FAQ¶
Getting Started with Tower¶
Why Tower if Thor exists?¶
Thor is focused on Docker-based NOC deployments, while Tower is focused on deploying and managing NOC on bare-metal servers and virtual machines.
How to install Tower?¶
Install Tower using:
Complete setup instructions are available in the Installation Guide.
How to upgrade Tower?¶
Tower can be upgraded using the standard Python package management tools. See the Installation Guide for details.
How quickly can I deploy NOC with Tower?¶
Deployment time depends on the node configuration, network, and NOC installation. For an initial deployment, plan for approximately one hour.
Is Tower production-ready?¶
Yes. Tower is designed and supported for production use.
Requirements and Platforms¶
Which operating systems can Tower install NOC on?¶
This depends on the NOC version being installed. See the documentation for the selected NOC version for its supported operating systems.
What are the requirements for Tower?¶
Tower has minimal resource requirements. It requires Python on the host and only a small amount of disk space and memory for Tower itself. NOC resource requirements depend on the deployed NOC configuration.
Does Tower work on Linux?¶
Yes. Linux is supported.
Does Tower work on FreeBSD?¶
Yes. FreeBSD is supported.
Does Tower work on macOS?¶
Yes. macOS is supported.
Does Tower work on Windows?¶
Windows is not supported.
Architecture and Design¶
What is Tower?¶
Tower is a web interface and configuration database for managing NOC deployments. It uses Ansible to execute deployment playbooks on NOC nodes.
In other words, Tower provides a convenient configuration interface for NOC's Ansible-based deployment system.
Is Tower a NOC distribution?¶
No. Tower is a tool for managing NOC installations. Tower can, however, download and install NOC distributions on managed nodes.
Does Tower require Docker?¶
No. Docker is not required. Tower can run natively in a Python virtual environment.
A Docker-based version of Tower is also available when containerized deployment is preferred.
How many NOC nodes can Tower manage?¶
Tower is designed to manage NOC infrastructure of any size, from a single node to clusters of hundreds of nodes.
How does Tower deploy NOC nodes?¶
A managed NOC node only needs SSH access and a user account that Tower can use.
Tower handles the rest of the deployment process automatically.
Can Tower manage multiple NOC installations?¶
Yes. Tower can manage multiple independent NOC installations.
Each environment represents a separate NOC installation and can contain its own configuration and nodes.
Configuration and Operations¶
Where does Tower store its configuration?¶
Tower stores its data in the data directory of the Tower installation environment.
What format does Tower use to store its configuration?¶
Tower uses SQLite as its configuration database.
Can I upgrade NOC without losing data?¶
Yes. Tower can be used both to install and to upgrade NOC installations while preserving their existing data.
Can I use Tower to manage different NOC configurations?¶
Yes. Each Tower environment represents a separate NOC installation and can have its own configuration.
Support and License¶
What is the license of Tower?¶
Tower's license is synchronized with the NOC license.
As a deliberate design decision, wherever the use of NOC is permitted, the use of Tower is permitted as well.
Where can I get support?¶
Please use GitHub Issues for bugs or Discussions for feature requests.
Can I help the NOC project financially?¶
Yes, you can support our work via GitHub Sponsors or Buy Me a Coffee.
Your contributions help us continue developing and maintaining NOC and the Gufo ecosystem.
About Gufo¶
What does "Gufo" mean?¶
Gufo means the Owl in Italian.
Why the owls?¶
We love owls and the viable parts of our technologies were proven at the project named "the Owl".
What is "Gufo Labs"?¶
Gufo Labs is the Italian company specialized in network and IT consulting and software research.
What is "Gufo Stack"?¶
We've extracted core components behind NOC and released them as independent packages, available under the terms of the 3-clause BSD license.
Our software shares common code quality standards and is battle-proven under high load. We hope our key components will help engineers and developers build reliable networks and robust network management software.
See more details.