Components

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The Virtual Appliance comprises following components:

Component Description

OS

Based on Ubuntu 24-04-lts

Virtual Appliance deployments on AWS use Cisco Secured Linux (CSL), which provides a CIS Level 2 compliant Ubuntu environment.

MicroK8s (Version 1.30)

Microk8s is a lightweight CNCF certified Kubernetes (k8s) distribution. Microk8s has been hardened to meet CIS k8s Benchmark v1.6.0. It offers a secure simple programmable process to bring up a k8s cluster.

Splunk AppDynamics Virtual Appliance supports your own Kubernetes cluster to install VA services. For more information, see Install Virtual Appliance on Your Own Kubernetes Cluster.

Infrastructure Services

Splunk AppDynamics Services use the required infrastructure components such as, MySQL, Ingress controller, Elasticsearch, Kafka, PostgreSQL and so on.

Splunk AppDynamics Services

Splunk AppDynamics components such as, Controller, EUM, and Events service.

To determine the component versions packaged with the Virtual Appliance, seeVirtual Appliance Package Contents.
Default Kubernetes Cluster
Virtual Appliance services are deployed on the Kubernetes Cluster that is bundled in the package.Default Kubernetes Cluster
Custom Kuberenetes Cluster
Virtual Appliance services are deployed on the custom Kubernetes Cluster. See, Install Virtual Appliance on Your Own Kubernetes Cluster Bring Your Own Kubernetes

Hardening CSL for Kubernetes

The Virtual Appliance for AWS and VMware is built upon the Cisco Secured Linux (CSL) OS, which adheres to Center for Internet Security (CIS) Level 2 hardening standards. However, to accommodate the specific operational needs of AppDynamics services within a Kubernetes environment, certain adjustments are made to the original CSL OS baseline. For more information, download CIS Ubuntu Linux 24.04 LTS benchmark.

CSL OS Baseline Deviations:

  • overlayfs - While CIS guidelines recommend disabling the overlayfs module, it remains enabled to ensure proper functionality for Docker and Kubernetes.

  • No Disk Partitions - CIS guidelines recommend separating the root (/) and /home partitions. The Virtual Appliance configuration maintains both within the same root partition to support standard deployment requirements.

  • IP Forwarding is Enabled - Although CIS guidelines recommend disabling IP forwarding, it is enabled to support essential network functions within the Kubernetes cluster.