Installing Cisco AppDynamics Smart Agent on Linux (Ubuntu) and configure Machine agent afterwards

[Abhi.Bajaj]

Installing and Configuring the Cisco AppDynamics Smart Agent and Machine Agent on Ubuntu Linux"

Download The Smart Agent from

1. Go to download.appdynamics.com
2. Click on the dropdown 'Type' and find AppDynamics Smart Agent for Linux ZIPYou can curl the download as well to your Linux box.
3. AppDynamics Smart Agent requires pip3 to be present and appdsmartagent folder should be where we will install smart agent, So if you don’t have it. Please run the below->
   

   mkdir /opt/apppdynamics/appdsmartagent
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y python3-pip
   cd /opt/appdynamics/appdsmartagent​

4. Once you have these setup, curl the Zip artifactory
   

   curl -L -O -H "Authorization: Bearer xxxxx.xxxx.xxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxx;" "https://download.appdynamics.com/download/prox/download-file/appdsmartagent/24.2.0.1472/appdsmartagent_64_linux_24.2.0.1472.zip"
   ​

5. Unzip the content and run install-script.sh, In this case
   

   unzip appdsmartagent_64_linux_24.2.0.1472.zip
   unzip appdsmartagent_64_linux_24.2.0.1472.zip​

6. Run the install script placed in the appdsmartagent folder
   

   ./install-script.sh​

7. Add the configuration inside of /opt/appdynamics/appdsmartagent/config.ini
   

   vi /opt/appdynamics/appdsmartagent/config.ini​

8. You are required to configure Smart Agents to register with the Controller.
9. Edit the /opt/appdynamics/appdsmartagent/config.ini file for the required Smart Agent configuration.

Ensure that you update the following parameters:

• ControllerURL: The URL of the Controller on which you want to establish the connection with the Smart Agent.
• ControllerPort :
• FMServicePort: The port to which the Smart Agent connects to the FM service (Agent Management). It is 8090 for an on-premises Controller and 443 for a SaaS Controller.
• AccountAccessKey: The account access key on the Controller.
• AccountName: The account name on the Controller to which the Smart Agent will report.

An example for above:

ControllerURL = https://support-controller.saas.appdynamics.com
ControllerPort = 443
FMServicePort = 443
AccountAccessKey = abcd-ahsasasj-asbasas
AccountName = controllerces

Once done. Start the Smart Agent with the below:

systemctl start smartagent.service

You can check the status 

The first part is done.

Now let’s install a Machine agent.

1. Once your Agent is started
2. Please go to controller.com/controller/#/apm/agent-management-install-agents
3. On the Install Agents page, where it says "Select Agent Attributes' select 'Machine'
4. Under 'Select where to Deploy Agents' 
   1. Add your Host where you installed Smart Agent and move to the left
   2. Click 'Apply' and then click 'Done
5. Once this is done, you can install it with DEFAULT config, or you can set Customer Agent attributes. 
6. If you wish to pass more information, you can get the key : value example from Cisco AppDynamics Docs: Ansible Configuration for Machine Agent. 
   For example:
   controller_account_access_key: "123key"  

NOTE: Your controller-host, port, access-key, and accountName are already passed. You can select SIM (Server Visibility) and SSL enabled based on your needs. I am marking JRE Support enabled as well. 

Ansible Configuration for Machine Agent

In Linux, the Ansible role starts and runs the Machine agent as a service during installation, upgrade, and…

Once done, the agent will take 10–15 minutes to show up on your Controller.

It will be automatically installed and be in a running state. Logs can be located at /opt/appdynamics/machine-agent folder.

[Lloyd.Lachnite]

Love the article, can you follow-up with a fully explained config.ini

QUESTION: Can you provide and explanation of all the Parameters as you did above (as they have been expanded in v24.6 config.ini, and need to be expanded further).

(in this type layout)

Ensure that you update the following parameters:

• ControllerURL: The URL of the Controller on which you want to establish the connection with the Smart Agent.
• ControllerPort :
• FMServicePort: The port to which the Smart Agent connects to the FM service (Agent Management). It is 8090 for an on-premises Controller and 443 for a SaaS Controller.
• AccountAccessKey: The account access key on the Controller.
• AccountName: The account name on the Controller to which the Smart Agent will report.
• All Other Parameters....

And add some backstory detail as to when some of the optional ones may be helpful/needed?

Provide naming convention for AgentName & AgentType if the Agent Management console require a specific format.

Thanks!

Lloyd Lachnite

[Abhi.Bajaj]

Hi Lloyd Lachnite

Below are the required ones to start Smart Agent

ControllerURL: The URL of the Controller on which you want to establish the connection with the Smart Agent.
ControllerPort :
FMServicePort: The port to which the Smart Agent connects to the FM service (Agent Management). It is 8090 for an on-premises Controller and 443 for a SaaS Controller.
AccountAccessKey: The account access key on the Controller.
AccountName: The account name on the Controller to which the Smart Agent will report.

If you have question for a specific use case then I will request you to file a Support ticket.
But for few,  If your Smart Agent <-> Controller requires TLS then you will fill in below

[TLSSetting]
CAFile     =
CertFile   =
KeyFile    =
MinVersion = TLS 1.2
MaxVersion = TLS 1.3

Oauth can be utilized if you are creating a service principal rather then using AccessKey to authenticate with the controller.

You can also use Proxy variables

AgentHTTPProxy  =
AgentHTTPSProxy =

[Lloyd.Lachnite]

I did not see these Parameters listed: 
AgentProxyPort  =      Port has always been a seperate parameter in AppD  ????
AgentProxyUser       =      (for authentication)  ????
AgentProxyPassword   =      (for authentication)  ????

Please provide some documentation on these Parameters.

[Abhi.Bajaj]

With latest versions only required parameters are getting placed in config.ini when you download SmartAgent.
Now port are passed directly with url as documented, example : http://localhost:3128

All the variables / configuration you can pass can be found here:
https://docs.appdynamics.com/appd/24.x/24.7/en/agent-management/smart-agent/get-started

For Username and password, The url will become

AgentHTTPProxy = "http://user:pass@proxy.localhost.com:3128"

This is how you pass proxy information generally when making curl requests.