Unix monitoring integration

The Unix monitoring integration allows for system-level monitoring of Unix-based servers, such as AIX, Linux, macOS, and Solaris/SunOS, and reports data to New Relic.

Dica

This integration is released as open source on Github. If you encounter any issues, please log them at (https://github.com/newrelic/newrelic-unix-monitor/issues).

Install the integration

Follow the steps below to install the integration:

Check compatability and requirements

JDK 8 and above
AIX 7.0 and above
HP-UX 11.0 and above
Linux based-operating system
OSX / MacOS 10.9 ('Mavericks') and above
Solaris/SunOS 10.0 and above

Download and prepare the integration

Download the latest version of the Unix Monitor from the GitHub repo.
Copy the integration to the Unix server that you want to monitor and then untar it:
bash
```
$tar -xvzf <filename.tar.gz>
```

Configure the integration

Open the config file config/plugin.json.
Set account_id and insights_insert_key to your values. Edit the rest of the config file as needed (proxy, agent attributes, etc.).
Here's an example of a complex configuration file. Yours will likely not use every config option available:
```
{
    "global": {
        "OS": "auto",
        "account_id": "YOUR_NEWRELIC_ID",
                "fedramp": "false",
        "insights_mode": {
            "insights_insert_key": "YOUR_INSIGHTS_INSERT_KEY",
            "insights_data_center": "US"
        },
        "proxy": {
            "proxy_host": "YOUR_PROXY_HOST",
            "proxy_port": 5443,
            "proxy_username": "YOUR_PROXY_USERNAME",
            "proxy_password": "YOUR_PROXY_PASSWORD"
        }
    },
    "agents": [
        {
            "name": "auto",
            "static": {
                "attribute1": "attribute1_value",
                "attribute2": 12345
            }
        }
    ]
}
```
You can find more information about all available config options at the bottom of this doc.

Start the integration

Run ./pluginctl.sh start from your terminal
Check logs in the logs directory (or another directory you've configured)for errors.
Data should now flow into your New Relic account and be visable in your infrastructure UI.

Find your data

To easily find your Unix data, download our pre-built dashboard:

Go to one.newrelic.com and click on + Integrations & Agents.
Click on Dashboards tab.
In the search box, search for Unix.
Click on the Unix dashboard to install it in your account.

Integration configuration settings

The following sections explain all the configuration settings available:

Global settings

OS (default: auto): Used to determine which commands to run and how to parse them. Leave set to auto to have the plugin figure that out (which normally works).
account_id: New Relic account ID. The 6 or 7 digit number in the URL when you're logged into the account of your choosing.
fedramp: A true or false string to indicate that the target is the New Relic Fedramp-authorized endpoint.
insights_insert_key (under insights): You must create an Insights Insert key, as described here.
insights_data_center (under insights, default: us): If using the NR EU data center for your account, please change this to eu or EU. Otherwise, you can leave this alone or omit this setting entirely.

Agent settings

These settings are found in the agents object of your config file.

name: If set to auto, the plugin will use that server's hostname. Otherwise, sets the hostname and agentName to whatever is set here.
static (optional): An object containing static attributes (as name-value pairs) you want to appear in every event from this plugin. For example:

"agents": [
    {
      "name": "auto",
      "static": {
        "data_center": "Antartica",
        "customer": "Penguins",
        "rank": 1
      }
    }
  ]

Proxy settings

If using a proxy, the optional proxy object should be added to the global object in plugin.json.

The available attributes are: proxy_host, proxy_port, proxy_username and proxy_password.
The only attribute that is required in the proxy object is proxy_host.

Credential obfuscation

For additional security, this integration supports obfuscated values for the attributes like insights_insert_key, proxy_username, proxy_password, and any other attributes under the parent attribute 'agents'. To do so, append _obfuscated to the attribute name and provide an obfuscated value that was produced by the New Relic CLI:

Install the New Relic CLI on any supported platform. It doesn't need to be installed on the same host as the Unix integration. It is only used to generate the obfuscated keys, this integration handles deobfuscation independently.

Generate your obfuscated credentials using the following CLI command:

newrelic agent config obfuscate --key "OBSCURING_KEY" --value "CLEAR_TEXT_PROXY_PASSWORD"

In this command, OBSCURING_KEY can be any value you want. You can point it at an existing environment variable:

newrelic agent config obfuscate --key "YOUR_RANDOM_KEY!" --value "YOUR_PROXY_PASSWORD!"
newrelic agent config obfuscate --key ${NEW_RELIC_CONFIG_OBSCURING_KEY} --value ${OUR_PROXY_PASSWORD}

In the proxy object in plugin.json, populate the proxy_username_obfuscated and proxy_password_obfuscated attributes with the values returned by the CLI.
In pluginctl.sh, uncomment the NEW_RELIC_CONFIG_OBSCURING_KEY variable, and set it to the same value or envrionment variable as you used in step 2 for OBSCURING_KEY.