You can manage the app agents that are connected to the Controller from the App Server Agents administration page. From this page, you can view information about an app agent, disable an app agent, reset an app agent, and more.

To access the AppDynamics Agents administration page

There are two ways to access the page:

From the Home page, click View Agents.
In the upper right corner of the menu bar, click Settings -> AppDynamics Agents.

AppDynamics lists all agents for all business applications by default.

Associating App Agents with an Application

If you start an application server with an app agent without specifying the application with which it is associated, the agent appears in the app agents list as an unassociated agent. You can associate an agent with an application manually from the App Agents administration page.

To associate an agent with a business application

From the Agents list in the App Server Agent panel, select the unassociated app agent from the list.
If you have a long list of agents, you can choose Agents not associated with an Application from the View dropdown men in the upper right corner to display only app agents that are not currently associated with an application.
Click Associate with Application. This button is enabled only if you select an app agent that is connected to the Controller but not already associated with an application.

Resetting App Agents to Purge Data

Resetting the app agent purges all existing data for the agent, including metrics and discovered transactions. You do not need to restart the application server to reset agent data.

After you have reconfigured business transaction or backend detection, you may need to reset the agents. If new detection rules are not detecting newer transactions or backends:

Delete all existing transactions and backends.
See Business Transactions List Operations for information about the deleting business transactions in the UI. See Remote Services Dashboard and Databases List and Dashboard for information about deleting backends in the UI.
Use the Reset option to start the agent detecting the transactions and backends from scratch.

Resetting an app server agent causes the Controller to:

Purge all data such as metrics, discovered Business Transactions, and so on, gathered by that agent.
Reset the Business Transaction limit counter to zero for that agent.

Resetting an agent flushes the in-memory business transactions, exit calls, and registration information for the agent. It does not re-instrument or remove existing instrumentation.

After a reset, the business transactions and backends are re-registered and new metrics are created.

You may lose a few minutes worth of data between the reset and re-registration operations.

To reset app agents

Navigate to the App Server Agents panel in the AppDynamics Agents administration page. See To access the AppDynamics Agents administration page.
Reset app agents by either:
- Clicking Reset Agents to reset all agents for this Controller.
- Selecting the specific agents to reset from the list, and click Reset Selected App Agent(s) to reset only the selected agents.

Enabling and Disabling App Agents

An app server agent polls the Controller every minute to check whether the agent is enabled or disabled. If an App Agent for Java is disabled, it stops capturing all data except for JVM JMX metrics such as heap memory, memory pools, garbage collection, and thread count.

Disabling an agent can help with troubleshooting. For example, it lets you easily compare the difference in the agent's run-time overhead when capturing or not capturing data, without going through the trouble of uninstalling the agent. Disabling the agent does not require the application server to be shut down or restarted.

All agents connected to the Controller count against the agent license limits for that Controller. Since a disabled agent is still connected to the Controller, even though it only reports minimal app server-related data, it still occupies an agent license for the Controller.

To enable or disable an app agent

In the Controller left navigation pane, click Servers -> App Servers -> <Tier> -> <Node>.
In the Node Dashboard, click the Agents tab.
To deactivate the agent, click Agent is Off.
It takes about a minute for the operation to take effect.

To activate the agent, click Agent is On.

Deleting App Agents

Deleting an app agent in the AppDynamics Agents window removes the agent and any associated data from the Controller database. This does not affect the instrumentation of the application server. If the application server is still running with an app agent, or if it is subsequently restarted with an app agent, the agent re-registers and appears again in the Controller database and in the UI..

To completely remove an app agent completely so that it does not register again, uninstall it. See the uninstall instructions for your agent's platform.

To delete an app agent

In the AppDynamics Agents window, select an app agent.
Click Delete Agent from System.

Other Actions

To view the Node Dashboard of an agent

In the AppDynamics Agents window, select an app agent.
Click View Node Dashboard.

See Node Dashboard.

To view the machine agent on the same node as an app agent

In the AppDynamics Agents window, select the app agent in the App Server Agents list.
Click View Machine.

Alternatively:

In the navigation pane, click Servers -> App Servers -> <Tier> -> <Node>.
In the Node Dashboard, click the Agents tab.
Click the Machine Agent subtab.

To find the app agent version number

In the Controller left navigation pane, click Servers -> App Servers -> <Tier> -> <Node>.
In the Node Dashboard, click the Agents tab.
Click the App Server Agent subtab.

Permissions to View List of AppDynamics Agents

By default only Account Owners see the list of the agents in the account.

You can create a custom administrator role that grants this account-level permission. See Configure Roles.

Keep in mind that this also grants that role general administrator rights, including the permission to administer users, roles, authentication, etc. There is no way to grant permission only to view agents.

Learn More

Manage App Agents