfaces on the same subnet, static source-based routes must be defined to ensure that traffic goes out and comes in on the correct interfaces.

During installation of the Actor, the vsetnet command will configure such routes, to support multiple interfaces on the same subnet, when all of the following conditions are met:

• The Actor is on RHEL or CentOS 7 (this can be an Actor appliance or an installer-based Linux Actor)
• Platform Network Control is enabled, which occurs when you run vsetnet and respond yes to the prompt "Will Verodin control the network configuration files?"
• A static IP address is used for any non-management (test and monitor) interfaces. DHCP can only be used for the management interface.

To use an Actor with multiple interfaces on the same subnet under conditions other than specified above, you're responsible for configuring the static source-based routes needed to avoid asymmetric routing issues.

Recommendations for Amazon EC2 Instance Types

If you are installing your Actor on AWS from an AMI file or any of our other form factors, choose an Amazon EC2 instance that supports your expected throughput and network performance.

Recommended EC2 Instance Types	Network Performance*
T3.small / T3a.small	Up to 5 Gbps
T2.medium	Low to moderate
* Network Performance is based on information from Amazon

Recommendations for Azure Instance Types

If installing your Actor on Azure, choose an Azure type that has at least 2 CPU and 4GB RAM. Two options are the Standard_A2_v2 and Standard_A4_v2.

Memory Reservation on Virtual Machines

To avoid performance issues, you must ensure that your resources are reserved and are not dynamically provisioned. Failure to reserve minimum required resources may result in unsatisfactory performance or a failure to start. You can search your virtualization product's knowledge base for "Allocate Memory Resources". For ease of access, vSphere 7.0 instructions, which closely match other versions, are available in VMware's Allocate Memory Resources article, https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-49D7217C-DB6C-41A6-86B3-7AFEB8BF575F.html.