Downloading and installing connectors for third-party integrations

A connector is a container that facilitates data collection and consumption from the integrated solutions. It provides a dockerized runtime environment that enables communication with BMC Helix Platform.

As an administrator, first download and install the connector to enable the addition of integrations. You can use a single connector for multiple integrations. However, for better performance, we recommend that you use separate connectors for each integration.

Before you begin

Perform the following steps:

• Ensure that the host computer on which you plan to install the connector has a 2-core CPU and 16 GB RAM.
• Ensure that you are downloading and installing the connector on one of the following operating systems:
  • RHEL 8.x, 7.x
  • CentOS 8.x, 7.x
  • Ubuntu 20.x, 18.x

• Ensure that you have installed docker version 18.01 or later. For information about the latest version, see the Docker documentation.
  You can also install the docker image while you are installing the connector.

To download and install a connector

1. On the Integrations page, click the Available Integrations tab, and then click the Download and Install link for the connector.
   
   
   
2. On the Connector Download and Install page, perform the following steps:
   1. If a docker image does not exist in your system, or if you want a new docker image, click the Download link.
   2. Enter the name of the connector and click Create and Download to download the connector shell script.
      For example, if you entered the connector name as my-bmc, the connector shell script is downloaded as install-connector-my-bmc.sh.
3. Copy the downloaded script and docker image file on a docker-enabled server.
   Ensure that the docker image exists in the location where you copy the script. 
   To collect logs from files that are located outside the container, create mount points for the log directories in the docker create command in the downloaded script. For example, if logs are generated in the /var/logs directory on the host filesystem, create a mount point by adding the following argument to the docker create command in the script: -v /var/logs/:/fluentd/etc/log/.

4. Grant execute permission to the downloaded shell script, and then run the script.
   For example, run the following commands:
   chmod +x install-connector-my-bmc.sh
   ./install-connector-my-bmc.sh

   Important: Script security and location

   • Do not copy the script on any public domains.
   • Copy the downloaded script in the same location as that of the docker image.
   • Download the connector on a Docker host that can communicate with the integration source and BMC Helix APIs.

   If you want to view the container logs, see the /opt/bmc/connectors/<connector_name>/logs/fluent.log file.

To verify connector installation

After the script runs and the connector is installed, the connector becomes available for selection on the Add Integrations page for each third-party solution.

The connector can have one of the following statuses:

• Active
• Suspended

To find the container ID for a collector

1. On the server where you installed the connector, open the command line interface.

2. Run the following command:
   docker ps
   The container ID is highlighted in the following image with sample data:
   
   

   The output of this command displays the following information:

   • The docker container ID
   • The build name
   • The command to run the docker container:
     /run.sh
   • The docker container creation timeline
   • The docker container status and the timeline of the status
   • The ports used by the docker container
   • The connector name
     If multiple connectors are present on the container, they are all listed.

To reload a connector

1. On the docker container, obtain the container ID:

   docker ps

2. Log in to the docker container and reload the connector by running the following command:

   docker exec -it <containerID> bash reload.sh