Installing an eG Agent on HP-UX

There are two approaches to installing an eG agent on HP-UX:

  • The eG agent software for HP-UX is available in the eG web site as a depot file and an iAgent script. you can download the depot file and iAgent script from the eG web site, and manually run the iAgent script on the target to install the eG agent. This approach is ideal if you want to deploy HP-UX agents for a single organization - i.e., for the Enterprise deployment of eG.
  • The eG agent software for HP-UX is provided as a packaged application. You can download the agent packagefrom the eG manager console, extract the contents of the package to any folder in the target host, and silently run a setup script on that host to install and configure the agent at one shot - i.e., to install the agent and also to configure agent-manager communication. If you are deploying eG Enterprise for SaaS, then it is mandatory that your tenants use this approach to install and configure the eG agents in their environment.

Both these approaches are discussed in this section.

Installing HP-UX Agents for an Enterprise Deployment of the eG Manager

An Enterprise deployment of the eG manager is typically used to monitor only a single organization's IT infrastructure. In this case, it is recommended that the following procedure be used to install eG agents on HP-UX hosts:

  1. The standard eG agent software for HP-UX is provided as a depot file by name eGAgent_hpux.depot. An accompanying script called iAgent_hpux drives the installation process for the agent. You can download the tar file and installation script from the HP-UX folder in the eG web site. To know how, refer to the eG Quick Installation Guide.

  2. After downloading, execute the iAgent_hpux script with the depot file located in the same directory as the script file .

  3. Execute the iAgent_hpuxscript or iAgent script from the super-user account.

    # ./iAgent
    05/22/19 12:18:02 IST  BEGIN swreg SESSION (non-interactive)
    •Session started for user “root@hpux01”.
    •Beginning Selection
    •Targets:                hpux01
    •Objects:                /var/spool/sw/eGAgent.depot
    •Selection succeeded.
        
    05/22/19 12:18:02 IST  END swreg SESSION (non-interactive)
    NOTE:    The interactive UI was invoked, since no software was specified.
    Starting the terminal version of swinstall...
    Navigation in swinstall:
    • use the “Tab” key to move between screen elements
    • use the arrow  keys to move within screen elements
    • use “Ctrl-F” for context-sensitive help anywhere in swinstall
    On screens with a menubar at the top like this:
    |File View Options Actions               Help|
           | -- -- ---- ---------------- --|
    •use “Tab” to move from the list to the menubar
    •use the arrow keys to move around
    •use “Return” to pull down a menu or select a menu item
    •use “Tab” to move from the menubar to the list without selecting a menu item
    •use the spacebar to select an item in the list
    On any screen, press “CTRL-K” for more information on how to use the keyboard.
    Press “Return” to continue...

  4. On pressing Enter, the screen depicted by Figure 145 appears:

    swinstall terminal interface

    Figure 145 : The swinstall terminal interface

  5. Highlight the software using the spacebar and mark the software by pressing m. Then, using the tab key, move to the menu bar on top and select Install from the Actions menu as depicted by Figure 146 below. This will begin the install analysis process.

    Start of install analysis process

    Figure 146 : Commencing the install analysis process

  6. The screen that displays the status of the install analysis will then appear (see Figure 147):

    Status of install analysis process

    Figure 147 : A screen displaying the status of the install analysis process

  7. Once the status changes to Ready, press Enter to bring up the screen depicted by Figure 148:

    Completion of install analysis process

    Figure 148 : Completing the install analysis process

  8. Once the status becomes Completed, press Done.
  9. Now, press Tab and choose File -> Exit to exit.

  10. The install process will then prompt you to specify the name of the eG user.

    Enter the name of the eG user [egurkha]: bob

  11. Next, enter the path to the directory in which the eG agent is to be installed. The default base directory for an eG agent is /opt. A subdirectory named egurkha will be created under this base directory in the previous step.

    Enter the directory in which the eG agent should be installed [/opt]:

  12. Then, enter the name of the group with which the eG user is associated. If you specify an existing user name, then this group prompt will not appear.

    Enter the group to which the eG user is to be associated [egurkha]:

  13. The install process will now request the user to confirm installation of the auto-restart feature. This feature will enable the agent to start automatically every time the system hosting the agent reboots. Now, press y to install the auto-restart feature, or n to proceed without installing the same.

    Would you like the eG agent to auto-restart on system boot-up? y/n [n]

  14. Upon successful installation of the agent, the following message appears:

    The eG agent has been successfully installed!
    Please login as <user name> and run the script
    /opt/egurkha/bin/setup_agent to configure the agent.

If you install an eG agent using the procedure discussed above, then you will have to run a setup procedure later to configure agent-manager communication. To know how setup the eG agent, refer to the Configuring the eG Agent on Unix topic.

Installing HP-UX Agents for a SaaS Deployment of the eG Manager

As stated earlier, where eG Enterprise needs to support multiple tenants - eg., MSP environments with multiple customers, enterprises with multiple departments/domains - the individual tenants should use only this approach to deploy the eG agent on the Linux hosts in their specific environments.

A key pre-requisite of this approach is that the eG manager should already be deployed and running.

To enable a tenant to install eG agents, the administrator should first make sure that the agent packages that correspond to the tenant's environment are accessible to the tenant from the eG manager console. For that, the administrator should do the following:

  1. Login to the system hosting the eG manager.
  2. From a browser, connect to the URL: https://www.eginnovations.com/eval<current_version_num>/AgentPackages
  3. In this location, you will find a set of zip files. Each zip file is an agent package that corresponds to every operating system on which an eG agent can be installed.

  4. Download the agent packages / zip files that correspond to the hosts in your tenant's environment, to any folder on the eG manager host. The HP-UX agent package will be listed therein as HPUX.zip.

  5. Copy the downloaded packages to the /opt/egurkha/agents/Universal/Latest folder on the eG manager.

The tenant can now proceed to install the eG agent using the procedure discussed hereunder:

  1. Using a browser, connect to the URL of the eG management console.
  2. Login to the eG management console using the credentials you used (corporate email ID and password) to register with eG Enterprise for SaaS.

  3. Click the Agent Download icon icon in the top, right corner of the page that appears to download eG agents.

  4. Doing so will invoke Figure 149, where you need to indicate if the eG agent you are downloading should communicate with the eG manager via a proxy server. If not, then pick the No option. If a proxy server is to be used for agent-manager communication, then select the Yes option.

    Confirmation on eG agent communication with eG manager

    Figure 149 : Indicating whether/not the eG agent being downloaded should communicate with the eG manager

  5. If the Yes option is chosen in Figure 149, then Figure 150 will appear. Here, you need to provide the details of the proxy server used for agent-manager communication.

    Configuration of agent-manager communication via proxy server

    Figure 150 : Configuring agent-manager communication via a proxy server

  6. Specify the following in Figure 150:

    • Proxy Server IP/Hostname: Mention the IP address/hostname of the proxy server used for agent-manager communication.
    • Proxy Server Port: Specify the port number at which the proxy server listens.
    • Does the proxy server require authentication?: Indicate whether/not the proxy server requires authentication. Select the No option if authentication is required, and Yes if it is.
    • Username, Password, and Confirm Password: If the proxy server requires authentication, then provide the credentials of a valid proxy server user against the Username and Password text boxes. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

    • Finally, click the Submit button to confirm the proxy server specifications and proceed with the downloading of the eG agent.

  7. Figure 151 will appear. By default, Figure 151 lists the 'internal agent packages' that have been uploaded to the eG manager - i.e., agent packages to be used for monitoring components in an agent-based manner. If you want to deploy a remote agent, click the agentless monitoring link in Figure 151. Likewise, to deploy an external agent, click the external monitoring link in the page.

    Availability of eG's internal agent packages for download from eG manager console

    Figure 151 : eG's internal agent packages available for download from the eG manager console

    Note:

    Though the eG management console lists the packages meant for agent-less, agent-based, and external monitoring in separate pages, the procedure to download and install these packages remains the same across monitoring approaches.

  8. To download an agent package for HP-UX, click on the package named HP-UXin Figure 151.
  9. If the host to which you have downloaded the package is the target HP-UX host for agent installation, then login to that HP-UX host as super-user. On the other hand, if you want to install the eG agent on a host different from the one on which the package has been downloaded, then first copy the agent package to any location on the target HP-UX host. Then, login to that host as a super-user.

  10. From the prompt, open the folder to which the zip file has been copied/downloaded. Then, run the following command at the prompt to unzip the file and extract its contents.

    unzip <Zip_File_Name>

  11. The following files will then be extracted:

    • A tar file: Upon unzipping HPUX.zip, you will find a tar file named eGagent_hpux.tar.gz.
    • iAgent script: This is the script that installs the eG agent on an HP-UX host. An iAgent_hpux script will be extracted from HPUX.zip .
    • setup.sh: This is the shell script that drives the silent installation of the eG agent. Running setup invokes the iAgent_hpux script and silently installs the agent on the target host.
    • eg_uaid: In a multi-tenant setup, once a tenant - eg., a user representing a customer / a department / a domain - registers with eG Enterprise to use its monitoring services, eG automatically generates a unique UAID and assigns the same to that tenant. If that tenant later logs into the eG management console using the registered credentials (email ID and password) and downloads the agents, each agent so downloaded is automatically tagged with that UAID. The downloaded agents, once installed and configured, will automatically start discovering applications on their respective hosts. eG Enterprise auto-manages the discovered applications and auto-assigns them to the user who has the same UAID as the eG agent that discovered these applications. The eg_uaid file contains the UAID of the tenant who downloaded agent packages from the eG management console; this is the same UAID that will be assigned to each agent installed by that tenant.

  12. Next, to install the eG agent on the HP-UX host silently, from the command prompt, switch to the folder to which the files have been extracted. Then, run the setup.sh script by issuing the following command:

    ./setup.sh

  13. Running setup will automatically install an eG agent on the target HP-UX host, and will also automatically configure agent-manager communication. This eG agent will automatically report metrics to the eG manager from which the agent package was downloaded. Also, the hostname of such an agent is automatically set as its nick name.

    In a multi-tenant setup, a hostname may not be unique across tenant environments. To avoid nick name duplication, eG Enterprise automatically employs the following algorithm when assigning nick names:

    • At the time of setting the hostname of an agent host as its nick name, eG first checks if that hostname has already been assigned to any existing agent.
    • If it finds that the hostname has already been taken, then it will attempt to assign the FQDN - the fully qualified domain name - of the agent host as the nick name.
    • In the process, if eG finds that the FQDN is also in use, then it will break-down the FQDN into smaller strings, and try to assign each of these strings, one after another, to the agent.
    • If all these FQDN strings have already been assigned to other agents, then the eG agent will suffix the hostname of the agent host with the number 0, and try to assign this as the nick name of the eG agent. For instance, if the hostname of the eG agent host is winpc, then the nick name assigned to that agent will be winpc0.

    • If this nick name is also taken, then eG will increment the number 0, which suffixes the hostname, by 1, and will try to assign the resultant string to the eG agent,. This way, eG will keep incrementing the number suffix until an unused string is found. Such a string will finally be assigned to the agent as its nick name.

      Note:

      • In a SaaS deployment, if a tenant manually adds components to be monitored by an eG agent, then you should only assign that agent's nick name to each of the components it monitors.

      • In a SaaS deployment, if you are downloading an agent for installation on an imaging system (e.g. for Citrix Provisioning services), or on a snapshot (for Citrix Machine Creation Services), or on a VM template for virtual servers, then, make sure you first enable the Installation on a golden image / VM template flag in Figure 151 and then proceed with the downloading. If this is done, then after the agent so downloaded is installed, setup will stop that agent. Also, setup will auto-delete the eg_nick.ini file of that agent, so that no nick name is assigned to that agent.

        On the other hand, if you download and install an agent on an imaging system / snapshot / VM template WITHOUT ENABLING the Installation on a golden image / VM template flag in Figure 151, then the installation will automatically start the agent and assign the hostname of the system as the nick name automatically. In such a case, you need to do the following:

        • On the snapshot / golden image / master VM, open the eg_nick.ini file in the <EG_AGENT_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\config directory.
        • Check to see if the Nick parameter in that file is set to any value. If this parameter has no value, it implies that no nick name was set for the eG agent on that snapshot / golden image / master VM. On the other hand, if the Nick parameter has a value, it indicates that a nick name was set for the eG agent. In this case, make sure that you delete the eg_nick.ini file on the snapshot / golden image / master VM before you proceed further.
        • Likewise, delete the contents of the /opt/egurkha/agent/data folder and the /opt/egurkha/agent/logs folder are deleted.
        • Also, stop the eG agent.