Deploying ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent on Proxmox (pve version 8.3+)
I’ve been asked a few times on how to easily import the ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent onto a KVM, aka for example a Proxmox PVE Host. There are a few outdated manual guides since Proxmox introduced with 8.3 an OVA importer that makes life really easy.
So I considered writing down a quick guide on how to import a ThousandEyes Enterprise Agent on my Proxmox Server to not only monitor a few things from my HomeLab but also use for demonstrating the capabilities of ThousandEyes.
So here we go.
Topics
- Why ThousandEyes
- Import ova into Proxmox VE
Why ThousandEyes
Firstly full disclaimer I work for CISCO ThousandEyes, just to get this into context and why I wrote this.
tl;dr -ThousandEyes is a comprehensive network monitoring and intelligence platform that provides organizations with deep visibility into their network performance and user experience. It leverages a vast array of vantage points across the internet, cloud, and enterprise environments to collect real-time data on connectivity, routing, and application performance. This capability is crucial for businesses, as it helps them quickly detect and resolve issues that could disrupt operations or degrade user experiences. ThousandEyes key features are Synthetic Network Monitoring, End User Monitoring (EUM), Internet and Cloud Insights to provide enhanced visibility and Proactive Issue Resolution.
More about ThousandEyes https://www.thousandeyes.com
Import ova into Proxmox VE
Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) is a Open-source KVM based Hypervisor running on Debian Linux allowing to run KVM Kernel Virtual Machines or LXC Containers. Our OVA will be a VM once imported.
More about Proxmox you can find here, and please support them with purchasing a licence for Proxmox Enterprise Repository.
The Import process is very straight forward.
First you need a Proxmox Storage that is either a local Filesystem or a NFS/SMB Shared Filessytem that allows the “Import” feature.
If you have that, the next step is clicking the Storage and choosing “Import” and then “Upload” to upload your OVF. In our case, I’m uploading “thousandeyes-va-0.264.0.ova”
Once the ova is uploaded, you can start the import process.
Click on the ova file and on import.
In the following window, we are defining the VM manifest.
I suggest to start with 4 cores and 4GB RAM and the Disk format depending on the underlying storage where you put the VM on. Make you select a Network interface that can talk to the internet, as this is needed for the VM to talk to app.thousandeyes.com. The click “Import” and see it being imported.
Once this is done, you can go to the VM and start it.
From here on, you can follow the ThousandEyes instruction under https://docs.thousandeyes.com/product-documentation/global-vantage-points/enterprise-agents/installing/thousandeyes-virtual-appliance-installation to configure the Enterprise agent. Happy Monitoring your network.
