Installing NFS Server for FortiSIEM Event Storage

When you install FortiSIEM, you have the option to use either local storage or NFS storage. For cluster deployments using Workers, the use of an NFS Server is required for the Supervisor and Workers to communicate with each other. This document describes how to set up and configure NFS servers for use with FortiSIEM.

NFS Server on Windows is not supported. If Elasticsearch is chosen as the Event Database, the Supervisor needs an additional 8 GB RAM - in this case, the minimum requirement of the Supervisor is 32 GB RAM. If NFS is chosen as the storage option, FortiSIEM mounts the NFS partition using NFSv3 protocol by default. However, most Linux based NFS servers and commercial servers also support the NFSv4.1 protocol which allows parallel I/O from threads/processes on the same node. NFSv3 serializes I/O across threads/processes on one machine. Based on the FortiSIEM performance testing results using NFSv4.1 protocol - if the customer NFS server supports NFSv4.1, it is recommended to change the mount option manually across Super and Workers and reboot the cluster. In /etc/fstab, change nfsvers=3 to nfsvers=4.1. Make sure you test this on a separate mount point before making the change on FortiSIEM cluster. For sizing the NFS event storage please refer to the Sizing Guide.

Installation in CentOS Linux 6.x

Follow the steps below to install NFS Server in CentOS Linux 6.x:

1. Login to CentOS 6.x as 'root'.
2. Download and install the NFS packages using the command:
   yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib
3. Run the NFS server start-up scripts:
   chkconfig nfs on
service rpcbind start
service nfs start
4. Check NFS service status and make sure the nfsd service using the command:
   service nfs status
5. Create a new directory in large volume to share with the FortiSIEM Supervisor and Worker nodes, and change the access permissions to provide FortiSIEM with access to the directory using the command:
   mkdir /FortiSIEM
chmod -R 777 /FortiSIEM
6. Edit the /etc/exports file to share the /FortiSIEM directory with the FortiSIEM Supervisor and Worker nodes by running:
   vi /etc/exports /FortiSIEM <Supervisor_IP_Address>(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
/FortiSIEM <Worker1_IP_Address>(rw,sync,no_root_squash) /FortiSIEM
Worker2_IP_Address>(rw,sync,no_root_squash)
   
7. Save your changes to /etc/exports and restart the NFS server using the command:
   service nfs restart
8. Check shared directories using the command:
   showmount -e localhost
   Example: Export list for localhost
   /FortiSIEM <Supervisor_IP_Address>,<Worker1_IP_Address>,<Worker2_IP_Address>

Installation in AWS Environment

Follow the steps below to install NFS Server in an AWS Environment:

Step 1: Launch FortiSIEM Supervisor from AWS Marketplace

1. Logon to your AWS account.
2. Go to Services > Compute > EC2.
3. Click EC2 Dashboard > Launch Instance.
4. Select HVM Amazon Linux 2 LTS AMI (HVM) 64-bit Instance.
5. Click Compute Optimized C5 Instance.
6. Configure the Instance details following the steps:
   1. Choose '1' in the number of instances.
   2. Choose 'Network' as the VPC selected for Supervisor and Worker nodes.
   3. Choose 'Subnet' as the subnet where you want to launch FortiSIEM VMs.
   4. Set Auto-assign public IP as 'Disabled'.
   5. Set Shutdown behavior as 'Stop'
   6. Check Enable termination protection.
   7. In Network Interfaces, choose the Primary IP as the Private IP of your choice within that subnet.
      You can select 'Auto-Assign' which is the default option.
   8. Click Add Storage.
      You can the default for root partition. Since you need storage for event data, add a new EBS volume based on your storage requirements (minimum 50GB).
   9. Click Add Tags. You can add a tag similar to “FortiSIEM EventDB NFS” to search the instance.
   10. Click Configure Security Group.
   11. Create a new Security Group and keep the defaults which are needed for FortiSIEM to operate.
   12. Click Review and Launch and click Launch.
   13. Select Create a new key pair and provide a key pair name of your choice
   14. Click Download Key Pair and save the .pem file.
   15. Click Launch Instance and wait for the instance to start.
7. Configure Elastic IP following the steps:
   1. Go to EC2 Dashboard > Elastic IPs.
   2. Click Allocate New Address.
   3. Select VPC and click Allocate.
      The IP address will be allocated.
   4. Click the Elastic IP that was allocated.
   5. Click Actions > Associate address and select the instance by searching the tag you created in Step 6i.
   6. Click Associate.

Step 2: Start and Configure NFS Server

Do not press any control keys (for example - Ctrll-C or Ctrll-Z) while configuring the virtual appliances, as this may cause the installation process to stop. If this happens, you must erase the virtual appliance and start the installation process again.

1. SSH into Supervisor console using keys in Step 6m above using user 'ec2-user'.
   For details about connecting to the instance, see here.
2. Configure the NFS mount point access to give the FortiSIEM internal IP full access.
   An example of creating a 1TB EventDB volume and exporting it as NFS is shown below:
   

   [ec2-user@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]$ sudo su -

   Last login: Tue Mar 27 23:57:47 UTC 2018 on pts/0

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# yum update -y

   …

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# reboot

   …

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# pvcreate /dev/nvme1n1

   Physical volume "/dev/nvme1n1" successfully created.

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# pvdisplay

   "/dev/sdb" is a new physical volume of "1.00 TiB"

   --- NEW Physical volume ---

   PV Name               /dev/sdb

   VG Name

   PV Size               1.00 TiB

   Allocatable           NO

   PE Size               0

   Total PE              0

   Free PE               0

   Allocated PE          0

   PV UUID               7xOcO0-vuaA-3djP-CerD-TxPd-9Uge-1fm0hk

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# vgcreate VGEventDB /dev/sdb

   Volume group "VGEventDB" successfully created

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# lvcreate -l 100%vg -n LVEventDB VGEventDB

   Logical volume "LVEventDB" created.

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# mkfs.ext4 -j /dev/VGEventDB/LVEventDB

   mke2fs 1.42.9 (28-Dec-2013)

   Filesystem label=

   OS type: Linux

   Block size=4096 (log=2)

   Fragment size=4096 (log=2)

   Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks

   67108864 inodes, 268434432 blocks

   13421721 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user

   First data block=0

   Maximum filesystem blocks=2415919104

   8192 block groups

   32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group

   8192 inodes per group

   Superblock backups stored on blocks:

   32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

   4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,

   102400000, 214990848

   Allocating group tables: done

   Writing inode tables: done

   Creating journal (32768 blocks): done

   Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# echo "/dev/VGEventDB/LVEventDB /data ext4 defaults 1 1" >> /etc/fstab

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# mkdir /data

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# mount /data

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# echo "/data   10.0.0.0/16(rw,no_root_squash)" > /etc/exports

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# exportfs -ar

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# chkconfig --levels 2345 nfs on

   Note: Forwarding request to 'systemctl enable nfs.service'.

   Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/nfs-server.service to /usr/lib/systemd/system/nfs-server.service.

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# chkconfig --levels 2345 rpcbind on

   Note: Forwarding request to 'systemctl enable rpcbind.service'.

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# service rpcbind start

   Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start rpcbind.service

   [root@ip-10-0-5-152 ~]# service nfs start

   Redirecting to /bin/systemctl start nfs.service