Documentation forSecurity Event Manager

Install the SEM Agent on macOS

See the SEM Agent pre-installation checklist for agent download information and a pre-installation checklist.

SEM does not currently support USB Defender on macOS.

About the installation

Enable the root user account and disable the System Integrity Protection (SIP). Otherwise, the agent will not run properly.

See Install the SEM Agent on macOS systems running the M1 chip to install the SEM Agent on these computers.

Download the SEM Agent installer

  1. Log in to the SolarWinds Customer Portal using your SolarWinds ID (SWI).

  2. Click Downloads > Download Product.

  3. Click the Products drop-down menu and select:

    Security Event Manager (SEM), formerly Log & Event Manager (LEM)

  4. Click the Licenses drop-down menu and select your license tier.

  5. Scroll down to Agent Downloads.

  6. Click the Local Agent Installer product version drop-down menu and select a SEM version that coincides with your macOS operating system. For example:

  7. Click Download.

  8. If prompted, click Finish Download.

    The installer is downloaded to your system.

    For example:

    SolarWinds-SEM-<version>-Agent-MacOSInstaller.zip

    where <version> is the SEM release version.

    For example:

    SolarWinds-SEM-2022.2.1-Agent-MacOSInstaller.zip

Enable root credentials, disable SIP, and download and install the SEM Agent

Depending on your software version, the file paths may still be listed as LEM and not SEM. For example, SWSEMAgent may actually be SWLEMAgent.
  1. Enable root credentials on the macOS system.

    See How to enable the root user or change the root password on Mac located on the Apple Support website for instructions.

  2. Disable System Intrusion Protection on the macOS system.

    See System Integrity Protection (SIP) is preventing install of SEM Agent on Mac OS X 10.x and later located on the Apple Support website for instructions.

    You can also use the terminal flag sudo nvram "recovery-boot-mode=unused" to reboot into recovery.

  3. Download the SEM Agent installer from the Customer Portal.

  4. Decompress or unzip the installation file to a local drive and not a network drive.

    If you are running Safari, the browser may extract the ZIP file automatically.
  5. Open a Terminal window and log in as root.

  6. Open Finder and navigate to the correct directory path.

  7. On the macOS system, double-click the agent-installer.app file.

  8. Follow the installation instructions on your screen to complete the installation.

    During the installation, add the Manager IP (SEM IP) address and accept all default port selections.

  9. Open Terminal

  10. If you are not running macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later, go to the next step.

    If you are running macOS 10.15 or later, remount the file system not as read only.

    sudo mount -uw /
  11. Copy the Agent install folder to two additional locations.

    cp -rp /private/var/root/Applications/SWLEMAgent /System/Library/StartupItems/
    cp -rp /private/var/root/Applications/SWLEMAgent /Applications
  12. Navigate to the PLIST file packaged with the installed Agent.

    cd /System/Library/StartupItems/SWLEMAgent/StartupFiles/SWLEMAgent
  13. Copy the PILIST file to the LaunchDaemons folder.

    cp -rp com.solarwinds.swlemagent.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/
  14. Change the permissions on the PLIST file.

    chown root:wheel   /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.solarwinds.swlemagent.plist
    chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.solarwinds.swlemagent.plist
  15. Restart the computer.

  16. Verify that the agent is running by running the following command as the root user:

    aunchctl list | grep swlemagent
  17. Stop the Mac Agent Service.

    launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.solarwinds.swlemagent.plist
  18. Start the Mac Agent Service.

    launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.solarwinds.swlemagent.plist
  19. Verify that the Mac Agent Service is running by running the following command as the root user:

    launchctl list | grep swlemagent

    If the Agent Service is running, the following output displays in the Terminal window:

    Mac-mini:~ root# 865 0 com.solarwinds.swlemagent

    If the Agent Service is not running, the output is blank, as shown below:

    Mac-mini:~ root#

Install the SEM Agent on macOS systems running the M1 chip

  1. Ensure that the system is running Java 17 or later, which supports the M1 chip.

  2. Download the SEM Agent installer from the Customer Portal.

  3. Open a Terminal window.

  4. Execute the following commands to run the installer.

    cd $ {location_where_the_agent-installer.app_is_stored}
    cd agent-installer.app/Contents/MacOS
    chmod u+x agent-installer
    ./agent-installer