Install fit assessment tool

Install mfit and the collection scripts:

• mfit: Download the mfit tool to a Linux machine. The Linux machine can be a physical server or a VM running a supported Linux Kernel. You then upload the data generated by the collection scripts to this machine for analysis.

• mfit-linux-collect.sh (Linux): Download the collection script to a Linux VM to perform data collection.

• mfit-windows-collect.ps1 (Windows): Download the collection script to a Windows VM to perform data collection.

Instead of downloading the collection script locally to each VM, you can optionally use the mfit tool to run the data collection scripts remotely. This option is supported for VMs running on VMware, or for Linux VMs that allow a remote ssh connection from the machine hosting mfit.

Note: In environments where you have hundreds or even thousands of VMs, you might already have tools to automate the process of installing and running the collection script on each VM.

Prerequisites

To perform a fit assessment, you must meet the following prerequisites:

• mfit

  • The fit assessment tool, mfit, runs on Linux kernel versions 2.6.23 or later.

  • To use mfit to collect data using VMware discovery:

    • The Linux machine running mfit must be able to connect to your vCenter and ESX hosts. This includes opening all necessary ports in firewall rules and ensuring network connectivity between the mFit tool collection machine and target vCenter server and ESX hosts.

    • The vSphere vCenter server version must be 5.5 or higher.

    • The username passed to the tool must have read privileges on one or more VMs. The tool is only able to discover information about VMs that are accessible to the specified user. The read privilege is typically assigned to all roles except for No Access.

    • The username passed to the tool must have read privileges on the host ESX. If there are multiple ESX servers, read privileges are required for every ESX that hosts a discovered VM.

    • The user running mFit should have read, write, execute privileges on the machine running mFit.

  • To use mfit to run the collection scripts remotely for VMware VMs:

    • You need the permissions described above for running VMware discovery.

    • The username passed to the tool to connect to vSphere must have the following privileges on the VM: Guest operation modifications, Guest operation program execution, and Guest operation queries.

    • The VM user credentials used by mfit to execute the script must have admin privileges on the target guest machine for Windows VM.

  • To use mfit to run the collection scripts remotely using ssh:

    • The Linux machine hosting mfit must have ssh access to the source Linux VM (Windows VMs are not supported).

• Collection scripts

  • mfit-linux-collect.sh (Linux), runs on all Linux versions.

  • mfit-windows-collect.ps1 (Windows) requires PowerShell 2.0 or later (not PowerShell Core), and either a GUI shell (not server core) or .Net framework 4.5 or higher. All windows versions greater than or equal to Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 support these requirements, as do the vast majority of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008r2 machines.

Installation

The following procedures describe how to install mfit and the collection scripts.

To install mfit:

1. Create a directory for the mfit tool on a Linux machine:

   mkdir mfit
   cd mfit
   

2. Download the assessment tool and make it executable:

   curl -O "https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/$(curl -s https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/latest)/mfit"
   chmod +x mfit
   

3. To view help information for an mfit command, use the --help option. For example:

   ./mfit --help
   

   To view help for a specific command, use the --help option with the command. For example:

   ./mfit discover import --help
   

To install mfit-linux-collect.sh:

1. Log in to the VM.

2. Create a directory for the collection script:

   mkdir mfit
   cd mfit
   

3. Download the collection script to the VM and make it executable:

   curl -O "https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/$(curl -s https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/latest)/mfit-linux-collect.sh"
   chmod +x mfit-linux-collect.sh
   

To install mfit-windows-collect.ps1:

1. Log in to your VM.

2. Open PowerShell using the Run as Administrator option.

3. Create a directory for the collection script:

   mkdir ~\mfit
   cd ~\mfit
   

4. Download the collection script using PowerShell:

   $version = Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/latest
   $WebClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
   $WebClient.DownloadFile("https://mfit-release.storage.googleapis.com/"+$version+"/mfit-windows-collect.ps1", (Get-Location).Path + "\mfit-windows-collect.ps1")
   

Automatic version check

By default, the fit assessment tool performs a version check. In order for the version check to work, an internet connection is required. When mfit is run and a new version is available, an alert message will be displayed.

If proxy is needed in order to access the internet, set it by running:

mfit config set proxy PROXY

To disable the automatic version check, set the disable_version_checking option:

mfit config set disable_version_checking true

Note: This check is limited to once every 24 hours.