Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Introduction

As an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure administrator you can deploy management agents to collect data from services and sources that you want to monitor. Management Agent service manages the lifecycle of the management agent and the plug-ins for the services.

Management Agent Concepts

The following terminology and concepts help you understand the management agents deployment and lifecycle.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is a set of complementary cloud services that enable you to build and run a wide range of applications and services in a highly available hosted environment. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) components communicate with each other using https protocol.

Software or hardware resources as well as business objects whose properties, configuration, status, and performance are tracked and analyzed are known as data sources.

A Management Agent (agent) allows a service plug-in to collect data from the host where you install the Management Agent. It can connect to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure directly using the Management Agent cloud service. The Management Agent is installed on a host. It monitors and collects data from the sources that reside on hosts or virtual hosts.

The Management Agent Cloud Service (MACS), also known as Management Agent service, is a cloud service from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. It manages the Management Agents and their lifecycle. Management Agents allow Oracle Cloud services to interact and collect data from entities that are managed by them.

An Agent Install Key is a token required by the Management Agent installation. It authorizes the Management Agent to communicate with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. You can use an agent install key for multiple Management Agents installations. When you install a Management Agent, you must provide the agent install key value. You can get the value of the agent install key from the Management Agent service user interface.

A Service Plug-in allows Management Agents to interact with data sources and send the data back to the cloud service.

A Management Gateway is a component of the Management Agent service which provides a single point through which all communication between customer-side products (like Management Agents) and the Oracle Cloud side takes place. For more information about configuring and installing a Management Gateway, see Management Gateway.

Oracle Cloud Agent is a lightweight process that manages plugins running on compute instances, also known as hosts or VMs, residing in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. When you are using compute instances, you can deploy Management Agents by using the Oracle Cloud Agent. For information about deploying Management Agents with Oracle Cloud Agent when using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure compute instances, see Deploy Management Agents on Compute Instances.

Management Agent diagram that shows Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services and data sources.

Workflow for Installing Management Agents

Perform the following tasks to install Management Agents.

Tasks More Information
Check your OCI environment.

Before you start using Management Agents, ensure your OCI environment is set up correctly. See Set Up Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for Management Agent Service.

Review the generic prerequisites.

Review the prerequisites before installing the Management Agents. See Generic Prerequisites for Deploying Management Agents.

Download the agent software and create an agent install key.

The first step to deploy Management Agents in your environment is to download the agent software and create an agent install key. See Download the Agent Software and Create Install Key.

Install the Management Agent.

The Management Agent software download file contains all the files required to install the Management Agent. See Install Management Agent.

Install Management Gateway on Windows

To install the Management Gateway software on Windows, perform the following steps:

  1. Extract the Management Gateway software.

    Navigate to the directory where you have downloaded the Management Gateway software ZIP file and unzip it to any preferred location.

  2. Login as an Administrator user and open a Command Prompt window.

  3. Install the Management Gateway by running the installer.bat script. 
    installer.bat
    The output will look similar to the following: 
    Checking pre-requisites
        Checking if previous gateway service exists
        Checking if C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\agent_inst directory exists       
        Checking if C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\agent_inst\plugins directory exists
        Checking Java version
                Java version: 1.8.0_371 found at C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-1.8
        Checking if C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\231214.1713 directory exists
Executing install
        Unpacking software zip
        Copying files to destination dir (C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent) 
        Initializing software from template
        Checking if JavaScript engine is available to use
        Creating mgmt_gateway service
Gateway install successful
Setup gateway using input response file
       Usage:         
       C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\agent_inst\bin\setupGateway.bat [FULL_PATH_TO_INPUT.RSP]
  4. Configure the Management Gateway by executing the setupGateway.bat script using the response file.
    <Management_Agent_path>\setupGateway.bat <full_path_of_response_file>
    For example:
    C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\agent_inst\bin\setupGateway.bat c:\tmp\input.rsp
    The output looks similar to the following:
    Validating response file
Validating certificate properties
Successfully validated response file

Executing configure     
        Parsing input response file
        Validating install key       
        Generating communication wallet
        Generating security artifacts     
        Registering Management Gateway
                Found service plugin(s): [GatewayProxy]

The Oracle Management Gateway service is starting...
The Oracle Management Gateway service was started successfully.

Starting plugin deployment for: [GatewayProxy]
Deploying service plugin(s)...Done.
        GatewayProxy : Successfully deployed external plugin

Management Gateway setup completed and is running
In the future agent can be started by directly running: NET START mgmt_gateway
Please use OCI CLI or OCI Management Agent console to validate the successful activation of your agent."

Please make sure that you delete C:\tmp\input.rsp or store it in secure location.

Checking for plugin to be deployed
Plugin deployed successfully
Setting up Gateway
Creating gateway system properties file
Creating properties file
Creating or validating certificates
Waiting for Management Gateway to create or validate certificates ...
Waiting for Management Gateway to create or validate certificates ...
Waiting for Management Gateway to create or validate certificates ...
Waiting for Management Gateway to create or validate certificates ...
Waiting for Management Gateway to create or validate certificates ...
Wallets created successfully
Waiting for Management Gateway to setup ...
Management Gateway Plugin set up successfully.
The gateway installation process does the following:
  • A new directory is created as part of the agent installation process: C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent.
  • The agent install base directory is the directory where the gateway will be installed.

    By default, the gateway is installed under the C:\Oracle directory. The default directory can be changed by setting the AGENT_INSTALL_BASEDIR environment variable before running the installer.bat script.

  • Log files from the Management Gateway installation are located under C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\installer-logs and C:\Oracle\mgmt_agent\plugins\GatewayProxy\stateDir\logs directories.