Collector Requirements

The Machine with Collector Software installed acts as a server.

Before you install a Collector please consider that the machine with Collector Software is a server. It’s intended use is collecting data for the Insight Platform and it should not be used for any other purpose.

In order to set up a collector the following requirements should be met. If you do not meet these requirements before attempting to set up a collector it may not operate properly. Read the following sections and understand their importance to determine if deploying a collector is right for your organization.

General Requirements and Recommendations

Consider the following before choosing a Collector host:

  • DO NOT install a Collector on a host that already runs a Security Console or Scan Engine.
    • Security Consoles and Scan Engines will not function properly if a Collector is present on the same host.
  • Only install one Collector per machine, whether physical or virtual.
    • Additionally, Rapid7 recommends that the host be entirely dedicated to the Collector’s use to maximize resource availability.
  • Your Collector host must be configured with a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN).

Hardware Requirements and Recommendations

You can install a Collector on a network server or virtual machine that meets the following minimum hardware requirements:

  • 2 CPU cores with 2GHz+ on each core
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 60 GB available disk space

For optimal performance, Rapid7 recommends the following hardware specifications:

Collector Size

Number of Agents

Recommended CPU Cores

Recommended RAM

Recommended Disk Space*

Small

Up to 500

4

8 GB

60 GB

Medium

Up to 2,400

4

8 GB

80 GB

Large

Up to 600 per CPU core**

4+

16 GB

100 GB

* Disk Space

In cases where a connection to the Insight Platform is interrupted or lost, the Collector will hold data in the form of logs written to the disk until a connection can be reestablished.

The more disk space a Collector has, the longer it can operate without a connection to the Insight Platform.

** CPU Cores

The Collector can only be responsible for 600 agents per CPU core. Mutlicore CPUs are recommended for taking on additional agents per Collector.

If your Collector CPU usage stays consistently above 40% under normal load, consider deploying an additional Collector.

Supported Operating Systems

Refer to these tables to view the OS versions that the Collector currently supports and the End-Of-Life (EOL) schedule for each.

Microsoft Windows Server
NameEOL for Collector support
Windows Server 2022Oct 14, 2031
Windows Server 2019Jan 9, 2029
Windows Server 2016Jan 11, 2027
Linux
DistributionArchitectureEOL for Collector support
Debian 11x86-64Jun 1, 2026
Debian 10x86-64Jun 1, 2024
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 9.1x86-64May 31, 2034
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 9.0x86-64May 31, 2034
Fedora 37x86-64Dec 12, 2023
Fedora 36x86-64May 16, 2023
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux / Alma Linux 9.1x86-64May 31, 2034
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux / Alma Linux 9.0x86-64May 31, 2034
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 8.7x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 8.6x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 8.5x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux 8.4x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 8.3x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 8.2x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 8.1x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 8.0x86-64May 31, 2031
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 7.0-7.9x86-64Jun 30, 2025
Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Oracle Enterprise Linux / CentOS 6.0-6.10x86-64Jun 30, 2024
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15x86-64Jul 31, 2028
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12x86-64Oct 31, 2024
Ubuntu 22.04 (Standard Support)x86-64Apr 2027
Ubuntu 22.04 (Pro Support)x86-64Apr 2032
Ubuntu 20.04x86-64Apr 2, 2030
Ubuntu 18.04 (Pro Support)x86-64Apr 2, 2028
Ubuntu 16.04x86-64Apr 2, 2026
Ubuntu 14.04x86-64Apr 2, 2024

Supported Browsers

You need to access your InsightVM web interface in order to retrieve the installer and complete the activation process. To do so, use either of the following supported web browsers:

  • Mozilla Firefox (latest stable version)
  • Google Chrome (latest stable version)

Networking Requirements

Implementing Collectors for the InsightVM use case requires the following connectivity.

Collector communication with Insight Agents

Since InsightVM implements Collectors as intermediaries between your deployed Insight Agents and the Insight Platform, your Collectors must allow different kinds of traffic from your agents on the following ports:

Data TypeDirectionPort
Agent communication to CollectorInbound5508
Agent update requests to CollectorInbound6608
Agent file upload to CollectorInbound8037 (TCP and UDP)

Collector communication with the Insight Platform

Is your Rapid7 product subscription provisioned for the United States? Check your region code first!

As of April 12th, 2021, all new customers subscribing to Rapid7 Insight products that elect to store their data in the United States will be provisioned for one of three data centers. Since these data centers have unique endpoints, any firewall rules you configure must correspond to the data center your organization is assigned to. Follow these steps to determine which United States data center your organization is part of:

  1. Go to insight.rapid7.com and sign in with your Insight account email address and password.
  2. Navigate to the Platform Home page.
    • If you are not taken to this page by default, expand the product dropdown in the upper left and click My Account.
  3. Look for the Data Storage Region tag in the upper right corner of the page below your account name. Your United States region tag will show one of the following data centers:
    • United States - 1
    • United States - 2
    • United States - 3

All Collectors must be able to establish outbound connectivity on port 443 to *.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com and communicate with the domains shown in the Data and Storage (S3) columns of the following table according to your geographic region. For example, for InsightVM subscribers that elect to store their data in Australia, Collectors must be able to communicate with the following endpoints using port 443:

  • *.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com
  • au.data.insight.rapid7.com
  • s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com
RegionData endpointStorage (S3 endpoint)
United States - 1data.insight.rapid7.coms3.amazonaws.com
United States - 2us2.data.insight.rapid7.coms3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
United States - 3us3.data.insight.rapid7.coms3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com
Canadaca.data.insight.rapid7.coms3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com
Europeeu.data.insight.rapid7.coms3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com
Japanap.data.insight.rapid7.coms3-ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com
Australiaau.data.insight.rapid7.coms3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com

If you intend to deploy token-based Insight Agents through your Collectors, you also need to allow outbound connectivity from each Collector on port 443 to the endpoint that provides the agent's configuration files. Just like the Data and Storage endpoints in the previous table, you can configure your firewall rules to allow your Collectors to connect to a region-specific version of the Deployment endpoint to meet this requirement:

RegionDeployment endpoint
United States - 1us.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
United States - 2us2.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
United States - 3us3.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
Canadaca.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
Europeeu.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
Japanap.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files
Australiaau.deployment.endpoint.ingress.rapid7.com/api/v1/get_agent_files

Collector communication for InsightVM-specific data

Finally, your Collectors must be able to reach out on port 443 and communicate with one of the following InsightVM-specific endpoints according to your geographic region. This endpoint is responsible for displaying your vulnerability assessment data and powers several InsightVM features:

RegionEndpoint
United States - 1exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
United States - 2us2.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
United States - 3us3.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
Canadaca.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
Europeeu.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
Japanap.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com
Australiaau.exposure-analytics.insight.rapid7.com

Firewall rule alternatives

If you need an alternative to the URL firewall rule configuration method shown here, see the Insight Agent connectivity requirements page for a table of IP addresses by region that you can use instead.