Running agents as services on Linux#

You can set up agents to run as system services.

Install an agent.

  1. Change the owner of the agent installation folder to the user that runs the agent.

    For example, if the user ucdagent run the agent and the agent installation folder is /opt/ucd/agent, run the following command:

    chown -R ucdagent /opt/ucd/agent/

    You can find the user that runs the agent by looking at the USER property on the agent.

  2. Similarly, change the group of the agent installation folder to the group that is associated with the user.

    For example, if the agent is installed in the folder /opt/ucd/agent, run the following command:

    chgrp -R ucdagent /opt/ucd/agent/

  3. Make a copy of the file agent-install/bin/init/agent, where agent-install is the installation folder of the agent.

    If you are running multiple agents on the system, give the file a unique name, such as ucdagent-A.

  4. In a text editor, edit the file:

    • Set the property AGENT_USER to the name of the user that runs the agent.
    • Set the property AGENT_GROUP to the name of the group that is associated with that user.
    • Set the property SCRIPT to the location of the agent executable file. The default location is /opt/ucd/agent/bin/agent. The file might look like the following example:

    ``` AGENT_HOME="/opt/ucd/agent"
    AGENT_USER="ucdagent"
    AGENT_GROUP="ucdagent"

    # == END INSTALL MODIFICATIONS ===================

    ANT_HOME="$AGENT_HOME/opt/apache-ant-1.8.4"
    GROOVY_HOME="$AGENT_HOME/opt/groovy-1.8.8"
    SCRIPT="/opt/ucd/agent/bin/agent" ```

  5. Configure the agent to run when the system starts.

    The steps depend on how your Linux™ system manages services.

    For example, for Linux systems that use init.d, follow these steps:

    1. Copy the file to the folder /etc/rc.d/init.d/.

    2. Add the file to runlevels 3, 4, and 5. For example, if the file is named ucdagent, run the following commands:

      ``` ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/ucdagent /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S98ucdagent

      ```

      ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/ucdagent /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/S98ucdagent

      ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/ibm-ucdagent /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S98ucdagent

    3. Verify that the file is on runlevels 3, 4, and 5 by running the following command:

      chkconfig ucdagent --list

      The result of the command should look like the following code:

      ibm-ucdagent 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

  6. Start the agent service.

    For example, if you named the file ucdagent, run the following command:

    service ucdagent start

The agent runs as a service. To verify that the agent is running as a service, run the following command and verify that two processes from the agent are running:

ps -ef | grep installFolder

For installFolder, specify the installation folder of the agent, such as /opt/ucd/agent.

Parent topic: Installing agents