Troubleshooting Appdynamics Agent Install on Windows ECS Fargate .Net Framework IIS application

[Rupert.Broad]

I'm trying to get the App Agent running on a Windows ECS Fargate container. Agent installs and connects to the coordinator and registers the machine agent but the App Agent and CLR are not discovered/registered. On a regular Windows Server instance doing 'iisreset' usually resolves this issue. In the container startup script there is an iisreset but it's obviously not working.

I get the same result if I build/run the container locally on a Windows Server, so Fargate is not the issue.

config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<appdynamics-agent xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <controller host="AppDynamicsAppHostName" port="443" ssl="true" enable_tls12="true">
    <application name="AppDynamicsAppName" />
      <account name="AppDynamicsAppAccountName" password="AppDynamicsAppAccountPassword" />
  </controller>
  <machine-agent />
  <app-agents>
    <IIS>
      <applications>
        <application path="/" site="api">
          <tier name="AppDynamicsTierName" />
        </application>
      </applications>
    </IIS>
  </app-agents>
</appdynamics-agent>

When the container registers with the coordinator, it does NOT assign the agent to the Application Tier. 

As far as I can tell from logging, there are no errors or issues during install or when container starts.

What I don't understand and what isn't discussed in the documents is how AppDynamics determines whether the App agent is installed and where I need to check (logs/xml/config) to find any misconfiguration.

[Ryan.Paredez]

Hi @Rupert.Broad,

Thanks for asking your question on the Community. Can you share what documentation you are referring to? I can share this feedback with the Docs team. 

[Rupert.Broad]

Hi @Ryan.Paredez 
https://docs.appdynamics.com/appd/22.x/latest/en/application-monitoring/install-app-server-agents/ne...

[Ryan.Paredez]

Hi @Rupert.Broad,

Thanks for sharing. I have shared this with the Docs team. I will report back here when I hear something. It may not be a super fast turn around just to set some expectations. 

If you happen to find a solution or workaround on your own in the meantime, please do share that here as well. 

[Ryan.Paredez]

Hi @Rupert.Broad,

I've heard back. 

"The command line has installer log location specified
msiexec /i dotNetAgentSetup64.msi /q /norestart /lv %TEMP%AgentInstaller.log AD_SetupFile=<absolute path to setup config.xml> meaning that 
MSI engine (owned by Microsoft) will decide if the agent is already installed, and will quit after logging the error. MSI looks at the registry to figure if that MSI is already installed."

The Unattended Installation section goes over this, but just in case step 2 was edited to say that you can use that command for troubleshooting https://docs.appdynamics.com/appd/22.x/latest/en/application-monitoring/install-app-server-agents/ne... 

[Rupert.Broad]

Hi Ryan,

Sorry, my bad - I wasn't sufficiently clear. The AgentInstaller.log shows the machine agent is installed successfully

MSI (s) (6C:EC) [21:37:31:896]: Product: AppDynamics .NET Agent -- Installation completed successfully.

MSI (s) (6C:EC) [21:37:31:897]: Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: AppDynamics .NET Agent. Product Version: 22.10.0. Product Language: 103
3. Manufacturer: AppDynamics. Installation success or error status: 0.

and if I look at the agentLog.txt I can see that the machine agent registers successfully with the coordinator and picks up the correct info from config.xml

2022-11-07 13:45:58.0570 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 1 Info CoordinatorService Running Coordinator
2022-11-07 13:45:58.0840 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 1 Info CoordinatorService Env variable COMPLUS_ProfAPI_ProfilerCompatibilitySetting=EnableV2Profiler
2022-11-07 13:45:58.0840 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 1 Info CoordinatorService CLR Env variables: COR_ENABLE_PROFILING=1 COR_PROFILER=AppDynamics.AgentPro
filer COR_PROFILER_PATH= COR_PROFILER_PATH_32= COR_PROFILER_PATH_64=
2022-11-07 13:45:58.0840 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 1 Info CoordinatorService CoreCLR Env variables: CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING=1 CORECLR_PROFILER=AppDynam
ics.AgentProfiler CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH= CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH_32= CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH_64=
2022-11-07 13:45:58.0881 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info CoordinatorService Starting Coordinator service
2022-11-07 13:45:58.0881 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info CoordinatorService Initializing coordinator service.
2022-11-07 13:45:58.2011 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Site = api
Default App Pool = MyIISAppPool
App / = MyAppDTierName

2022-11-07 13:45:58.2011 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Persistence Path: c:\ProgramData\AppDynamics\DotNetAgent\Data\
2022-11-07 13:45:58.2011 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Reading configuration file: c:\ProgramData\AppDynamics\DotNetAgent\Config
\config.xml
2022-11-07 13:45:58.5488 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<appdynamics-agent xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <controller host="AppDCoordinatorHostName" port="443" ssl="true" enable_tls12="true">
    <application name="MyServiceName" />
    <account name="MyAccountName" password="***" />
  </controller>
  <machine-agent />
  <app-agents>
    <IIS>
      <applications>
        <application path="/" site="api">
          <tier name="MyAppDTierName" />
        </application>
      </applications>
    </IIS>
  </app-agents>
</appdynamics-agent>
2022-11-07 13:45:58.5488 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Persistence Path is modified to : c:\ProgramData\AppDynamics\DotNetAgent\
Data\
2022-11-07 13:45:58.7492 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Apps:
api:*/ AppDomain:*
AppPools:
Console:
Services:

2022-11-07 13:45:58.7492 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ConfigurationManager Pools:
MyIISAppPoolName=True

2022-11-07 13:45:58.7492 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info Configuration creating new coordinator configuration instance
2022-11-07 13:45:58.7772 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info MachineAgentManager ##########################################################################
##########
2022-11-07 13:45:58.7772 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info MachineAgentManager Machine Agent started
2022-11-07 13:45:58.7772 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info MachineAgentManager Machine Agent version: 22.10.0 compatible with 4.4.1.0
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8352 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info MachineAgentManager Started Agent Scheduler
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8352 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info MachineAgentManager Scheduling Machine Agent Registration ....
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8392 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info RegistrationChannel Reregistration Check is : [enabled].
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8392 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info CoordinatorService coordinator service initialized successfully
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8392 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info CoordinatorService Starting Process monitor
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8603 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info ProcessMonitor starts process monitoring for all running and future IIS processes and running
executables (standalones and windows services) instrumented by the Agent
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel using controller host [postnldev.saas.appdynamics.com]; controller port [4
43]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting unique host information Host Name [DFEAC51C98BA]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent version [22.10.0 compatible with 4.4.1.0]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent properties []
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent install dir [c:\Program Files\AppDynamics\AppDynamics .NET A
gent\]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent type [MACHINE_AGENT]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent application [LabelService_ACC]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent tier name [Machine Agent]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel setting agent node name [DFEAC51C98BA]
2022-11-07 13:45:58.8900 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel Sending Registration request
2022-11-07 13:45:59.4747 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 5 Info CoordinatorService Starting communicator...
2022-11-07 13:45:59.4807 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 6 Info CoordinatorCommunicator starting named pipe server
2022-11-07 13:45:59.4807 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 6 Info CoordinatorCommunicator named pipe = AppDynamicsAgentIPC
2022-11-07 13:45:59.6702 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel Auto agent registration attempted: Application Name [MyServiceName] Com
ponent Name [Machine Agent] Node Name [DFEAC51C98BA]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.6702 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info RegistrationChannel Auto agent registration SUCCEEDED!
2022-11-07 13:45:59.6702 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Registered machine/collector agent with machine ID [57881850]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.6702 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Starting Machine Agent ....
2022-11-07 13:45:59.6702 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info ControllerTimeSkewHandler Skew Handler is : [enabled].
2022-11-07 13:45:59.7663 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Metrics Initialized with maxPublishQueueLength [5], aggregationFrequencyIn
Millis [60000]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.7663 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Metrics Metric Service is : [enabled].
2022-11-07 13:45:59.7902 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info IISMetricManager Started IIS metric collection
2022-11-07 13:45:59.7902 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Scheduling metric polling period of 60 with cache timeout of 1
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8172 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager starts EventLog listener
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added EventLog for listening: [Application]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added EventLog for listening: [System]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added a new rule for monitoring .NET crash events: [Level = Warning, Source =
 Application Error]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added a new rule for monitoring .NET crash events: [Level = Warning, Source =
 .NET Runtime]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added a new rule for monitoring .NET crash events: [Level = Information, Sour
ce = Windows Error Reporting]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener added a new rule for monitoring .NET crash events: [Level = Warning, Source =
 WAS]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8232 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener starts listen EventLog: [Application]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8382 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener starts listen EventLog: [System]
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8382 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info EventLogListener schedules to clean entries older than [60] sec every [60] sec
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8612 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Set up agent re-registration task
2022-11-07 13:45:59.8612 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info MachineAgentManager Started AppDynamics Machine Agent Successfully.
2022-11-07 13:46:00.2679 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 10 Info ConfigurationManager Skipping update of environment variable 'InternalAppDynamicsAgent_Profil
erProcesses', as the value is unchanged
2022-11-07 13:46:09.6600 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 8 Info ConfigurationDeploymentManager Registering deployer to controller
2022-11-07 13:46:09.7913 14140 AppDynamics.Coordinator 1 7 Info MachineAgentManager Metrics URL = /controller/instance/57881850/metricregistration

But there's no mention of the App Agent or CLR and the agent doesn't get registered to the Tier in the UI.

[Rupert.Broad]

After 36 hours the App agent decided to do whatever it needs to do to register with the App Tier and start forwarding useful information to AppD. Not particularly useful in a container environment but it's windows - everything's a bit slower

[Ryan.Paredez]

Hi @Rupert.Broad,

Just confirming, that despite it being slower than expected, everything is working as expected?

[Rupert.Broad · Accepted solution]

@Ryan.Paredezyes waiting 36 hours seems to do it. As this really isn't acceptable in any production environment and did some more testing and rearranged the container image build and now have appdynamics installing at runtime not during image build. This works as expected - new container is registered as soon as the agent is installed.

[Ryan.Paredez]

Hi @Rupert.Broad,

Thanks for experimenting and reporting back. I'm trying to get someone to look at this conversation and see if anything isn't working as expected.