Agents

SolarWinds Observability Agents (Agents) provide data about monitored entities to SolarWinds Observability. 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 with an account of the Administrator role. See Manage Users.

• In SolarWinds Observability, 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.

• Click the toggle to disable the auto-update.

If you disable the automatic update, review the Status column for information about updates. You can see the current plugin version next to the Auto update toggle.

• 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.

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 changes.

Delete Agents

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

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.

Remove the Agent from SolarWinds Observability

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.

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

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

Example

[Service]

Environment="HTTPS_PROXY=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 Variable value should be the proxy's IP address and port, with the format of IP Address:Port.

Linux-based Agents

To set up the proxy on Linux, run the following commands on the host with the Agent:

1. Edit the Agent service:

   sudo systemctl edit uamsclient.service

2. Set up the variable. As HTTPS proxy, type the IP and port of your proxy server.

   [Service]
   
   Environment="HTTPS_PROXY=IP Address:port"
   

3. 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.

Troubleshoot SolarWinds Observability Agent issues

• Connection issues
• Clone a VM with an installed Agent
• Collect Agent logs from target hosts
• Multiple items for one Agent on Agents page
• Installation issues

Connection issues

If the Agent status says Disconnected, it might be caused by a connection issue.

1. Check the Agent logs. Search for issues related to accessing endpoints or blocked ports. See Collect Agent logs from target hosts.

   On target hosts, log files are stored in the following default locations:

   • Windows: C:\ProgramData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\log\uamsclient.log
   • Linux: /var/log/solarwinds/uamsclient/uamsclient.log

2. Make sure that the firewall on the host allows access to SolarWinds Observability all SolarWinds Observability Agent endpoints. See Data centers and endpoint URIs.

Clone a VM with an installed Agent

To observe a cloned VM as a new host in SolarWinds Observability, run the following code. See Use uamsclient-ctl tool to override the client ID.

uamsclient-ctl bind-new-identity

As an alternative, you can set the UAMS_CLIENT_ID_OVERRIDE and restart the Agent.

Collect Agent logs from target hosts

1. In SolarWinds Observability, click Settings > Agents.

2. Click the vertical ellipsis at the end of a SolarWinds Observability Agent row and select Collect Logs. Agent logs available on the target host start to be downloaded to SolarWinds Observability.

3. When the download is complete, you will see a download logs button next to the agent. Click the button to download the logs to your computer.

Agent logs are downloaded as a ZIP archive and are available for download in SolarWinds Observability for 24 hours. To get a fresh set of logs, repeat the steps above.

Multiple items for one Agent on Agents page

When you see multiple items for one SolarWinds Observability Agent on the Agents page, configure your deployment to override the Client ID.

By default, Agent ID is tied to the external MAC address of the target host. Once the host reboots, a new Client ID is created and a new Agent item based on the ID is displayed in Agents.

To resolve the issue, override the client ID using the uamsclient-ctl tool or an environment variable.

Use uamsclient-ctl tool to override the client ID

To use a randomly generated client ID, run the following code:

Windows PowerShell for a random client ID

C:\'Program Files'\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\uamsclient-ctl.exe bind-new-identity -work-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient -log-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\log

Linux for a random client ID

sudo -u swagent /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/sbin/uamsclient-ctl bind-new-identity -work-dir /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/etc -log-dir /var/log/solarwinds/uamsclient

To use a specific client ID, replace <your UUID> with the ID and run the code:

Windows PowerShell for a specific client ID

C:\'Program Files'\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\uamsclient-ctl.exe bind-identity -id <your UUID> -work-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient -log-dir $env:programData\SolarWinds\UAMSClient\log

Linux for a specific client ID

sudo -u swagent /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/sbin/uamsclient-ctl bind-identity -id <your UUID> -work-dir /opt/solarwinds/uamsclient/etc -log-dir /var/log/solarwinds/uamsclient

Set the UAMS_CLIENT_ID_OVERRIDE [string] variable

Set the client ID value in the UAMS_CLIENT_ID_OVERRIDE [string] variable. If the variable is defined during the client start, the value will be used. This value has priority over the client-id-override value in the dynamic configuration file.

When you set the UAMS_CLIENT_ID_OVERRIDE [string] variable, the defined value will always be used and the Agent will not be replicated on the Agents page for each reboot.