OT network sensor VM (VMware ESXi)

This article describes an OT sensor deployment on a virtual appliance using VMware ESXi.

Appliance characteristic	Details
Hardware profile	As required for your organization. For more information, see Which appliances do I need?
Performance	As required for your organization. For more information, see Which appliances do I need?
Physical specifications	Virtual Machine
Status	Supported

Prerequisites

Before you begin the installation, make sure you have the following items:

• VMware (ESXi 5.5 or later) installed and operational

• Available hardware resources for the virtual machine. For more information, see OT monitoring with virtual appliances.

• The OT sensor software downloaded from Defender for IoT in the Azure portal.

• Traffic mirroring configured on your vSwitch. For more information, see Configure traffic mirroring with a ESXi vSwitch.

Make sure the hypervisor is running.

Note

There is no need to pre-install an operating system on the VM, the sensor installation includes the operating system image.

Create the virtual machine

This procedure describes how to create a virtual machine by using ESXi.

To create the virtual machine using ESXi:

1. Sign in to the ESXi, choose the relevant datastore, and select Datastore Browser.

2. Select Upload, to upload the image, and select Close.

3. Navigate to VM, and then select Create/Register VM.

4. Select Create new virtual machine, and then select Next.

5. Add a sensor name, and select the following options:

   • Compatibility: <latest ESXi version>

   • Guest OS family: Linux

   • Guest OS version: Debian

6. Select Next.

7. Choose the relevant datastore and select Next.

8. Change the virtual hardware parameters according to the required architecture.

9. For CD/DVD Drive 1, select Datastore ISO file and choose the ISO file that you uploaded earlier.

10. In your VM options, change your boot options from Firmware to BIOS. Make sure that you're not booting from EFI.

11. Select Next > Finish.

Software installation

1. To start installing the OT sensor software, open the virtual machine console.

   The VM will start from the ISO image, and the language selection screen will appear.

2. Continue with the generic procedure for installing sensor software.

Next steps

For more information, see:

• Which appliances do I need?
• OT monitoring with virtual appliances
• On-premises management console (VMware ESXi)
• OT network sensor VM (Microsoft Hyper-V)
• On-premises management console (Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor)