Installing BMC Helix Monitor Agent

The BMC Helix Monitor Agent is a lightweight containerized collector that contains the required Knowledge Modules (KMs).

The KMs collect metrics from infrastructure resources on the production (monitored) stack and send them to BMC Helix Operations Management on the observability (non-production) stack.

You need two BMC Helix Monitor Agents:

  • one to monitor the resources on a cluster (OpenShift,Kubernetes or Rancher), and
  • another to monitor infra components, including monitoring other components such as Linux OS, Ceph, and so on. 

Related topics

Setting-up-and-configure-the-monitoring-solution

To install BMC Helix Monitor Agent on the monitored stack

  1. On the production stack, go to the self-monitoring directory under installation:
    helix-on-prem-deployment-manager/utilities/self-monitoring

  2. Update the self_monitoring.config file.

    Parameter

    Description

    NAMESPACE

    Specify the name of a namespace where you want to install the BMC Helix Monitor Agent.

    This is the namespace that monitors the BMC Helix IT Operations Management namespace. 

    If you do not specify a namespace, it automatically uses the same BMC Helix IT Operations Management  namespace. 

    AGENT_NAME

    Specify a name that will be published in BMC Helix Operations Management for the BMC Helix Monitor Agent for hostname.

    IMAGE_REGISTRY_ORG 

    Specify the repository under which the Patrol agent container image is available.

    The default value is Ip411.

    ENABLE_NODE_OS_MONITORING

    Defines if you want to deploy Patrol Agents on individual nodes to monitor the operating system of the nodes.

    Set this value to true.

    This deploys two set of patrol agents on the cluster:

    • a deployment patrol agent which monitors all infrastructure components, including the topology defined through OpenShift or Kubernetes.
    • a daemon set that reaches each running node and pulls the operating system matrix.
       

    If you set the ​​​​parameter to false, the daemon set will not be deployed, and you cannot monitor node level data.  However, you can monitor other metrics at the cluster level.

    APIKEY

    Specify the API Key. You can copy the API key from the observability stack BMC Helix Operations Management console.
    For more information, see Using API keys for external integrations in the BMC Helix Operations Management documentation.

    BHOM_TENANT_URL

    Specify the BMC Helix Operations Management tenant URL of the observability stack in the following format:

    https:<BHOM tenantURL>:443

    Example:

    https:tenant5-itom-demo.example.com:443

    CERTIFICATE

    Copy the contents of the certificate from /opt/bmc/Patrol3/security/certificates/mca_ca.cer file in 
    any existing BMC Helix Monitor Agent from BMC Helix Operations Management observability stack.

    For more information, see Using BMC Helix Monitor Agent to collect data.

  3. Run the self-monitoring script.

    ./configure-selfmonotoring.sh

    This creates a namespace and deploys the PATROL agent. You can see the status of the patrol agents which are running. You can verify the established connection between the UI and the deployed patrol agents on the BMC Helix Operations Management ​​​​​console > Configuration> Agents. 

Where to go from here

Proceed to import monitoring and alarm policies.

 

 

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