Confiring primary NIC - Quick install or VM

[trwagner1]

During initial configuration, using QUICK Configure, promt asks for the primary network interface.

However, you are never given the option to configure the IP address. That should be a requirement I think as you don't want a monitor interface without a static IP.

That leads to DHCP searching.

This is an important step before configuring the rest of Malcolm. Otherwise, it leads to the issue of an unreachable Malcolm landing page

Consideration, the default should be to configure the primary interace as either DHCP or manually configured. But the option should be given to configure the primary interface as either manuall configurted or DHCP before the configuration script continues. if manually configured, restart, and resume.

[mmguero]

It is true that in the Malcolm ISO-installed environment, as opposed to the Hedgehog Linux environment, that the configuration for networking is a little different. It can be configured, it just defaults to DHCP. To configure it, you can right-click on the network icon in the system tray, select Edit Connections and then double-click on the interface name in that list to set it to DHCP, static/manual IP, no IP, etc.

[trwagner1]

Roger. But, when setting up Malcolm, as a newb, which you are going to have, setting up the primary interface is important.

I know how to do that, you do, and many of us do, but what about the target audience where Malcolm should run?

The new videos and setup are huge and a unviversal improvement, but we should help those without skills in those OT environments where they are not as skilled.

[trwagner1]

Let me re-phrase. By default, the Malcolm setup looks for DHCP. I would argue, that you don't want that. And, I think you would want to set up best practice. I would argue that you want the primary interface to be manually configured "always" whether or not that primary is on a coprorate network or other.
The network interface for monitoring, the span port, can be anything

What I have found there are gotchas are when you deploy Malcolm there may be DHCP servers on that network segment and you want to configure an interface for a specific IP (example, when using ISE).

My recommendation is that during initial config that you are asked which interface is the primary and whether or not it should be manually configured or auto-configured through DHCP. If a primary interface assumes DHCP, then the person configuring may get confused when the system is rebooted after the first steps and they can't get to the Malcolm landing page.

This is a been there done that post.

My recommendation is that on initial configuration, the primary interface is selected, but then you are offered the ability to manually configure before continuing.

[mmguero]

Those are good insights, thanks for the suggestion.