Unix/Linux Agent Deployment

The ObserveIT Agent can be installed on all Unix or Linux systems which require monitoring. You can deploy as many ObserveIT Agents as required up to the licensing limit.

From version 7.12.0, a new enhanced API for Agent-Server communication is available and selected by default. For information about what to do when upgrading Agents from earlier versions, see Force Using New API for Agent-Server Communication.)

You need a valid license file containing your purchased ObserveIT license. Attempting to install Agents on more systems than your license permits, or on systems that are not a part of your license (for example, attempting to install the Agent software on a machine for which you do not have a workstation-type license, or when all the existing workstation-type licenses are used up) will result in an installation failure.

You can deploy ObserveIT Agents on the following Unix/Linux-based operating systems:

  • Solaris

  • AIX

  • HP-UX

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/Community Enterprise Operating System (CentOS)

  • Oracle Linux

  • SuSe Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

  • Ubuntu

  • Debian

  • Amazon Linux

For a list of the currently supported versions for each of the above platforms, see Supported Platforms.

For the minimum system requirements for installing Unix/Linux-based Agents, see System Requirements for ObserveIT Components.

Important: You cannot install an Agent with a software version that is later than the software version of the Application Server. The Application Server version must be equal to or later than the current Agent version. If you attempt to install an Agent version which is later than the Application Server version, the Agent registration will fail with an error message.

The Unix or Linux Agent installer is a self-extracting file which includes the package and an installation script. All Unix/Linux Agent installation files are located at /opt/observeit/agent.

The Agent installation procedure is the same for all supported platforms. A single installation script can be used for every supported Unix/Linux platform. The installation script can also be run in interactive mode or silent mode. For further details, see Interactive Agent Installation and Silent Agent Installation.

In case you have problems with installation, you can create Agent installation logs containing all the messages that were generated during the installation, and send them to ObserveIT support. The installation log will be stored in the directory: /etc/omonitor/<pkgname>_install.log where <pkgname> is the name of the Agent installation package.

Prerequisites for Installation

Before installing an ObserveIT Unix/Linux Agent, make sure that you have the following information, and have performed the following tasks:

Install the Agent in its own directory. This directory cannot contain other files or folders.

  • Prerequisite libraries must be installed. For a list of the prerequisite libraries for each Agent type, see Library Prerequisites for Unix/Linux Agents.

  • Use the operating system update mechanism and best-practices to ensure that are all servers are patched with critical updates.

  • Ensure your servers meet all system requirements for the components you are installing.

  • Login credentials for an account with root privileges on the computer on which you intend to install the ObserveIT Agent.

  • The IP address or host name of the computer that hosts the ObserveIT Application Server.

  • If there is a firewall between the computers that run the ObserveIT Agents and the ObserveIT Application Server, you must allow traffic for the TCP ports on which the ObserveIT Application Server communicates through that firewall. For new ObserveIT installations, the default port is 4884, but this port can be changed to meet the organization's requirements. Note that you can also configure ObserveIT to use SSL, which will change the port to 443.

To verify, use the following command on the Windows computer: telnet <ServerIP> <Port>

where <ServerIP> is the IP address or FQDN of the ObserveIT Application server and <Port> is the TCP port used by the ObserveIT Application Server.

The following topics describe: