Related pages:

Highly-scaled environments frequently contain multiple machines that run the same .NET applications and therefore use the same AppDynamics .NET Agent configuration. Manual configuration updates to several machines can be tedious and error-prone.

Use the Config Management tool in the AppDynamics Controller to upload and manage .NET Agent config.xml files. By default the .NET Agent checks for configuration updates from the Controller every minute. Use the Config Management tool to assign configurations to machines where the .NET Agent is running.

Click Settings > AppDynamics Agents > Config Management to manage all the .NET Agent configurations files for your machines.

Requirements

  • Membership in a role with 'Administer user, groups, roles, authentication, and so on' account level permission.
  • A valid config.xml configuration file. The Config Management tool does not validate the config.xml file.
  • .NET Agent >= 4.1 installed on machines where you plan to deploy configuration.

.NET Agents deployed on Azure Cloud Services using the AppDynamics NuGet package do not register for Config Management because web role and worker role machine names are not always unique. Duplicate machine names may lead to unexpected consequences. 

Identify the Configuration File

To start managing your configurations in the Controller, identify a configuration file or set of configuration files to upload. If you are not familiar with .NET Agent configuration, AppDynamics recommends you use the Agent Configuration Utility on each machine to configure the agent. See Administer the .NET Agent and Configure the .NET Agent.

For a full list of configuration properties, see .NET Agent Configuration Properties.

  • Use config.xml files configured with the AppDynamics Agent Configuration Utility to help ensure the XML is valid.
  • Use the config.xml file from a previously-configured machine as a template for similar machines that need the exact same configuration.

Import Configuration

The Import Config dialog enables you to upload a config.xml file to the Controller, and specify a unique name for the configuration.

  • Use a naming convention that helps you identify the type of machine for the configuration.
  • Consider using a date or version scheme for the configuration name.
  • Click a configuration, then click Edit Config to modify the configuration name.
  • Double-click a config to display the XML. You can copy the XML, but you cannot modify it.

Assign Configuration to Machines

The Config Management tool enables you to assign machines to a configuration, or change the configuration from one to another. After you assign the configuration in the Controller, the .NET Agent automatically downloads the configuration file.

  • If a machine does not have a managed configuration, the Config Management tool displays it following Machine with no assigned templates.

    If you select the Register Machine with No Application option on the Application Configuration pane in the AppDynamics Agent Configuration utility, the Controller lists the machine in the Machines section with no assigned templates.

  • Drag and drop to assign a machine to a configuration.
  • The .NET Agent checks for updated configurations every minute.
  • The agent backs up the old config.xml file as config-<date>.xml in the backup subdirectory of the econfig directory. See .NET Agent Directory Structure.
  • If the agent detects an invalid config.xml file, it does not apply the managed configuration and it raises an Agent Configuration Error event in the Controller. The event summary indicates the affected tiers and nodes.
  • Regardless of the Controller connection information in the managed configuration, the agent always retains existing Controller connection information.
  • After the agent receives and validates the assigned configuration, any changes take effect after the app pools recycle or IIS restarts. You must restart Windows services or standalone applications. It is unnecessary to restart the AppDynamics Agent Coordinator service.

Opt Out of Configuration Management

To configure an agent so that it does not receive configuration files from the Controller, set the enable_config_deployment Controller attribute to false in the config.xml file. See .NET Agent Configuration Properties.

For example:

<controller host="mycontroller.saas.appdynamics.com" port="443" ssl="true" enable_config_deployment="false">

Restore an Old Configuration

If you mistakenly assign a configuration, follow this procedure to restore a previous version of the config.xml:

  1. On the Config Management pane, drag the machine from its currently assigned configuration to Machine with no assigned templates.
  2. On the machine itself, rename the existing configuration file, config.xml, to a name such as config.old.xml.
  3. Copy the backup config file from the Backup subdirectory to the Config directory. Backup files are named using this format: config-<date>.xml. 
  4. Rename the backup config file to config.xml.
  5. Optionally edit the config.xml to opt out of Config Management.
  6. Restart the AppDynamics Agent Coordinator service.
  7. Restart Windows services, instrumented Windows services, and instrumented standalone applications.