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StackState Self-hosted v5.0.x

This page describes StackState version 5.0.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

StackState Agent V2

StackState Agent V2 can run in a Docker container. The Agent collects data from the host where it is running and can be configured to integrate with external systems. Retrieved data is pushed to StackState, to work with this data the StackState Agent V2 StackPack must be installed in your StackState instance. For details of the data retrieved and available integrations, see the StackPack integration documentation.

In Docker Swarm mode, the StackState Cluster Agent can be deployed on the manager node to retrieve topology data for the cluster.

Monitoring

StackState Agent V2 will retrieve topology and metrics data from the host that it is running on. In Docker swarm mode, StackState Cluster Agent running on the manager node will synchronize data for a Docker cluster. For details, see the data retrieved.

Setup

Single container

To start a single Docker container with StackState Agent V2, run the command below.

  • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY> is set during StackState installation.

  • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS> is specific to your installation of StackState.

For details see StackState Receiver API.

docker run -d \
    --name stackstate-agent \
    --privileged \
    --network="host" \
    --pid="host" \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
    -v /proc/:/host/proc/:ro \
    -v /sys/fs/cgroup/:/host/sys/fs/cgroup:ro \
    -v /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro \
    -v /sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug \
    -e STS_API_KEY="<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY>" \
    -e STS_STS_URL="<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>" \
    -e STS_PROCESS_AGENT_URL="<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>" \
    -e STS_PROCESS_AGENT_ENABLED="true" \
    -e STS_NETWORK_TRACING_ENABLED="true" \
    -e STS_PROTOCOL_INSPECTION_ENABLED="true" \
    -e STS_APM_URL="<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>" \
    -e STS_APM_ENABLED="true" \
    -e HOST_PROC="/host/proc" \
    -e HOST_SYS="/host/sys" \
    docker.io/stackstate/stackstate-agent-2:2.17.2

Docker compose

To run StackState Agent V2 with Docker compose:

  1. Add the following configuration to the compose file on each node where the Agent will run.

    • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY> is set during StackState installation.

    • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS> is specific to your installation of StackState. For details see StackState Receiver API.

    stackstate-agent:
 image: docker.io/stackstate/stackstate-agent-2:2.17.2
 network_mode: "host"
 pid: "host"
 privileged: true
 volumes:
   - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
   - "/proc/:/host/proc/:ro"
   - "/sys/fs/cgroup/:/host/sys/fs/cgroup:ro"
   - "/etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro"
   - "/sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug"
 environment:
   STS_API_KEY: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY>"
   STS_STS_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
   STS_PROCESS_AGENT_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
   STS_PROCESS_AGENT_ENABLED: "true"
   STS_NETWORK_TRACING_ENABLED: "true"
   STS_PROTOCOL_INSPECTION_ENABLED: "true"
   STS_APM_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
   STS_APM_ENABLED: "true"
   HOST_PROC: "/host/proc"
   HOST_SYS: "/host/sys"

  2. Run the command:

    docker-compose up -d

Docker swarm mode

In Docker Swarm mode, the StackState Cluster Agent can be deployed on the manager node to retrieve basic topology data (services, containers and the relations between them). To retrieve full data, StackState Agent V2 must also be deployed on each node as a Docker compose setup.

To run StackState Cluster Agent in Docker Swarm mode:

  1. Create a file docker-compose.yml with the following content. Update to include details of your StackState instance:

    • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY> is set during StackState installation.

    • <STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS> is specific to your installation of StackState. For details see StackState Receiver API.

    • <CLUSTER_NAME> is the name you would like to give this cluster

    stackstate-agent:
    image: docker.io/stackstate/stackstate-cluster-agent:2.17.2
    deploy:
      placement:
        constraints: [ node.role == manager ]
    volumes:
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
      - /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro
      - /sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug
    environment:
      STS_API_KEY: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY>"
      STS_STS_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
      STS_COLLECT_SWARM_TOPOLOGY: "true"
      STS_LOG_LEVEL: "debug"
      STS_LOG_TO_CONSOLE: "true"
      DOCKER_SWARM: "true"
      STS_CLUSTER_NAME: <CLUSTER_NAME>

  2. Run the command:

    docker stack deploy -c docker-compose.yml

Running the StackState Cluster Agent in Docker Swarm mode will collect basic topology data from the cluster. To retrieve more data, including telemetry, StackState Agent V2 must also be installed on each node in the Swarm cluster as a Docker compose setup.

Upgrade

To upgrade StackState Agent V2 running inside a Docker container.

  1. Stop the running container and remove it.

docker stop stackstate-agent
docker container rm stackstate-agent

  1. Run the container using the instructions provided in setup.

Configure

Agent configuration

The StackState Agent V2 configuration is located in the file /etc/stackstate-agent/stackstate.yaml. The configuration file contains the STS_API_KEY and STS_STS_URL environment variables set when the Docker command is run. No further configuration should be required, however, a number of advanced configuration options are available.

Advanced Agent configuration

StackState Agent V2 can be configured to reduce data production, tune the process blacklist, or turn off specific features when not needed. The required settings are described in detail on the page advanced Agent configuration.

External integration configuration

StackState Agent V2 can be configured to run checks that integrate with external systems. Each integration has its own configuration file that is used by the associated Agent check. Configuration files for integrations that will run through the StackState Agent in Docker should be added as a volume to the directory /etc/stackstate-agent/conf.d/ when the container is started.

For example, the Agent Docker configuration below includes a volume with a check configuration file for the ServiceNow integration:

stackstate-agent:
    image: docker.io/stackstate/stackstate-agent-2:2.17.2
    network_mode: "host"
    pid: "host"
    privileged: true
    volumes:
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
      - "/proc/:/host/proc/:ro"
      - "/sys/fs/cgroup/:/host/sys/fs/cgroup:ro"
      - "/etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro"
      - "/sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug"
      - "/etc/stackstate-agent/conf.d/servicenow.d/conf.yaml:/servicenow.d/conf.yaml:ro"
    environment:
      STS_API_KEY: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY>"
      STS_STS_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
      HOST_PROC: "/host/proc"
      HOST_SYS: "/host/sys"

Documentation for the available StackState integrations, including how to configure the associated Agent checks, can be found on the StackPacks > Integrations pages.

Proxy configuration

The Agent can be configured to use a proxy for HTTP and HTTPS requests. For details, see use an HTTP/HTTPS proxy.

Self-Signed Certificates

If StackState Agent V2 will run checks that are configured to use self-signed certificates for HTTPs requests, override the CURL_CA_BUNDLE environment variable:

  CURL_CA_BUNDLE = ""

Traces

StackState Agent V2 can be configured to collect traces via a StackState tracing integration. If the Agent will be used in conjunction with a language specific trace client, make sure to configure your app to use the host’s PID namespace:

  service:
    ...
    pid: "host" # should match with processes reported by the StackState process Agent
    ...

Commands

Start or stop the Agent

To start, stop or restart StackState Agent V2, start or stop the container it is running in:

# Start container
docker start stackstate-agent

# Stop container
docker stop stackstate-agent

Status and information

For status information, refer to the Docker log files for the container.

To run the Agent status command inside a container:

docker exec stackstate-agent bash -c 'agent status'

Manually run a check

Use the command below to manually run an Agent check.

# Execute a check once and display the results.
docker exec stackstate-agent bash -c 'agent check <CHECK_NAME>'

# Execute a check once with log level debug and display the results.
docker exec stackstate-agent bash -c 'agent check -l debug <CHECK_NAME>'

Troubleshooting

To troubleshoot the Agent, try to check the Agent status or manually run a check.

Log files

Docker logs for the StackState Agent container can be followed using the command:

docker logs -f stackstate-agent

Inside the running container, StackState Agent V2 logs are in the following files:

  • /var/log/stackstate-agent/agent.log

  • /var/log/stackstate-agent/process-agent.log

Debug mode

By default, the log level of the Agent container is set to INFO. To assist in troubleshooting, the Agent log level can be set to DEBUG. This will enable verbose logging and all errors encountered will be reported in the Agent log files.

To set the log level to DEBUG for an Agent running on Docker, use the STS_LOG_LEVEL environment variable. Other optional logging settings:

  • STS_LOG_PAYLOADS: "true" - include the topology/telemetry payloads sent to StackState in the Agent log.

  • STS_LOG_TO_CONSOLE: "true" - write log output to the container stdout.

For example:

stackstate-agent:
  image: docker.io/stackstate/stackstate-agent-2:2.17.2
  network_mode: "host"
  pid: "host"
  privileged: true
  volumes:
    - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro"
    - "/proc/:/host/proc/:ro"
    - "/sys/fs/cgroup/:/host/sys/fs/cgroup:ro"
    - "/etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro"
    - "/sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug"
  environment:
    STS_API_KEY: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_KEY>"
    STS_STS_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
    STS_PROCESS_AGENT_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
    STS_PROCESS_AGENT_ENABLED: "true"
    STS_NETWORK_TRACING_ENABLED: "true"
    STS_PROTOCOL_INSPECTION_ENABLED: "true"
    STS_APM_URL: "<STACKSTATE_RECEIVER_API_ADDRESS>"
    STS_APM_ENABLED: "true"
    HOST_PROC: "/host/proc"
    HOST_SYS: "/host/sys"
    STS_LOG_LEVEL: "debug"
    STS_LOG_TO_CONSOLE: "true"
    STS_LOG_PAYLOADS: "true"

Support knowledge base

Troubleshooting steps for any known issues can be found in the StackState support knowledge base.

Uninstall

To uninstall StackState Agent V2, stop the Docker container it is running in and remove it.

docker stop stackstate-agent
docker container rm stackstate-agent

Data retrieved

Topology

StackState Agent V2 will retrieve the following topology data from the host that it is running on:

  • Hosts, processes and containers

  • Network connections between processes/containers/services

In Docker swarm mode, StackState Cluster Agent running on the manager node will synchronize the following topology data for a Docker cluster:

  • Containers

  • Services

  • Relations between containers and services

Metrics

StackState Agent V2 will retrieve the metrics listed below for containers. Telemetry for hosts and processes, as well as network traffic telemetry for network connections between processes/containers/services will also be retrieved.

Metrics for containers

The list below shows the container metrics that are provided by default. Additional metrics may be supplied by other sources based on your specific implementation.

  • Container Restart

  • Container State

  • CPU amount of seconds throttled

  • CPU number of times throttled

  • CPU threads count

  • CPU time - System (percentage / second)

  • CPU time - Total (percentage / second)

  • CPU time - User (percentage / second)

  • IO read (bytes / second)

  • IO written (bytes / second)

  • Memory - Cache (bytes)

  • Memory - Resident (bytes)

  • Network received (bytes / second)

  • Network received (packets / second)

  • Network sent (bytes / second)

  • Network sent (packets / second)

See also

PreviousAbout the StackState AgentNextKubernetes

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