Remote Installation

Introduction

This workshop demonstrates how to use the smartagentctl command-line tool to install and manage AppDynamics Smart Agent on multiple remote hosts simultaneously. This approach is ideal for quickly deploying Smart Agent to a fleet of servers using SSH-based remote execution, without the need for additional automation tools like Jenkins or GitHub Actions.

What You’ll Learn

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to:

• Configure remote hosts using the remote.yaml file
• Configure Smart Agent settings using config.ini
• Deploy Smart Agent to multiple hosts simultaneously via SSH
• Start and stop agents remotely across your infrastructure
• Check agent status on all remote hosts
• Troubleshoot common installation and connectivity issues

Key Features

• 🚀 Direct SSH Deployment - No additional automation platform required
• 🔄 Complete Lifecycle Management - Install, start, stop, and uninstall agents
• 🏗️ Configuration as Code - YAML and INI-based configuration files
• 🔐 Secure - SSH key-based authentication
• 📈 Concurrent Execution - Configurable concurrency for parallel deployment
• 🎛️ Simple CLI - Easy-to-use smartagentctl command-line interface

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Remote Installation Architecture                │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                  │
│  Control Node (smartagentctl) ──▶ SSH Connection               │
│                                          │                       │
│                                          ├──▶ Host 1 (SSH)      │
│                                          ├──▶ Host 2 (SSH)      │
│                                          ├──▶ Host 3 (SSH)      │
│                                          └──▶ Host N (SSH)      │
│                                                                  │
│  All hosts send metrics ──▶ AppDynamics Controller             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Workshop Components

This workshop includes:

1. Prerequisites - Required access, tools, and permissions
2. Configuration - Setting up config.ini and remote.yaml
3. Installation & Startup - Deploying and starting Smart Agent on remote hosts
4. Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions

Prerequisites

• Control node with smartagentctl installed
• SSH access to all remote hosts
• SSH private key configured for authentication
• Sudo privileges on the control node
• Remote hosts with SSH enabled
• AppDynamics account credentials

Available Commands

The smartagentctl tool supports the following remote operations:

• start --remote - Install and start Smart Agent on remote hosts
• stop --remote - Stop Smart Agent on remote hosts
• status --remote - Check Smart Agent status on remote hosts
• install --remote - Install Smart Agent without starting
• uninstall --remote - Remove Smart Agent from remote hosts
• --service flag - Install as systemd service

All commands support the --verbose flag for detailed logging.