VMware Obkio Agent Installation Guide

If you have servers, you can choose between two agent types: Software or Virtual Appliance. Learn more on Agent Types.

Latest Version: VMware Appliance version 2.114.0

SHA256 Checksum: 2f26131fe3e177f7847653abf985f9ad48d718a960d44d51aa51ded1d50175f5

The VMware Monitoring Agent supports only x86_64 (amd64) CPU architecture.

• CPU: 2 vCPU
• Memory: 4 GB
• Disk: 8 GB
• Network Config: DHCP (see below for static IP configuration)

Important: The image is not an installation CD (.iso) but a fully bootable disk image that must be configured as an IDE or SATA but not SCSI. After the initial boot, the image must ONLY be used on that VM.

1. Download the VM Disk and unzip it (see the download link above).
2. Create a new VM. The Guest OS Family must be Linux and the OS Version Other 3.x or later Linux (64-bits).
3. When you set up the disks, do not create a new disk but use the downloaded disk image. Once you boot on the disk, you can not reuse it with another VM. If you want to install multiple agents, make a copy before you boot on it.
4. Make sure the disk is configured as IDE or SATA but not SCSI.
5. Make sure the network adapter type is e1000e (preferred) or e1000.
6. Boot the VM.
7. You should see a line at the bottom starting with Obkio Agent with a serial number. This is the serial number required in the App when adding the agent. If you don't see the serial number, check out the Troubleshooting section at the end of this page.
8. In the App, create a new Virtual Appliance Agent. Enter the serial number found in step #7 when asked for it.

To configuration a static IP Address on a Virtual Appliance Obkio Agent, our Support Team must manually create a custom VM disk image. To do so, the following information is required:

• IP Address
• Netmask
• Default Gateway
• DNS Servers
• Image Type (VMware? Hyper-V?)

Send that information to our Support Team and the custom image will be ready within 24 hours.

Locally Administered MAC Address is not supported by the VMware Obkio agent. The MAC address has to be obtained dynamically from the hypervisor. Obkio uses the MAC addresses of Virtual Appliance agents as a way to identify each agent uniquely, which is why this isn’t supported. Therefore, MAC addresses can't have their second char set as 2, 6, A or E, since these MAC addresses aren't identified to a specific vendor or organizationally unique identifier (OUI) by the IEEE.

By default, the Hardware Appliance DNS configuration is using the DNS servers distributed by the DHCP server plus 8.8.8.8. To remove 8.8.8.8 from the configuration or to hardcode DNS servers (which we do not recommend), contact our support team and they will modify the appliance configuration.

By default, the following NTP servers are used:

• 0.resinio.pool.ntp.org
• 1.resinio.pool.ntp.org
• 2.resinio.pool.ntp.org
• 3.resinio.pool.ntp.org

A valid NTP configuration is mandatory to make sure the time on the device is accurate. If it is not, the SSL/TLS certificates will not be valid and communication with the Obkio Cloud will not be possible.

To change the NTP servers, contact our support team and they will modify the appliance configuration. Note that it's not possible right now to use the NTP servers distributed by DHCP.

As for all other agent types, some firewall configurations might be required if outbound connections are filtered. Refer to the article Firewall Configurations for more details.

If you want to reinstall the agent on another infrastructure, you can simply delete the old VM and install a new one. Then, you can Dissociate the Virtual Appliance from the agent in the App and Associate it with the new VM.

The VMware Obkio Agent does not support vMotion. Here are the available workarounds :

• Set manually the vmdk location when the image is moved to another host with vmkfstools -x repair /path/to/vmname.vmdk
• Force the VM to be statically assigned to a specific host by adding a must run on host statement with a VM-Host affinity rule in VMware.

If at boot time you have errors unrecognized disk label or No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/disks/by-label... make sure the disk is configured as IDE (preferred) or SATA and not SCSI.

If the boot process stops at Started Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes (like the screenshot below), this means that the VM is not able to connect to the cloud. Make sure you have DHCP enabled on the network, that you are using e1000 or e1000e network card and that your firewall is not blocking outbound access to our cloud systems.