Documentation forSolarWinds Observability SaaS

Agents

SolarWinds Observability Agents (Agents) provide data about monitored entities to SolarWinds Observability SaaS. Agents are installed when you add hosts, databases, or network devices for monitoring. Agents contain and supervise plugins - pieces of software with different roles that define the function of individual plugins.

Access Agents

You need to be logged in to SolarWinds Observability SaaS with an account of the Administrator role. See Manage Users.

  • In SolarWinds Observability SaaS, click Settings > Agents.

The Agents view shows a list of target hosts where you have deployed SolarWinds Observability Agents.

Expand a host for more details and review the Plugins section for a list of plugins deployed on the host. Listed items describe the role plugins perform, such as host-monitoring.

New Agents have the New label for 24 hours from the time they were registered. Agents should be connected all the time.

Update deployed Agents

By default, deployed Agents are updated automatically.

If you want to test new Agent versions before distributing them globally or update Agents during a specific maintenance window, disable the auto update.

Disable auto-update for individual Agents

  • Click the Auto Update toggle for an Agent to disable the auto-update.

Disable auto-update for all Agents in your organization

  • Click the gear icon in the top left to display Agent Settings.
  • Click the toggle to disable the auto-update for all Agents in the organization.

If you disable the automatic update, review the Agent Status column for information about updates. Hover over Update Available to see the latest available version and compare the version to the current Agent version in the Version column.

You can see the current plugin version in the Plugins tab in the Inspector Panel.

Update Agents

  • To update the Agent, click the Auto update toggle and turn the auto-update on. The Agent and all installed plugins will be updated immediately.

Delete Agents disconnected for 30 days or longer

Agents that have been disconnected for at least 30 days can be automatically deleted from the organization. The disconnection period is calculated based on the Last seen date, which you can check on the Agents page.

Automatically delete Agents disconnected for at least 30 days

  1. In Agents, click the gear icon in the top right to display Agent Settings.

  2. Click the Delete Agents disconnected for at least 30 days toggle to enable the setting.

Automatic deletion is performed every six hours. It deletes agents, their plugins, and related entities from SolarWinds Observability SaaS. It does not delete agent and plugin binaries from the host machine.

Start, stop, or restart plugins

If you see a warning icon next to a target host, click the item and review the status of its plugins.

  1. In Agents, click the target host where your plugin is deployed. An Inspector Panel opens, with the Plugins tab activated.

  2. In the Plugins tab, find the plugin you want to start, stop, or restart.

  3. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of the plugin row and select Start, Stop, or Restart.

Rename an Agent

You can provide Agents with meaningful display names.

  1. On Agents, find the Agent you want to rename.
  2. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of the row and click Edit Display Name.
  3. Provide a name and confirm the popup.

The Agent name displayed in SolarWinds Observability SaaS changes.

Remove host monitoring from an Agent

If an entity is monitored by more than one source, such as the Agent and APM, removing the host entity is blocked.

To remove the host monitoring plugin from an Agent:

  1. On the Agents page, click the Agent to display the Inspector Panel for the Agent.

  2. Find uams-otel-collector-plugin (hostmetrics-monitoring), click the vertical ellipsis next to the row and select Remove.

  3. When you remove the plugin, you will stop getting new data for the related entity. The entity will be removed after 30 days without new data. To remove the entity immediately, select the Remove related entity now and click Remove.

Delete Agents

To remove Agents, uninstall the Agent on the target host first, and then remove it from SolarWinds Observability SaaS. If you don't uninstall the Agent first, it will keep sending data to SolarWinds Observability SaaS, and the entity will be re-created.

When upgrading the operating system or re-installing a Agent server, you don't need to remove the Agent from SolarWinds Observability SaaS. Just upgrade or re-install the system and re-install the Agent using the same API token as before. Based on the MAC address and other properties, the Agent will be recognized, and the same unique number will be reassigned in SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Uninstall the Agent

Follow the steps for the operating system on the target host.

Windows computers

To uninstall the Agent on Windows computers, use the Add or Remove Programs Windows app or complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the machine hosting the Agent.

  2. If you installed the Agent using the installer, search for the installation file (uamsclient.msi) on the target host. Run the .MSI, select Remove, and complete the Agent Setup wizard. Otherwise, the Agent will re-register and will be automatically added.

Linux computers

  1. Remove the Agent on the target host, based on the package manager used by your Linux distribution.

    For example, run the following command:

    sudo dpkg -P uamsclient

You have uninstalled the Agent on the target machine.

Now, you can remove the Agent from SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Remove the Agent from SolarWinds Observability SaaS

  1. In Agents, find the host with the Agent you want to delete.

  2. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of the row, and then click Delete.

  3. Confirm the message.

You have removed the Agent from SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Now, you can remove the related entities, such as hosts, network devices, or databases.

Restart the Agent in SolarWinds Observability SaaS

  1. On Agents, find the agent you want to restart.

  2. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of the row and click Restart.

Start, stop, restart, or check the status of Agents on the machine

On a Windows machine, go to Services, select the SolarWinds UAMS Client and execute start, stop, or restart.

You can also use the following commands, based on the operating system of the machine:

Windows

Run the following PowerShell scripts to start, stop, restart, or get information on the client status

Start-Service swiuamsclientd
Stop-Service swiuamsclientd
Restart-Service swiuamsclientd
Get-Service swiuamsclientd

Linux

sudo systemctl start uamsclient.service
sudo systemctl stop uamsclient.service
sudo systemctl restart uamsclient.service
sudo systemctl status uamsclient.service

CentOS 6

sudo service uamsclient start
sudo service uamsclient stop
sudo service uamsclient restart
sudo service uamsclient status

Configure proxy for SolarWinds Observability Agents

You can set up proxy for the Agent by using the global environment variable HTTPS_PROXY. The variable is natively supported by the gprc library. For details, see Proxy in the grpc repository in GitHub.

Environment variable

HTTPS_PROXY

Description

Optional configuration. This option can be used to connect through a proxy. It can be set through the environment variable HTTPS_PROXY. See Windows-based Agents or Linux-based Agents.

Valid values

IP Address:Port

Windows-based Agents

To set up the proxy on Windows, add a new system environment variable in System Properties. The Variable name should be HTTPS_PROXY and the variable value should be the proxy's IP address and port, with the format of IP Address:Port.

Configure the proxy only for a Windows Agent

To set up the proxy only for the Agent, run the following commands:

  1. Set up the proxy.

    C:\'Program Files'\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\uamsclient-ctl.exe set-proxy -proxy "IP Address:Port" -work-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient -log-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\log

  2. Restart the Agent service:

    Restart-Service swiuamsclientd

Linux-based Agents

To set up the proxy on Linux, define the HTTPS_PROXY="IP Address:port" environmental variable in the /etc/environment file. When the variable is set, restart the Agent service.

Configure the proxy only for a Linux Agent

To set up the proxy only for the Agent, run the following commands:

  1. Set up the proxy.

    sudo -u swagent /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/sbin/uamsclient-ctl set-proxy -proxy "IP Address:port" -work-dir /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/etc -log-dir /var/log/solarwinds/uamsclient

  2. Restart the Agent service:

    sudo systemctl restart uamsclient.service

Enable host monitoring on an Agent

If you are running the Agent as a Docker image or Kubernetes deployment and want to use it to monitor a database, the Agent must have host monitoring enabled to appear in the onboarding wizard.

  1. On Agents, find the Agent you want to use for database monitoring.
  2. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of the row and click Add host monitoring.
  3. Confirm the popup.

Host monitoring will be enabled and the Agent will become available in the database onboarding wizard.

Update the API token for an Agent already installed on a host

To change the token used for installing an Agent on a host, you can either re-install the Agent using the new token, or manually execute a command on the target host.

Use the command for the operating system on the host.

Replace <YOUR_TOKEN> with the new token from SolarWinds Observability SaaS.

Windows 

C:\'Program Files'\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\uamsclient-ctl.exe set-access-token -work-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient -log-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\log --token <YOUR_TOKEN> 

Linux

sudo -u swagent /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/sbin/uamsclient-ctl set-access-token -work-dir /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/etc -log-dir /var/log/solarwinds/uamsclient --token <YOUR_TOKEN>