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How to Deploy a n2x-node in AWS

This article offers a step-by-step guide on setting up a n2x-node in AWS, including creating all the necessary infrastructure within the cloud service provider.

Prerequisites

To complete this tutorial, you must meet the following requirements:

Architecture

This section provides a basic architectural blueprint to guide you through deploying a n2x-node within the AWS cloud environment. This modular design offers versatility and can be reused for various deployment goals, including achieving High Availability (HA) for your n2x.io nodes within your network.

AWS Architecture
AWS Architecture

Step-by-step Guide

Step 1 - Creating and Configuring the AWS VPC

  1. Create the VPC using the values as shown in the following table. For more information, see Getting Started with Amazon VPC.

    VPC Settings

    VPC name tag IPv4 CIDR IPv6 CIDR Tenancy
    edge-vpc 10.0.1.0/24 No IPv6 CIDR Block Default

    Create VPC

  2. Create the subnet in the VPCs as described in the following table. For more information, see Creating a Subnet. In the next steps, you will configure the route tables to make this subnet public.

    Subnet Settings

    Subnet name tag VPC AZ IPv4 CIDR
    edge-pub-net-az1 edge-vpc us-east-1a 10.0.1.0/28

    Create Subnet

  3. Create and attach an internet gateway (edge-igw) to the VPC edge using the name tag from the table. For more information, see Creating and Attaching an Internet Gateway

    Create Internet Gateway

    Attach Internet Gateway to VPC

  4. Set the name (edge-rt) to the default routing table in the edge-vpc and add a new default route with the destination set to 0.0.0.0/0 and associate the route with the internet gateway (edge-igw). For more information, see Adding and Removing Routes from a route table.

    Edit Route Table

    Add Route to Internet Gateway

  5. Create a security group named n2x-node with minimal inbound and outbound security rules as described in the table below.

    Rule Protocol Port Range Src/Dest Description
    Inbound TCP/UDP 57775 0.0.0.0/0 n2x-data-plane
    Inbound TCP 22 0.0.0.0/0 ec2-instance-mgm
    Outbound TCP 443 0.0.0.0/0 n2x-control-plane
    Outbound TCP 1883 0.0.0.0/0 n2x-control-plane
    Outbound TCP/UDP 57775 0.0.0.0/0 n2x-data-plane
    Outbound TCP/UDP 53 0.0.0.0/0 DNS-name-resolution

    Info

    For direct communication between n2x.io nodes, open inbound connections to ports 57775 TCP/UDP. (See direct connection for details).

    Note

    Open inbound connectivity to ports SSH or RDP (or both) for remote VM management, as needed.

    Create Security Group

    Inbound Rules

    Outbound Rules

Step 2 - Launching an EC2 Instance

Launch the EC2 instance to support the n2x-node with the following configuration:

Note

Please note that this tutorial uses a Linux OS with an Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) but you can choose any OS supported by n2x.io and AWS instances.

Create EC2 Instance

Step 3 - Connecting EC2 Instance to our n2x.io Network Topology

To connect your EC2 instance to the n2x.io network topology, you'll need to:

  1. Add a new connected node to your subnet.
  2. Install the n2x-node agent on the EC2 instance.

Step 4 - Verification

Let's confirm that everything is operational:

  1. Check the n2x-node service status on n2x-node-01 using: 

    systemctl status n2x-node

    Service validation

  2. Verify that the n2x0 interface on n2x-node-01 is active and has an IP address assigned by using the following command:

    ip addr show dev n2x0

    Interface validation

  3. (Optional) To verify connectivity within the n2x.io subnet, you can perform a simple test if another node is present. In this example, we'll use test-node-01 which has the IP address 10.254.1.209.

    ping -c 5 10.254.1.209

    Connectivity validation

Conclusion

We've provided a comprehensive guide for launching a n2x-node in AWS. Feel free to adapt this foundation to meet your specific needs and implement more complex scenarios.