Manage a Cloud Monitor agent - Cloud Monitor - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

A Cloud Monitor agent collects operating system )metrics from your host and uploads the data to Cloud Monitor for statistical analysis. You can monitor host status using visual charts and create alert rules for key metrics to promptly identify and resolve issues. This topic describes how to manage the Cloud Monitor 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

Agent version

Recommended: C++ 3.X

The Java and Go versions are no longer maintained, and the C++ version consumes significantly fewer resources.

Billing: Installing a Cloud Monitor agent, viewing host monitoring charts, and creating alert rules for metrics are free.
System requirements
Operating system
Hardware architecture
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and later
i386, AMD64
Linux 2.6.23 and later (must include the Glibc library)
i386, AMD64, ARM64
For more information about supported installation paths, resource consumption, and logs for a Cloud Monitor agent for C++, see Cloud Monitor agent.

Host network

The host must be able to access the internet, either directly or through a network address translation (NAT) gateway or proxy server.

Firewall allowlist configuration

If a firewall or an Elastic Compute Service (ECS) security group is configured for the host, you must add the Cloud Monito server addresses and ports to the allowlist.

Note

Third-party hosts use port 443 to report data and heartbeats over the internet.

Cloud Monit server address	Method to query the IP address	Cloud Monitor server port	Description
Heartbeat service	`nslookup cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com` or `ping cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com`	8080, 3128, 443	Used to detect agent heartbeats.
Data reporting	Virtual Private Cloud (VPC): `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 the Alibaba Cloud host. Run the following command to obtain the region ID: `curl http://100.100.100.200/latest/meta-data/region-id`. Public network data reporting is available only in the China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), and China (Shenzhen) regions.
Metadata service	Fixed CIDR block: 100.100.0.0/16	0-65535	Used to obtain instance information for Alibaba Cloud hosts.

Installation methods

Based on your host type and network environment, install the agent automatically or manually.

Method	Use case	Benefits
Automatic installation from the console (recommended)	Alibaba Cloud ECS instances Third-party hosts managed by Cloud Assistant	Simple to use Supports batch operations Requires no logon to the host
Manual installation	Scenarios where automatic installation is unavailable Unmanaged third-party hosts Internal network or offline environments Deployments that require automation scripts such as Ansible	Highly flexible Suitable for all complex environments

Automatic installation (recommended)

This method is suitable for Alibaba Cloud hosts and Alibaba Cloud-managed instances.

Go to Host Monitoring.
Select the target hosts, and click Batch Install in the lower-left corner. Then, click OK.
Note
- For new Alibaba Cloud hosts, you can enable Auto Install Agent in the upper-right corner for the Cloud Monitor agent to be automatically installed on your new ECS hosts. If this switch is not enabled, you need to install it manually.
- The installation or upgrade process takes about 5 minutes. When the Agent Status column of a target host changes from Installing to Running, the installation or upgrade is complete.

Manual installation

Note

If automatic installation fails or you need to install the agent in a special environment, use manual installation. To reinstall the agent, first uninstall any existing older or corrupted versions.

Go to Host Monitoring.
Click Agent Operation above the host list, and click Manual Installation from the drop-down list.
In the Manual Installation dialog box, follow the steps below.

Alibaba Cloud hosts

Linux

Set Region to the region where the Alibaba Cloud host is located.
In the Installation Command section, click the icon next to the command.
Log on to the host as the root user.
Paste and run the agent installation command.

Run the following command to check the agent status:

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If you see output similar to the following, the agent is running correctly.

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

Set Region to the region where the Alibaba Cloud host is located.
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit agent package based on your host's 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 this directory.
Open the Command Prompt window. Press Win+R, enter cmd in the Run dialog box, and click OK.
Run the following commands to install the Cloud Monitor agent:
1. cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin
2. argusagent_service.exe install
Run the net start argusagent command to start the Cloud Monitor agent.
Check the agent status.
1. Open the Services page. Press Win+R, enter services.msc in the Run dialog box, and click OK.
2. Check the status of the argusagent service. If the status is Running, the agent is running correctly.

Third-party hosts

Linux

Set Region to the region that receives the monitoring data.
In the Installation Command section, click the icon next to the command.
Log on to the host as the root user.
Paste and run the agent installation command.

Run the following command to check the agent status:

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If you see output similar to the following, the agent is running correctly.

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

Set Region to the region that receives the monitoring data.
Download the 32-bit or 64-bit agent package based on your host's operating system. Then, download the accesskey.properties configuration file.
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 this directory.
Upload the configuration file to the host and place it in the C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\local_data\conf directory.
Run the following commands to install the Cloud Monitor agent:
1. cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin
2. argusagent_service.exe install
Run the net start argusagent command to start the Cloud Monitor agent.
Check the agent status.
1. Open the Services page. Press Win+R, enter services.msc in the Run dialog box, and click OK.
2. Check the status of the argusagent service. If the service status is Running, the agent is running correctly.

Common issue

If a third-party host with a Cloud Monitor agent installed cannot access the internet, the agent will fail to report monitoring data to the Cloud Monitor server. To resolve this, configure a proxy server in the agent to forward the data. This requires modifying the agent.properties configuration file for the respective 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 I report the monitoring data of hosts that are not provided by Alibaba Cloud to CloudMonitor by using an NGINX proxy server?

Common operations

Start an agent

Run the following command to start a Cloud Monitor agent:

Linux

bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh start

Windows

net start argusagent

Check agent status

Linux

Run the following command to check the agent status:

ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

If you see output similar to the following, the agent is running correctly.

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

Open the Services page. Press Win+R, enter services.msc in the Run dialog box, and click OK.
Check the status of the argusagent service. If the status is Running, the agent is running correctly.

Stop an agent

Run the following command to stop a Cloud Monitor agent:

Linux

bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop

Windows

net stop argusagent

Uninstall an agent

After uninstalling a Cloud Monitor agent for C++, you can no longer monitor the host in real time, but you can still view its historical monitoring data.

Linux

# 1. Run the following command to stop the agent.
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop

# 2. Run the following command to uninstall the agent.
bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh uninstall

# 3. Run the following command to delete the cloudmonitor folder.
rm -rf /usr/local/cloudmonitor

Windows

# 1. Run the following command to stop the agent.
net stop argusagent

# 2. Run the command to uninstall the agent.
"C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin\argusagent_service.exe" uninstall

# 3. Run the following commands to delete the cloudmonitor folder.
cd C:\Program Files\Alibaba
rd /s /q cloudmonitor

References

FAQs

Operations

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