System Configuration

slot/port

VLANS

• Supports IEEE802.1Q
• VLANS Supported:
  • Default VLAN = 1
  • PortBased VLAN
  • Tagged VLAN (nsvlan)

Link Aggregate Channels

• Channel parameters have precedence over the interface parameters

Clock

• Clock synchronization is done in shell

DNS

• Can Function as:
  • Authoritative Domain Name Server (ADNS)
  • DNS proxy server
  • End Resolver
  • Forwarder (typical config)
• Can add resource records such as:
  • SRV Records
  • AAAA Records
  • A Records
  • MX Records
  • NS Records
  • CNAME Records
  • PTR Records
  • SOA Records
• Can balance load on external DNS Servers
• Actions allowed for external name servers:
  • add server

add dns nameServer

show dns nameServer

• By IP address – appliance will load balance requests to the dns servers in round robin
• By Virtual IP (VIP) – can specify load balancing method
• remove server
• enable server
• disable server

SNMP

• Supports SNMP v1, v2 and v3
• Message types:
  • Alarms
  • Traps – events that the agent generates to signal abnormal conditions
• Agent Operates in bilingual mode
  • Can handle SNMPv2 queries eg. Get-Bulk
  • Can handle SNMPv1 queries
  • Sends traps compliant with SNMPv2
  • Supports SNMPv2 data types eg counter64
• SNMPv1 managers use NS-MIB-smiv1.mib file when processing SNMP queries
• SNMPv2 Managers use NS-MIB-smiv2.mib file to process snmp queries
• Supported enterprise-specific MIBs
  • A subset of standard MIB-2 groups – Provides MIB-2 groups SYSTEM, IF, ICMP, UDP, and SNMP
  • A system enterprise MIB – Provides system-specific configuration and statistics
• Configuration Procedure:
  • Specify managers that can query SNMP agent
    • This is a computer running a management application
    • If not configured, Netscaler accepts and responds to all IP address
    • If configured, Netscaler accepts and responds snmp queries only from them
    • Netmask can be used to allow a subnet
    • Maxium 100 managers in a network

add snmp manager … [-netmask ]

show snmp manager

• Add SNMP trap listeners that receive trap messages
  • Specify IP address + Destination port
  • Type of trap (generic or specific)
  • SNMP version
  • Max of 20 listeners

add snmp trap specific

show snmp trap

OR

System > SNMP > Traps> Add

• configure SNMP alarms
  • Enable the alarm

set snmp alarm [-state ENABLED | DISABLED ]

show snmp alarm

• Set the severity level (Critical, Major, Minor, Warning, and Informational) when the trap will be generated

set snmp alarm [-severity ]

show snmp alarm

System > SNMP > Alarms

Syslog

• Logging can be done locally in Netscaler or to external log servers
• Audit Server Logging feature is used to log the states and status information collected in different modules in the kernel and by user-level daemons
• Used to monitor netscaler and log info

Firewall ports

• • UDP 161 (SNMP)
  • UDP 162 (SNMP trap)
  • TCP/UDP 3010 (GUI)
  • HTTP 80 (GUI)
  • TCP 22 (SSH)

Server Configuration

• Keep-alive should be enabled on servers
• If Microsoft® Internet Information Server – enable buffering
• If Apache Server – maximum connections (MaxConn) should be enabled on server and netscaler
• If Netscape® Enterprise Server – max request per connection should be set on netscaler

Software features

• L2 Mode should be disabled if  L2 device is working in parallel with netscaler
• Disable MAC based forwarding if MAc address of return traffic is different