Requirements

Tanium Clients can connect only to Tanium Core Platform servers (Tanium Server, Tanium Module Server, and Tanium Zone Server) that run the same Tanium™ Protocol version as the clients or a later version than the clients. Servers at version 7.3 and clients at version 7.2 run Tanium Protocol 314. Servers and clients at version 7.4 or later run Tanium Protocol 315. Effectively, this means that servers are backward-compatible with earlier clients; for example, servers at version 7.4 support Tanium Client 7.2, but Tanium Client 7.4.x cannot connect to servers at version 7.3.

For details about the Tanium Protocol, see Tanium Core Platform Deployment Reference Guide: Overview of TLS in the Tanium Core Platform.

The release numbers for Tanium Core Platform servers and Tanium Clients have the format <major release>.<minor release>.<point release>, such as 7.4.5. Clients can connect to the servers when their major and minor release numbers match regardless of whether the point release numbers match. For example, Tanium Client 7.4.5 can connect to Tanium Server 7.4.2.

All supported versions of the Tanium Core Platform use TCP/IP to communicate over IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Contact Tanium Support if you need IPv6 support. You must work with your network administrator to ensure that the Tanium components are provisioned with IP addresses and can use DNS to resolve host names.

Server throughput and latency

The Tanium Server must be able to connect to the Tanium database server and Module Server. In an HA deployment, the Tanium Servers must be able to connect to each other over a reliable Ethernet connection. All these connections require a minimum throughput of 1 Gbps and a maximum round-trip latency of 30 ms.

Ports and firewalls

The following table summarizes the Tanium processes and default values for ports used in Tanium Core Platform communication. Host and network firewalls might require configuration to allow the specified processes to send and receive TCP data over the listed ports. The Tanium installer opens required ports in the Windows host firewall. You must work with your network security administrator to ensure the platform components can communicate through any security barriers (such as firewalls) in their communication path. For a detailed explanation, see Tanium Core Platform Deployment Reference Guide: Network ports. Your security administrator might also need to create rules to exempt or exclude Tanium processes that run on the host computers from blocking by antivirus or processing by encryption or other security and management stack software. For details, see Tanium Core Platform Deployment Reference Guide: Host system security exceptions.

Configure firewall policies to open ports for Tanium traffic with TCP-based rules instead of application identity-based rules. For example, on a Palo Alto Networks firewall, configure the rules with service objects or service groups instead of application objects or application groups.

To improve the security of the Zone Server, configure separate ports for traffic from Zone Server Hubs and Tanium Clients. For the steps, see Configure ports for traffic from Zone Server Hubs and Tanium Clients.

Do not allow a Tanium Server, a Module Server, or a Zone Server Hub to accept inbound connections from the internet. On a Zone Server, allow only the Tanium Client port to accept inbound connections from the internet.

The following figure illustrates how the Tanium Core Platform uses ports in an active-active deployment with Windows infrastructure:

SSL/TLS certificate and key exchanges secure connections to the Tanium™ Console or Tanium™ API, as well as connections between the Tanium Server and Tanium Module Server. When you run the server installation wizards, they prompt you to generate a self-signed certificate or specify the location of a certificate that was issued by a commercial certificate authority (CA) or your own enterprise CA.

To facilitate troubleshooting, use the self-signed certificates during initial installation and replace them with CA-issued certificates later. This practice enables you to separate potential installation issues from TLS connection issues.

For details, see Tanium Core Platform Deployment Reference Guide: Securing Tanium Console, API, and Module Server access.

Administrator accounts for post-installation/upgrade activities

The following table lists the administrator accounts required for regular, ongoing operations performed after installations or upgrades, including running the services for Tanium Core Platform servers and Tanium Clients, and accessing Tanium databases. If you reuse the accounts used for installations and upgrades, first reduce the account permissions to those specified in the following table. You can use a single service account to run the Tanium Server service and access the Tanium databases. You can also use a single service account to run the Zone Server and Zone Server Hub services. You must use a separate service account to run the Module Server service.