Installation on Linux (legacy agent)

The following content pertains to installation on Linux for the legacy AppOptics NET Agent.

Get the agent

The agent is distributed as a compressed archive that can be downloaded from https://files.appoptics.com/dotnet/dotnet-agent-package.tgz.

We recommend extracting it to a directory named $HOME/appoptics. All the examples below assume this as the install directory.

First, download and extract the agent:

mkdir -p ${HOME}/appoptics
pushd ${HOME}/appoptics
curl -sSO https://files.appoptics.com/dotnet/dotnet-agent-package.tgz
tar -xvf dotnet-agent-package.tgz
popd

Then designate the agent as a CLR profiler by setting the following environment variables:

export APPOPTICS_HOME_APM_DOTNET=${HOME}/appoptics
export CORECLR_PROFILER={824293AD-22E2-4DAA-BC28-166C140543BE}
export CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH=${APPOPTICS_HOME_APM_DOTNET}/AppOpticsProfiler.so

To enable the agent for a process, set the following environment variable for the process:

export CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING=1

If the above is set at the system level, you may selectively disable a process from instrumentation by setting CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING=0 for the process. For example, to exempt the dotnet SDK commands in a bash shell:

CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING=0 dotnet --info
CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING=0 dotnet publish ...

The agent also requires a service key, which can be set either in the configuration file ${APPOPTICS_HOME_APM_DOTNET}/agent.config or as the APPOPTICS_SERVICE_KEY environment variable, for example:

export APPOPTICS_SERVICE_KEY=<appoptics-api-token>:<service-name>

Finally, restart the .NET Core application for these changes to take effect.

Troubleshooting

After installing the agent if traces and metric data do not appear in the AppOptics dashboard, a diagnostic tool is available to help troubleshoot the problem. Review the Troubleshooting page for information on how to use the diagnostic tool and for help resolving the issue.

Instrumenting non-dotnet processes

Any application that starts with the dotnet command (runs under the dotnet process), is automatically considered for instrumentation. An example:

dotnet dotnet-core-application.dll

To instrument an application that is ran directly such as a self-contained executable, you’ll need to add it in the <applications> section in the agent.config configuration file. An example:

<applications>
  <application name="dotnet-core-executable" />
</applications>

Log File Location

Agent log files are located under the /var/tmp/appoptics directory.

Uninstalling the Agent

Unset all the environment variables exported during the Get the agent section and (optional) remove the agent install directory.

The agent can also be disabled via the <AppOptics> configuration setting.

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