Install on VMware Hypervisor

ESXi Compatibility

Forward Enterprise OVA is compatible with VMware ESXi, 6.5.0 or higher.

Brief System Overview

Forward Appliance can be installed on one or more nodes (in this document, a node refers to a VM). You can start with a single node and later seamlessly extend the cluster to multiple nodes.

Primary vs Worker nodes

• Primary nodes: Run the cluster control plane in addition to performing modeling. The first three deployed nodes must be primary nodes.
• Worker nodes: Additional nodes added solely for scaling modeling capacity.

Deployment Recommendations

• Single node: Development, testing, and small environments.
• 3 primary nodes: Minimum for high availability (provides quorum).
• 3 primary nodes + worker nodes: Production deployments for larger networks with higher processing and availability requirements.

A multi-node deployment provides additional value and flexibility:

• Scale-out -- When the cluster spans 3 or more nodes, processing is faster and able to use multiple executors. Similarly, search throughput scales with each added node.
• High Availability (HA) -- When a cluster is installed with 3 primary nodes, both system and application services are configured to handle node-level failures automatically. As long as no more than a single node goes down at a time, the Forward application remains available without administrator involvement (although there may be a transient loss of availability while node failure is detected and components are restored on healthy nodes).
• Flexible Resource Allocation -- Users can configure resources across multiple nodes to maximize network scale, minimize snapshot processing time, or fully isolate different tasks such as processing, search, and collection.

Resource Requirements

Depending on the size and complexity of the networks to be modeled by the platform, we provide different recommendations on number of cluster nodes and hardware requirements of each of those nodes:

	Minimum				Recommended
Network Elements	Number of Nodes	Node vCPU	Node RAM	Disk Size*	Number of Nodes	Node vCPU	Node RAM	Disk Size*
1k	1	16	128 GB	150 GB	1	32	256 GB	400 GB
5k	3	32	128 GB	300 GB	3 or more	64	256 GB	600 GB
15k	3**	32	256 GB	400 GB	5 or more	64	512 GB	800 GB
45k+	5**	32	256 GB	1 TB	7 or more	64	512 GB	2 TB

Legend

• * Minimum of 3000 write IOPs is required. Minimum of 128MB/s throughput is recommended. NVMe SSD is highly recommended.
• ** Isolated Mode is recommended to ensure full node memory is available for each worker. For more information, see the Resource Allocation page.

Larger networks require more memory to be able to model them. Total vCPUs (across nodes) determine processing speed and search throughput. At least 3 nodes are required for HA support.

Connectivity Requirements

Management Network

Each node requires:

• A static IP address (DHCP is supported but not recommended for production)
• Network connectivity to a DNS server, NTP server, and log server (if configured)
• Outbound HTTPS (443) for updates and license validation
• Inbound HTTPS (443) if remote collectors are used

External and Intra-node Connectivity

Each Forward Cluster deployment requires cluster-incoming, cluster-outgoing, cluster-internal, and node-internal connectivity.

It is simpler to allow unrestricted connectivity between cluster nodes. If unrestricted connectivity is not an option, the list of specific ports is noted below. The list below assumes any cluster node can be a primary or a worker node. For additional details about each port and its usage, please contact your Forward Networks representative.

Protocol	L4 Dest Port	Service	Direction
TCP	22	Node Management (SSH)	external ⇒ any cluster node
TCP	80	HTTP (redirects to HTTPS)	external ⇒ any cluster node
TCP	443	Web Frontend/API	external ⇒ any cluster node
TCP	30000	File Transfer (Upload/Download)	external ⇒ any cluster node
TCP	22	Cluster Config Sync	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
TCP	2380	Controller State Sync	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
TCP	6443	Cluster API Service	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
TCP	8132	Cluster Control	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
TCP	9443	Cluster Control	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
TCP	10250	Cluster Status	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node
UDP	4789	Cluster Networking	any cluster node ⇔ any cluster node

Cluster Network

The cluster uses a dedicated internal network for inter-node communication. The following requirements apply:

• Low latency: less than 10ms RTT between nodes recommended
• Minimum 1 Gbps bandwidth; 10 Gbps recommended for production
• Two CIDR IP ranges of /22 size or larger (each node requires a /26 subnet)
• If not specified, default subnets of 100.70.0.0/21 (pods) and 100.64.0.0/21 (services) are used
• These ranges are not directly accessible or routable from outside the cluster and are used for inter-pod communication, load balancing, and service discovery

note

It is recommended that all ports are open on the intra-cluster network. If your corporate policy requires port restriction on intra-cluster networks, contact your Forward Networks representative for assistance.

Connectivity to Network Infrastructure

Connectivity from the Forward cluster to network devices or external services is required for snapshot collection, DNS lookups, access to SMTP server, etc. The list of specific ports is noted below. For additional details about each port and its usage, please contact your Forward Networks representative.

note

Forward services may migrate between cluster nodes due to high availability (HA) failover, node maintenance, resource rebalancing, or other operational reasons. To ensure uninterrupted connectivity, configure firewall rules to allow outbound traffic from all nodes in the cluster to the destinations.

Protocol	L4 Dest Port	Service	Direction	Note
UDP	53	Name Resolution	any cluster node ⇒ DNS
TCP	22	SSH Terminal	any cluster node ⇒ network device
TCP	23	TELNET Terminal	any cluster node ⇒ network device	Only if required
TCP	179	BGP RR Collection	any cluster node ⇒ network device	Only if needed
TCP	configurable	BGP BMP Collection	any cluster node ⇒ network device	Only if needed
TCP	443	Cloud Collection	any cluster node ⇒ network device
TCP	443	VMware vCenter	any cluster node ⇒ vCenter
TCP	configurable	Email notifications	any cluster node ⇒ SMTP relay
UDP	161, 162	SNMP Data Access	any cluster node ⇒ network device	Only if needed

User Application Access

Protocol	L4 Dest Port	Service	Direction
TCP	443	Web Interface / SAML	user workstation ⇒ cluster
TCP	389	LDAP Authentication	cluster ⇒ LDAP server
TCP	514	Remote Syslog (TCP)	cluster ⇒ syslog server
UDP	514	Remote Syslog (UDP)	cluster ⇒ syslog server

Network Topology Recommendations

• Use separate VLANs or network segments for management and intra-cluster traffic
• Ensure all cluster nodes can communicate with each other on the cluster network
• Use anti-affinity rules to place nodes on different physical hosts
• Configure network redundancy where possible

Hostname and IP Address Requirements

Hostnames and IP addresses of cluster nodes should not change. IP addresses must be consistent across reboots, either via static allocation, or persistent allocation with a DHCP server. A DNS server must be configured and accessible from cluster nodes for hostname resolution.

For instructions on configuring IP addresses and DNS servers, see Changing Node IP Address.

Procure the Installation Image

To procure the VM installation image, sign in to Forward Software Central and click Add new deployment. In the Create new deployment dialog, select the appropriate hypervisor, provide a Name, optionally choose a Base version, and create the deployment. From the deployment row, click the download icon (Download installation software) and download the Base + Forward App package.

The Forward Cluster image is a .ova file which consists of two components:

Forward Enterprise Base: The base component is a stripped-down and hardened Linux image that has been optimized to run the Forward Enterprise application. The Base component also contains the required packages and dependencies to run the cluster orchestration software. The Base component is built using Oracle Linux 8.5 and is updated infrequently.

Forward Enterprise Application: This component contains the Forward Application. Major releases of the Forward Application are published monthly and typically there are several minor releases in each month for bug fixes.

The file name is in the following format forward-base-{BASE_VERSION}-app-{APP_VERSION}.ova, where

• BASE_VERSION has vN-bM format (e.g. v9-b4) where vN shows the major version and bM shows the build number in that version.
• APP_VERSION has yy.m.x-bb format (e.g. 22.8.1-03)
  • yy are the last two digits of the year
  • m is the month in which the major release was built
  • x is the minor release number (0 indicates the major release)
  • bb is the build number

Provisioning VMs

Provison one or more VMs in your VMware Hypervisor depending on the desired number of nodes. Nodes should be provisioned using the .ova file downloaded in the previous step.

Node Customizations

• Make sure to increase the hard disk's space beyond the provided default and as suggested in the requirement page.
• Also make sure to set the desired number of processor cores.

Example: Deploying a VM on vCenter using vSphere Client

info

Below instructions and screenshots are taken on vSphere Client version 7.0.2 and steps could vary depending on the vsphere version

• Login to vCenter using any browser

• Right-click on the cluster/resource pool and select Deploy OVF Template

  

• Select Local files and click on UPLOAD FILES amd select the OVA downloaded previously

  

• Enter the VM name and select the folder to deploy the VM and click NEXT

  

• Select the resource pool to deploy the VM and click NEXT

  

• Review the details and click NEXT

  

• Select the datastore which will be used to provision the storage for the VM and click NEXT

  

• Select the Network and click NEXT

  

• Review all the details and click FINISH

  

• Once the VM is deployed click on ACTION dropdown and select Edit Settings

  

• Update the values of CPU, memory and hard disk as per the resource requirements and click OK

  [Optional] Enable VMware Paravirtualization which may improve storage performance.

  

  [Optional] Assigning CPU requests to the VM, and setting the reservation at 1GHz per core, are both recommended.

  

• Start the VM by clicking on the ACTION dropdown and select Power -> Power On

  

Installation

Console Access

Open the VM console from your virtualization platform, or open a terminal and SSH into the VM using the IP address configured during provisioning.

Log in with the default credentials:

• Username: forward
• Password: changeme

Change the password

Change the default password before using the appliance in production via Security > SSH access in the TUI.

After login, the system displays the Forward Cluster Text User Interface (TUI).

Forward Cluster TUI

The TUI provides a menu-driven interface for all node, cluster, and application management. Use the arrow keys to navigate between menu items, Tab to move between interface elements, and Enter to select. Mouse navigation may also be available depending on your terminal. Press Esc to go back or cancel.

TUI Main Menu:

Menu Item	Description
Node	View and configure the local node
Cluster	Configure and manage the cluster
Forward Enterprise	Install and manage Forward Enterprise
Security	Password, SSH keys, bastion host, syslog, TLS
Troubleshooting	View pods, logs, diagnostics, and connectivity tools

tip

Press D to toggle between dark and light display modes. Press Q, F10, or Ctrl+C to terminate the SSH connection.

For the full TUI layout and navigation reference, see the TUI Reference.

Node Configuration

1. Select Node from the main menu.
2. Verify the node Name and Management IP are configured correctly.

tip

Multiple DNS servers can be specified as comma-separated values.

Cluster Configuration and Roll-out

Recommended node types based on the cluster size

caution

2-node clusters are not supported. The number of primary nodes in a multi-node cluster must be 3 to ensure high availability.

Total Number of Nodes in the Cluster	Primaries	Workers
1	1	0
2 (not supported)	--	--
3	3	0
4	3	1
5	3	2
n (6 or more)	3	n-3

Configure Cluster Network

1. Select Cluster from the main menu.
2. Select Set CIDRs to configure the intra-cluster network ranges.

Configure the following:

• Service CIDR: IP range for intra-cluster services (default: 100.64.0.0/21)
• Pod CIDR: IP range for intra-cluster pod addressing (default: 100.70.0.0/21)

CIDR Immutability

Once the cluster is installed, the Pod and Service CIDRs cannot be changed. Ensure they are correct before applying the cluster configuration.

Cluster Network Subnets

Ensure that the pod/service CIDR range is /22 or larger, as each node in the cluster requires a /26 subnet. The configured ranges must not overlap with your management network or each other.

If the default ranges conflict with your existing network, change them before proceeding.

Add Nodes to the Cluster

1. Select Cluster > Install/Manage from the menu.
2. Enter the current node's IP address and hostname to add it to the cluster.
3. For each additional node, enter its IP address and hostname and select Add.

Single-Node Deployment

For a single-node deployment, add the node's management IP address and hostname as the only cluster member, then select Apply. No additional nodes are needed.

Hostname Resolution

Ensure that all hostnames used in the cluster are resolvable via DNS. Each hostname must resolve to the correct IP address from all cluster nodes.

caution

The first three nodes must be added as primary nodes for availability. Additional nodes beyond three are added as workers.

Install Cluster

Select Apply to begin cluster roll-out, or Reset to return to the configuration step.

The cluster roll-out combines the selected nodes into a unified cluster. This process takes 3--5 minutes.

Configure NTP

After the cluster is installed, configure NTP:

1. Select Cluster > Set NTP from the main menu.
2. Enter the NTP server address. The change is added to staging.
3. Select Apply to apply the NTP configuration.

Verify on the right panel of the TUI that the cluster installed successfully and all nodes were added.

Install Forward Enterprise

1. Select Forward Enterprise > Install/Upgrade from the main menu.
2. The Forward Enterprise installation package included with the appliance is shown. Proceed to install.

To install a newer version of Forward Enterprise, obtain the package from Forward Software Central and transfer it to any appliance node using one of these methods:

• Upload via browser: Select Upload New Package in the TUI, then navigate to https://<node-ip>:30000/upload (this service is available temporarily when an upload is initiated from the TUI)
• SCP: Copy the package file directly to the node via scp

Then select the uploaded package in the Forward Enterprise > Install/Upgrade menu to install it.

Browser Access

Before accessing the application with a web browser, please note the following:

caution

Upon the first login, the system will ask to change the password. Be ready to store it in a safe place. The user will be able to configure external authentication mechanisms like LDAP, SSO and TACACS after the first login.

It is now time to access the browser and log into the Forward UI using the following default credentials (the system will ask to change the password):

• username: admin
• password: forward

Set the TLS Certificate

By default, the server uses a TLS certificate provided by Forward Networks. If your organization requires a custom trusted certificate, you may upload your own.

The uploaded certificate must meet the format and encoding requirements described below. Certificates that do not meet these requirements will fail to import.

TUI Fallback

If Forward Enterprise is unavailable, the TLS certificate can be reset via the TUI at Security > Reset tls.

---

Certificate Requirements

Your certificate must:

• Be in PEM format
• Use UTF-8 encoding
• Be readable by OpenSSL
• Include the full certificate chain
• Match the provided private key

If your certificate generation tool exports files in a different encoding or format, Forward Enterprise will not be able to import them.

---

Supported Format

The certificate must be PEM-encoded (Base64 text format) and contain standard headers:

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

(base64 content)

-----END CERTIFICATE-----

The private key must also be PEM formatted:

-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----

or

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Forward Enterprise relies on OpenSSL for certificate validation. Any certificate format that OpenSSL cannot load is not supported.

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File Encoding Requirement

The certificate file must use UTF-8 encoding.

Some certificate tools export files as UTF-16LE or other encodings. These encodings are not supported and will cause import failures.

If OpenSSL cannot load the certificate, the file encoding may not be compatible.

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Certificate Chain Requirement

The uploaded certificate must include the complete certificate chain.

Most CA-issued certificates are part of a chain that includes:

• The server certificate
• One or more intermediate certificates
• (Optionally) the root certificate

Forward Enterprise expects the full chain to be present in the uploaded certificate file.

If intermediate certificates are missing, clients may experience trust errors.

Certificates in .crt format can be bundled into a single .pem file that contains the full chain. The combined file must contain all certificates in PEM format.

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File Extensions

Common extensions include:

• .pem
• .crt
• .cer
• .key

The file extension itself does not determine validity.

What matters is:

• PEM format
• UTF-8 encoding
• Complete certificate chain
• Private key match

---

Optional: Verify Certificate with OpenSSL

You may optionally validate your certificate before uploading.

To verify that OpenSSL can read the certificate:

openssl x509 -noout -text -in your-cert.pem

To confirm that the certificate matches the private key:

openssl rsa -noout -modulus -in your.key | openssl md5

openssl x509 -noout -modulus -in your-cert.pem | openssl md5

The MD5 values must match.

To verify a certificate chain:

openssl verify -CAfile root.crt -untrusted intermediate.crt server.crt

If OpenSSL reports that it cannot load the certificate, the format or encoding is not supported.

---

Pre-Upload Checklist

Before uploading the certificate to Forward Enterprise, confirm:

• Certificate is PEM formatted (contains BEGIN/END CERTIFICATE)
• File encoding is UTF-8
• Certificate can be loaded by OpenSSL
• Certificate includes the full chain (server + intermediates)
• Private key matches the certificate

If any of the above conditions are not met, the import process will fail.

warning

The server will be restarted after the certificate is uploaded, and may be unavailable for up to 5 minutes.

Optional: Set up load balancing

If you have installed 3 primary nodes, the control plane of the cluster is already running in HA mode. Assuming the IP address of these nodes are primary1-ip, primary2-ip and primary3-ip, you can reach the application through any of the following addresses:

https://primary1-ip/
https://primary2-ip/
https://primary3-ip/

However, if users use one of these addresses and that node is down, they will see failures. To have proper HA, it is better to use a load balancing option which has health checks. To do that you need a reverse proxy which forwards requests to port 443 to any of the healthy nodes in the cluster.

The following methods can be used to perform health checks:

• TCP health checks on port 443.
• HTTP health checks that issue GET /ping and expect 200 status code.

Sample configuration for HAProxy with http checks

# Frontend that accepts requests from clients
frontend fwd-app
    bind *:443
    # Mode is the mode the frontend is operating (TCP or HTTP)
    mode tcp
    # Enable advanced logging of TCP connections with session state and timers
    option tcplog
    # Maximum inactivity time on the client side
    timeout client 9000s
    default_backend fwd-app

# Backend servers that fulfill the client requests
backend fwd-app
    # Enable HTTP protocol to check on the servers health
    option httpchk GET /ping
    # HTTP health checks to validate the response status code to be 200
    http-check expect status 200
    # Use SSLv3 client hello health checks for server testing
    option ssl-hello-chk
    # Use roundrobin load balancing algorithm
    balance roundrobin
    # inter : Time interval between two consecutive health checks
    # downinter : Time interval between two consecutive unhealthy checks
    # rise : server will be considered as operational after <count> consecutive successful health checks
    # fall : server will be considered as dead after <count> consecutive unsuccessful health checks
    # slowstart : time after how long a server which has just come back up will run at full speed
    # maxconn : Maximum number of concurrent connections that will be sent to this server
    # maxqueue : Maximum number of connections which will wait in the queue for this server
    # weight : used to adjust the server's weight relative to other servers
    default-server inter 10s downinter 5s rise 2 fall 2 slowstart 60s maxconn 250 maxqueue 256 weight 100
        server server1 <primary1-ip>:443 check
        server server2 <primary2-ip>:443 check
        server server3 <primary3-ip>:443 check

Sample configuration for HAProxy with tcp checks

frontend fwd-app
    bind *:443
    mode tcp
    option tcplog
    timeout client 9000s
    default_backend fwd-app

backend fwd-app
    mode tcp
    option tcplog
    # Perform health checks using tcp-check send/expect sequences
    option tcp-check
    timeout server 9000s
    balance roundrobin
    default-server inter 10s downinter 5s rise 2 fall 2 slowstart 60s maxconn 250 maxqueue 256 weight 100
        server server1 <primary1-ip>:443 check
        server server2 <primary2-ip>:443 check
        server server3 <primary3-ip>:443 check

Sample configuration for F5 load balancer

# create monitor (HTTPS request for "GET /ping" from server, if code 200 => server is up)
tmsh create ltm monitor https fwd_https { send "GET /ping \r\n" recv "^HTTP.1\.[0|1]\s+200" }

# create pool of servers with monitoring
tmsh create ltm pool FwdPool members add { <primary1-ip>:443 <primary2-ip>:443 <primary3-ip>:443 } monitor fwd_https

# create virtual server for load balancing (ip <ip address>), works only for TCP 443 traffic, balanced to all living
servers in pool
tmsh create ltm virtual FWDvServer { destination <ip address>:443 mask 255.255.255.255 pool FwdPool ip-protocol tcp translate-address enabled }

Activate the License

After each VM is running, log in to the deployed Forward Enterprise system as an Org Admin and navigate to Settings → System → License. You can obtain the required Instance ID either by clicking Deployment ID in the top-right corner of the License page, or by selecting Manage device licenses and clicking Add new license, where the Instance ID is also displayed.

Return to Software Central, click Add Deployment ID, paste the Instance ID into the Deployment ID field, and click Activate to generate the license.

Back in the deployed system, use Manage device licenses → Add new license to paste the generated license key and activate it.

Update CVE Database

For accurate vulnerability detection, the CVE database should be updated after the initial installation. The database included with each Forward Enterprise release may not contain the latest published vulnerabilities.

Scheduled updates (recommended): Starting with release 26.2, you can enable automatic hourly CVE database updates. Navigate to Settings > System > Software Central and enable the Enable hourly updates toggle. This requires network access to Forward Software Central.

Manual updates: Download the latest CVE database from the CVE Update page and upload it via Security > Vulnerability > Update CVE database.

For full details on all update methods, including REST API automation, see the CVE Database Update documentation.