Foglight Agent Manager 6.0.0 - Foglight Agent Manager Guide

Negotiating Agent Manager resources at runtime

Monitoring agents often have specific Agent Manager resource requirements. Some agents need more memory, others require larger queue sizes, or more lenient time-outs. The Agent Negotiation feature allows monitoring agents to request resource changes during deployment, activation, and runtime. During deployment, an agent package can request specific resource settings to applied as part of the deployment process. Depending on the current Agent Manager configuration, a restart may be required in order to apply the requested changes. This restart of the Agent Manager is automatic and is part of the deployment cycle.

Disabling runtime resource negotiation

Disabling runtime resource negotiation causes the Agent Manager to revert to running under its default startup configuration.

Disabling agent-specific changes to the upstream queue

The config/fglam-config.xml file contains an attribute that allows you to disable any agent-specific changes to the upstream queue settings at runtime. By default this attribute is set to true. You can use this feature, for example, to prevent individual agents to negotiate allocating large amounts of memory.

Configuring credentials

The Management Server includes a credential management system that enables you to create, store, and manage credentials through the Foglight® browser interface.

Different cartridges support different types of credentials. Some cartridges, for example, support the use of Windows® and UNIX® credentials, while others can only authenticate local users. The credential type determines which parts of the monitored system are used to connect to a resource, such as host names or IP addresses. For complete information about cartridge-specific credential types, see your cartridge documentation.

Credentials are encrypted and stored in lockboxes. Lockboxes are released to credential clients, such as the Agent Manager. Agents, in turn, request credentials from the Agent Manager.

For detailed information about managing credentials in Foglight, see “Controlling System Access with Credentials” in the Administration and Configuration Guide.

Foglight agents need access to credentials when monitoring systems that require credential verification. Credential information consists of a name, type, policies, and resource mappings. You can create and manage credentials through the Management Server browser interface.

Foglight supports the following commonly used credential types:

IMPORTANT: When specifying a domain name in this credential type, a fully qualified domain name is required. Failing to use a fully qualified domain name may prevent the Agent Manager from establishing a connection to a remote monitored resource. For example, if the full domain name is prod.example.com, use prod.example.com as the domain name instead of just prod, when configuring the credential.

Each credential can have one or more authentication policies, based on the desired usage count, failure rate, the time range during which the credential can be used, and the amount of time during which the credential information is cached locally. Credentials can apply to specific parts of the monitored environment, such as hosts and ports. Resource mappings identify secured resources. The mappings typically contain a combination of literal expressions, regular expressions, or an IP address range.

For more information about creating and managing credentials, including detailed examples of configuring a credential, see “Exploring the Manage Credentials Dashboard” in the Foglight Administration and Configuration Guide.