How to Deploy a n2x-node in GCP

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

Prerequisites

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

An GCP account.
The Compute Engine API should be enabled.
A n2x.io account and one subnet with 10.254.1.0/24 prefix.

Architecture

This section provides a basic architectural blueprint to guide you through deploying a n2x-node within the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). 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.

Step-by-step Guide

Step 1 - Creating and Configuring the GCP VPC

Create the VPC using the values as shown in the following table. For more information, see VPC Networks.

VPC Settings

Name MTU Subnets Mode IPv6 Range

edge-vpc 1460 Custom Disabled
Create a custom subnet in the VPCs as described in the following table. For more information, see Subnets.

Subnet Settings

Name Description Region IPv4 range

edge-pub-net Edge Public Subnet us-east1 10.0.1.0/28

Now let's create the firewall rules required by n2x.io. Select the edge-vpc we have just created, go to the Firewalls tab and select Add Firewall Rule. For more information, see Firewalls

Create firewall rules as described on the table below.

Name	Network	Priority	Direction of traffic	Action on match	Target tags	Protocol: Port Range	Source	Target
n2x-data-plane-inbound	edge-vpc	1000	Ingress	Allow	n2x-node	TCP:57775 / UDP:57775	0.0.0.0/0	0.0.0.0/0
ssh-vm-management-inbound	edge-vpc	1001	Ingress	Allow	n2x-node	TCP:22	0.0.0.0/0	0.0.0.0/0
n2x-control-plane-https-outbound	edge-vpc	2000	Egress	Allow	n2x-node	TCP:443	0.0.0.0/0	0.0.0.0/0
n2x-control-plane-mqtt-outbound	edge-vpc	2001	Egress	Allow	n2x-node	TCP:1883	0.0.0.0/0	0.0.0.0/0
n2x-data-plane-outbound	edge-vpc	2002	Egress	Allow	n2x-node	TCP:57775 / UDP:57775	0.0.0.0/0	0.0.0.0/0

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.

Let's create the first rule as an example:

Create Sample Firewall Rule

Repeat the steps above for each rule in the table. Once completed, the table will look like this:

Firewall Rule List

Step 2 - Launching a VM instance

Launch a VM instance to support the n2x-node selecting the region where we have created the VPC previously:

Open Advanced options, on Networking add the n2x-node on Network tag field:

Select the edge-vpc network and edge-pub-net subnet under Network interfaces section, then click DONE:

Finally, click Create to start creating the VM instance.

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 GCP Compute Engine.

Step 3 - Connecting VM to our n2x.io Network Topology

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

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

Step 4 - Verification

Let's confirm that everything is operational:

Check the n2x-node service status on n2x-node-01 using:
```
systemctl status n2x-node
```
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
```
(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
```

Conclusion

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