Smart Agent allows you to manage the agent operations (install, upgrade, and rollback) for the supported agents by using the Controller user interface. It also provides Smart Agent CLI option for advanced configurations. 

You can use the Controller UI to view all the installed agents with the inventory details. The Smart Agent inventory is also displayed along with other agent inventory details.

You must install Smart Agent on each host where you want to use the Controller UI to perform the agent management.

Before You Begin

Ensure you meet the following requirements to use Smart Agent:

  • AppDynamics Controller version >=23.11.0
  • Sufficient agent licenses
  • Required permissions. See Permissions to determine the user permissions required to run Smart Agent.
  • Required Memory: 10MB -15MB Idle and 500MB during install, upgrade, or rollback
  • Required Disk: 500 MB

Software Requirements

  • Python >=3.9
  • OpenSSL 1.1.1

Supported Agents

Currently, Smart Agent manages the following agents and supports them on the platforms as mentioned in the table:

Agents

Supported Platform

Apache Web Server

  • CentOS 8 and 9
  • RHEL 8 and 9
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04

Java

  • CentOS 8 and 9
  • RHEL 8 and 9
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04

Machine Agent

  • CentOS 8 and 9
  • RHEL 8 and 9
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04

Node.js

  • RHEL 8 and 9
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04
  • Debian 10, 11, and 12

PHP

  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04

Python 

  • CentOS 8 and 9
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 20.04
  • Alpine

.NET MSI

Windows

You require Smart Agent >=24.1 to manage .NET MSI

  • You cannot monitor the Machine Agent Extension through the UI. During an upgrade, existing extensions will get carried forward to the higher version. 
  • You cannot configure the Machine Agent Remediation script through the UI.


Permissions

You require the following permissions to use Smart Agent:

Installation Permissions

Installation TypeDetails
Linux Package Manager 
  • By default most linux package managers require the sudo access for installation of any RPM, DEB, or APK artifacts. Therefore, it is required for Smart Agent binary installation.
  • If you have access to install rpms and debs on machine without sudo you can install it without the sudo access.  However, you should have following permissions:
    • install ( to modify yum, deb, and apk databases)
    • write to /etc/environment file
Zip

You require sudo access to install a zip file.

You require Internet to download the supporting packages for the Smart Agent installation with Linux Package Manager or Zip.

Smart Agent Service Permissions

The Smart Agent service can be configured to run with a given user and group during installation by setting APPD_USERand APPD_GROUP environment variables during installation. The values of user and group you want to use depends on the agents you want to manage. The following table lists the required user and group values for each agent: 

Agent TypeAPPD_USERAPPD_GROUP
PHP

root

root
Apacheroot root
JavaanyUser anyUser
Pythonroot root
NodejsanyUser anyUser
Machinerootroot

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