Q. Is it possible to install InterMapper Flows on a separate server?

A. Yes. InterMapper and InterMapper Flows do not need to run on the same server. In fact, this may be important if you expect InterMapper Flows to handle a lot of flow data. You can leave your InterMapper server running on its current hardware and use a higher performance system for the NetFlow analysis.

The two servers communicate through a TCP connection. They default to connecting through localhost, but this can be changed via modifying two configuration files. You need to do the following:


  1. Install InterMapper Flows on the InterMapper server. It can have a very small database size - this is only to get the proper files installed on that server. You will not need a serial number for it, as it will not be "in production." You can even stop the service/daemon by following the instructions on the ReadMe page.
  2. On the InterMapper server, configure InterMapper to connect to the Flows server's IP address. To do this, edit the InterMapper Settings/Extensions/netsaw.xml file. Change the "address=" line so xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the address of the IM Flows server.
    Code:

             id='com.dartware.intermapper.flows'
         name='InterMapper Flows'
         client='netsaw.jar'
         address='xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'
         port='8184'
         version='build????' >
                   name='NSPluginIMFlows'
            class='com.proquesys.netsaw.remote.NSPluginIMFlows' />
       
  3. Install InterMapper Flows on your separate server. This should be configured for a sufficiently large database size.
  4. On the InterMapper Flows server, edit the /ns2flows/netsaw.conf file to allow InterMapper Flows to accept connections from external servers. Add this line near the bottom (but above the "# EOF" line) of the netsaw.conf file:
    Code:
    localhostonly no
  5. Stop and start both the InterMapper and InterMapper Flows servers for these changes to take effect.

NOTE:  Starting in InterMapper 5.7, the file names have changed for the Flows files, and their paths.

The two configuration files in this article (one on the client host and the other on the server) are both located within the InterMapper Settings folder now.

/Extensions/flows.xml
/Flows/flows.conf (Linux and OS X)
/Flows/flows.conf (Windows)

The instructions are identical using the replacement .xml and .conf files.

The path to InterMapper Settings varies by InterMapper host OS and is listed in the User Guide, Reference section, on the Files and Folders page.