How to Find and Install the Generic Linux Agent for SMA (4272341)

Starting with SMA 11.0, KACE provides a generic Linux agent for use on unsupported Linux platforms.

NOTE: This version of the SMA agent is unsupported but is provided for basic functionality for distributions of Linux with package managers other than RPM or Debian.

Downloading the tarball

The generic Linux SMA agent packages are only available to verified customers.

If the system natively supports the RPM or DEB package system, try using that first.  For an RPM system, try using the Red Hat package first over the SuSE package, unless the distribution is derived from SuSE.  If neither package works, however, try using the generic linux tarball.  In order to set that up you will first need to select the tarball that corresponds to your system architecture, 32 or 64 bit.

Popular Linux Distributions and Which KACE Agent Package You Should Try Using On Them

Downloading files

64 bits generic Linux tarball for SMA. 
Use this if the Linux distro isn't managed by RPM or Debian package managers.

Extracting files

Once you have the tarball, create a directory and untar it into that directory.  In this example below, we will use the directory named ampagent as a temporary directory:

mkdir ampagent
cd ampagent
tar xvf /path/to/ampagent-14.1.19.ubuntu.64.tar.gz

Note: 'ubuntu' in the filename simply means that this executable was created on an Ubuntu system, not that it is intended only for Ubuntu systems.

Copying package files into place

Once you untar the file, you will see 3 directories, DEBIAN, opt, and var.  You will need to copy the opt and var directories to the root directory.  The easiest way to do that is to use rsync so it will copy the entire directory structure. From the previously mentioned directory run this command:

sudo rsync -avP opt var /

That will install the ampagent files, but now you will need to set up startup scripts.  You can see what is done on an Ubuntu system by looking at the scripts in the DEBIAN directory. On an Ubuntu system, the preinst script is run before installation of the files. The postinst script is run after installation of the files.  The prerm script is run before the files are removed and the postrm script is run after the files are removed.  This guide will not cover file removal, but if you need to remove the files at a later date, make sure you look at those last two scripts to make sure you take care of everything.

Setting up configuration in amp.conf

Create an amp.conf file in the directory /var/quest/kace/.  To start with, amp.conf only needs one line telling the agent which host to connect to like this:

host=smahostname.domainname.com

The rest of the amp.conf will be added automatically upon first connection with the SMA.

Setting up startup scripts

Next, run the following command:

/opt/quest/kace/bin/konea -install

This will install the appropriate startup scripts (either SysV or systemd) for the konea utility.

Next we will need to set up the initialization scripts for the rest of AMPAgent.  To start that, edit the file /opt/quest/kace/bin/AMPctl.  Comment out the line that reads ". /lib/lsb/init-functions" by putting a # at the beginning of the line.

Instructions for a system that uses SysV init scripts

If you system uses SysV init scripts, you can then simply copy AMPctl into the /etc/init.d directory.  (Note this directory may be located somewhere else on different systems.  For instance, it may be located under /etc/rc.d so in that case the directory to copy to would be /etc/rc.d/init.d/.) You will then need to configure your system to make sure correct links are created to that initialization file so that it gets run at the appropriate SysV run level.  This is done on Red Hat based systems using the chkconfig utility and on Ubuntu systems using the update-rc.d utility.

• Note: You may be required to create links manually.
• Note: There is a block at the beginning of the AMPctl script that specifies which run levels it defaults to for an Ubuntu system.  These levels may or may not match appropriate levels in your system.

Once that is done, run the following command to start the AMPAgent (assuming the init.d directory is directly under the /etc/ directory):

/etc/init.d/AMPctl start

Instructions for a system that uses systemd initialization scripts

If SysV init scripts are not supported, you will need to set up systemd service scripts.  This guide has two service scripts attached to it for that purpose.  Take both of them and place them in the directory /etc/systemd/system/. 

Once that's done run this command to start AMPAgent:

systemctl start AMPAgent

Stopping AMPAgent

If you want to stop the agent, you would use the following commands, depending upon what kind of startup scripts your system uses.

Systems with SysV startup scripts use this command (assuming the init.d directory is located under /etc):

/etc/init.d/AMPctl stop

Systems with systemd startup script use this command:

systemctl stop AMPAgent