Starting the OneDB Explore Agent

This topic covers the two ways of starting the OneDB Explore Agent.

To get the most out of OneDB Explore, you should have an OneDB Explore agent running for each Informix database server that you will be monitoring through the tool. While the OneDB Explore agent is not required to view information about your database server in the OneDB Explore UI, the agent is required if you want to gather monitoring data and configure alerts for that server.

There are two options for starting the OneDB Explore agent. You can use the OneDB Explore UI to automatically deploy and start the OneDB Explore agent or you can manually start the OneDB Explore agent on the command line.

Deploying and starting the OneDB Explore agent automatically from the UI:

Before you deploy and start the OneDB Explore agent automatically from the UI, you must meet the following prerequisites:

Prerequisites

  1. SSH must be installed on the database server’s host machine.
  2. The onedb-explore-agent.jar file and the onedb-explore-server.jar file must be located in the same directory. For customized logging, the agent.logback.xml file must also be included in the same directory.
To deploy and start the OneDB Explore agent automatically from the UI:
  1. The Informix database server that the agent will be monitoring must first be defined in OneDB Explore. If the database server has not been defined yet, in the UI, navigate to an OneDB Explore group, click Add Server and define the server’s connection properties.
  2. Navigate to the Informix database server’s Setup > Agent page and define a repository server and database. The repository database is where the monitored data will be stored.
  3. From the server’s Setup > Agent page, you can also try to deploy the agent with default configuration by clicking the Deploy Agent button. If the automatic deployment is successful, you are done. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.
  4. Configure agent deployment:
    • Username: remote user which will own and run the agent
    • Password or Identity File/Passphrase: remote user’s passphrase or remote user’s identity file (e.g. private key) and its optional passphrase.
    • Remote directory: Directory to deploy the agent files to. This directory will be created if it does not exist.
  5. If SSL is enabled, keystore configuration may be required as well. If keystore configuration is not provided, OneDB Explore will try to generate and deploy a keystore for you.
    • Keystore file: Location of an existing keystore on the remote machine (can be relative to the remote directory)
    • Keystore password: Password used to access the existing keystore
    • Keystore type: Existing keystore’s type. Default is JKS
  6. Click Deploy Agent
  7. Once the agent is ready, use the OneDB Explore UI in your web browser to configure the monitoring profile and alerts for this server.

Starting an OneDB Explore agent manually on the command line:

  1. The Informix database server that the agent will be monitoring must first be defined in OneDB Explore. If the database server has not been defined yet, in the UI, navigate to an OneDB Explore group, click Add Server and define the server’s connection properties.
  2. Navigate to the Informix database server’s Setup > Agent page and define a repository server and database. The repository database is where the monitored data will be stored
  3. Locate the onedb-explore-agent.jar and the agent-logback.xml file in the $INFORMIXDIR/explore directory of the OneDB Explore database server installation.
  4. Copy the agent jar file and the logback configuration file to the Informix database server host machine.
  5. Create an agent configuration file.

    Sample agent configuration file:

    # host and port of the OneDB Explore server
server.host=localhost
server.port=8080

# The id of the Informix database server as defined in OneDB Explore
onedbServer.id=1
    Note: You can find the id of your Informix database server by navigating to the server’s Setup page in the UI.
  6. Optionally, edit the agent-logback.xml file to Logging in HCL OneDB Explore.
  7. Start the OneDB Explore server using the following command 
    java -jar onedb-explore-agent.jar agent.properties

    where agent.properties is the name of your OneDB Explore agent configuration file.

  8. At this point the agent is ready and running. Use the OneDB Explore UI in your web browser to configure the monitoring profile and alerts for this server.