Install and manage the Cloud Monitor agent - Cloud Monitor

The CloudMonitor agent collects monitoring metrics from the host operating system and uploads the metrics to CloudMonitor for statistical analysis. You can view the status of your hosts in visual charts and set alert rules for key metrics to promptly detect and resolve issues. This topic describes how to install, manage, and uninstall the CloudMonitor agent on your hosts.

Important

You can only manage the Cloud Monitor agent by using an administrator account (the root user for Linux or the Administrator user for Windows). However, using an administrator account may introduce certain risks, such as system stability or data security issues. Proceed with caution.

Before you begin

Plugin Version

We recommend that you use the C++ 3.X version.

The Java and Go versions of the agent are no longer maintained. The C++ version uses fewer resources than the Go and Java versions. We recommend that you use the C++ version.

Pricing: Installing the CloudMonitor agent, viewing host monitoring charts, and setting alert rules for metrics are free of charge.
System requirements
Operating system
Hardware architecture
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, or later
i386, AMD64
Linux kernel 2.6.23 or later (must include the Glibc library)
i386, AMD64, ARM64
For more information, see CloudMonitor agent overview.

Host network requirements

Your host must have access to the Internet or be configured with a NAT Gateway or proxy server.

Firewall whitelist configuration

If your host has a firewall or uses an ECS security group, you must add the CloudMonitor server addresses and ports to the whitelist.

Note

Non-Alibaba Cloud hosts report data and perform heartbeat detection over the Internet using only port 443.

CloudMonitor server address	How to query the IP address	CloudMonitor server port	Description
Heartbeat service	`nslookup cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com` or `ping cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com`	8080, 3128, 443	Used for agent heartbeat detection
Data reporting	VPC network: `nslookup metrichub-<regionid>.aliyun.com` Internet: `nslookup metrichub-cms-<regionid>.aliyuncs.com`	80, 443	Used to report monitoring data `<regionid>` is the region ID of your Alibaba Cloud host. Run this command to get it: `curl http://100.100.100.200/latest/meta-data/region-id`. Internet data reporting is supported only in the cn-hangzhou, cn-shanghai, cn-beijing, and cn-shenzhen regions.
Global meta service	Fixed CIDR block: 100.100.0.0/16	0–65535	Retrieves instance information (for Alibaba Cloud hosts only)

Compare installation methods

You can choose to install the agent automatically or manually based on your host type and network environment.

Installation method	Use case	Advantage
Automatic installation in the console	Alibaba Cloud ECS instances and non-Alibaba Cloud hosts managed by Cloud Assistant.	Recommended. Simple. Supports batch operations. No need to log on to the host.
Manual installation	Scenarios where automatic installation is not available. Non-Alibaba Cloud hosts not managed by Cloud Assistant. Private networks or offline environments. Environments where you deploy the agent using automation scripts such as Ansible.	Highly flexible. Works in all complex environments.

Automatic installation (recommended)

This method is applicable to Alibaba Cloud hosts and Alibaba Cloud managed instances.

Go to Host Monitoring.
On the Host Monitoring page, select the hosts on which you want to install or upgrade the agent. Then, click Batch install or upgrade agent in the lower-left corner. In the dialog box that appears, click OK.
Note
- For newly purchased Alibaba Cloud hosts, enable the Auto-install CloudMonitor for new ECS toggle in the upper-right corner. If this feature is enabled, the CloudMonitor agent is automatically installed on new ECS instances. If this feature is disabled, you must manually install the agent.
- The installation or upgrade process takes about 5 minutes. The operation is successful when the Agent status changes from Installing to Running.

Manual installation

Note

You can manually install the agent if the automatic installation fails or to install the agent in a special environment. If an earlier version of the agent or a corrupted agent is installed, you must first uninstall it before you proceed with the new installation.

Go to Host Monitoring.
On the Host Monitoring page, click Host and agent operations above the host list. From the drop-down menu, click Manual install.
In the Manual install dialog box, follow the steps that are applicable to your scenario.

Alibaba Cloud Host

Linux

Select Region: Select the region where your Alibaba Cloud host is located.
In the Installation command section, click the icon next to the command to copy it.
Log on to the host as the root user.
Paste and run the installation command for the CloudMonitor agent.

Run the following command to check the status of the CloudMonitor agent:

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If output similar to the following is returned, the agent is running as expected.

root      2284  0.0  0.0  22516  1488 ?        Ss   Sep14   0:00 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent -d
root      2286  0.2  0.3 939652 14300 ?        Sl   Sep14   3:15 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent

Windows

Select Region: Select the region where your Alibaba Cloud host is located.
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit agent package based on the version of your host operating system.
Log on to the host as the Administrator user.
Create the C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor directory. Upload the agent package to the host and extract it to C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor.
Open the Command Prompt. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog box, enter cmd, and click OK.
Run the following commands to install the CloudMonitor agent:
1. cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin
2. argusagent_service.exe install
Run the following command to start the CloudMonitor agent: net start argusagent.
Check the status of the CloudMonitor agent:
1. Open the Services page. You can press the Win+R keyboard shortcut to open the Run dialog box, enter the command services.msc, and then click OK.
2. Check the status of the argusagent service. If the status is Running, the agent is running as expected.

Non-Alibaba Cloud hosts

Linux

Select Region: Select the region where you want to receive monitoring data.
In the Installation command section, click the icon next to the command to copy it.
Log on to the host as the root user.
Paste and run the installation command for the CloudMonitor agent.

Run the following command to check the status of the CloudMonitor agent:

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If output similar to the following is returned, the agent is running as expected.

root      2284  0.0  0.0  22516  1488 ?        Ss   Sep14   0:00 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent -d
root      2286  0.2  0.3 939652 14300 ?        Sl   Sep14   3:15 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent

Windows

Select Region: Select the region where you want to receive monitoring data.
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit agent package based on the version of your host operating system. You must also download the accesskey.properties configuration file.
Log on to the host as the Administrator user.
Create the directory C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor. Then, upload the agent package to the host and extract it to C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor.
You can upload the configuration file to the host and place it in C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\local_data\conf.
Run the following commands to install the CloudMonitor agent:
1. cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin
2. argusagent_service.exe install
Run the following command to start the CloudMonitor agent: net start argusagent.
Check the status of the CloudMonitor agent:
1. Open the Services page. You can open the Run dialog box using the keyboard shortcut Win+R, enter the command services.msc, and then click OK.
2. Check the status of the argusagent service. If the status is Running, the agent is running as expected.

FAQ

If a non-Alibaba Cloud host with the CloudMonitor agent installed cannot access the Internet, the agent cannot report monitoring data to the CloudMonitor service. To resolve this issue, you can configure a proxy server for the agent to forward data. To do this, edit the agent.properties configuration file based on your operating system.

Linux path: /usr/local/cloudmonitor/local_data/conf/agent.properties
Windows path: C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\local_data\conf\agent.properties

For more information, see How do non-Alibaba Cloud hosts report monitoring data through an Nginx proxy server?.

Common operations

Enable plugins

Linux
Run the following command to start the CloudMonitor agent.
```
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh start
```
Windows
Run the following command to start the CloudMonitor agent.
```
net start argusagent
```

View plug-in status

Linux

You can run this command to check the status of the CloudMonitor agent.

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If the output matches the following, the agent is running.

root      2284  0.0  0.0  22516  1488 ?        Ss   Sep14   0:00 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent -d
root      2286  0.2  0.3 939652 14300 ?        Sl   Sep14   3:15 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent

Windows
1. You can open the Services page. To do so, press the keyboard shortcut Win+R to open the Run dialog box, enter the command services.msc, and then click OK.
2. Check the status of the argusagent service.
  If the status is Running, the agent is running as expected.

Disable a plugin

Linux
Run the following command to stop the CloudMonitor agent.
```
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop
```
Windows
Run the following command to stop the CloudMonitor agent.
```
net stop argusagent
```

Uninstall plugin

After you uninstall the C++ version of the CloudMonitor agent, you can no longer monitor the host in real time in the CloudMonitor console. However, you can still view historical monitoring data.

Linux

# 1. Stop the CloudMonitor agent.
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop

# 2. Uninstall the CloudMonitor agent.
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh uninstall

# 3. Delete the cloudmonitor directory.
rm -rf /usr/local/cloudmonitor

Windows

# 1. Stop the CloudMonitor agent.
net stop argusagent

# 2. Uninstall the CloudMonitor agent.
"C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin\argusagent_service.exe" uninstall

# 3. Delete the cloudmonitor directory.
cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba
rd /s /q cloudmonitor

References

FAQ

API

Operating system	Hardware architecture
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, or later	i386, AMD64
Linux kernel 2.6.23 or later (must include the Glibc library)	i386, AMD64, ARM64