Deploying OS agents

Before you can deploy any non-OS agent, you must first install an OS agent on the computer where you want the non-OS agent to be deployed.

In addition to monitoring base OS performance, the OS agent also installs the required infrastructure for remote deployment and maintenance.

Note: Ensure that you have populated your agent depot, as described in Populating the agent depot, before attempting to deploy any agents.

You can install the OS agent locally, as described in Installing Response Time monitoring agents and related software or remotely using the tacmd createNode command.

The tacmd createNode command creates a directory on the target computer called the node. This is the directory into which not only the OS agent is installed, but where any non-OS agents are deployed.

The tacmd createNode command uses one of the following protocols to connect to the computers on which you want to install the OS agent:

Server Message Block (SMB), used primarily for Windows servers.
Secure Shell (SSH), used primarily by UNIX servers, but also available on Windows.
Note: Only SSH version 2 is supported.
Remote Execution (REXEC), used primarily by UNIX servers, but not very secure.
Remote Shell (RSH), used primarily by UNIX servers, but not very secure.

Requirements for the tacmd createNode command

Before you can use the tacmd createNode command to deploy OS agents, ensure the following:

On Windows, the user ID that you specify using the -u parameter must have administrator privileges on the target computer. On UNIX and Linux, you must specify the root user ID using the -u parameter and the root password using the -p parameter for the tacmd createNode command to execute correctly. No other user ID may be specified.
Any computer to which you want to deploy the OS agent must have a supported protocol installed.
Security in your environment must be configured to permit createNode to pass through the firewall, using the protocol that you specify in the command parameters.
On Windows computers:
- SMB requires that the default, hidden, and administrative share are available on the drive being accessed and on the drive that hosts the System temporary directory.
- SMB signing is not supported when connecting using SMB. The computer to which you are deploying an OS agent cannot require SMB signing.
- For Windows XP, disable Simple File Sharing. Simple File Sharing requires that all users authenticate with guest privileges. This is not supported for createNode. To disable Simple File Sharing, do the following:
  1. Open the Windows Explorer.
  2. Select Tools > Folder Options.
  3. On the View tab, scroll through the list of settings to Use Simple File Sharing.
  4. Clear the check box for Use Simple File Sharing and click OK.
- For Windows XP computers with Service Pack 2, disable the Internet Connection Firewall.
- For Windows XP computers, set Network Access Sharing and Security to Classic - local users authenticate as themselves. Use the following steps:
  1. From the Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools.
  2. Double-click Local Security Policy.
  3. Select Local Policies > Security Options.
  4. Right-click Network access: Sharing and security for local accounts and click Properties.
  5. Select Classic - local users authenticate as themselves from the list and click OK.
- For all Windows computers, enable remote registry administration. (This is enabled by default.)
On UNIX systems, if you are using the RSH protocol, run the tacmd createNode command as root on the monitoring server.
If you are deploying the OS agent to a UNIX or Linux computer, that computer must have the ksh shell. Only the Korn shell is supported for the execution of the installation and runtime scripts.
If you are using SSH V2 (for either Windows or UNIX), configure SSH on the target computers to permit the use of password authentication. To permit this, do the following:
1. Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on the target computer.
2. Locate the following line: PasswordAuthentication.
3. Change no to yes and save the file.
4. Restart the daemon.
Note: If you are using private key authentication in your environment, you do not need to set SSH to permit password authentication.

Using the tacmd createNode command

To deploy an OS agent from the command line interface, use tacmd createNode command. For the full syntax, including parameter descriptions, see IBM Tivoli Monitoring Command Reference.

For example, the following command deploys the UNIX OS monitoring agent on the server1.ibm.com computer in the /opt/IBM/ITM directory. The installation is done as the root user.

tacmd createNode -h server1.ibm.com -d /opt/IBM/ITM -u root

Important:

Unless you specifically indicate otherwise, the agent that you deploy using this command assumes that the monitoring server to which it connects is the monitoring server from which you run the command. The agent also uses the default settings for the communications protocol (IP.PIPE for protocol type and 1918 for the port). To change these defaults (especially if you are not using the IP.PIPE protocol), use the following property (specified with the -p parameter) when running the command: SERVER=[PROTOCOL://][HOST|IP][:PORT]. For example, SERVER=IP.PIPE://server1.ibm.com:1918.