Installing agents using the Agent Installation Wizard

You can use the Agent Installation Wizard to install agent packages on managed systems.

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Note:

This topic describes how to access this task in the IBM® Flex System Manager Web user interface. If you are using the IBM FSM Explorer, use the finder at the top of the user interface (shown here) to locate this task:

IBM Flex System Manager requires a number of agent packages that can be deployed to managed systems using the Agent Installation Wizard.The imported agent packages are located in the dynamic group "Agent Package Groups" and can be accessed by clicking Release Management > Agents in the left navigation area (which is hidden by default in the web interface). You use the Agent Installation Wizard to select one of these agent packages to install and one or more systems on which to install the agent package. Then, the wizard creates an agent installation job that can run immediately or at a scheduled time.

Important: Ensure that the following requirements are met to enable use of the Agent Installation Wizard to install and update agents:

• The root user account was used to initially request access to the managed system.
• IBM Flex System Manager on non-Windows systems has SSH, and a successful SSH connection exists in both directions between the server and the agent.
• IBM Flex System Manager on Windows systems has DCOM, and a successful DCOM connection exists in both directions between the server and the agent.
• In case of Power Systems™ different versions of Platform Agent require different version of RPMs. The list of required RPMs is available at: Software requirements for IBM Flex System Manager on Linux on Power®. When you use the Pre-Installation Utility to ensure that your system meets theIBM Flex System Manager requirements, the RPMs are used to fulfill part of the prerequisites.

Note: If you plan to install Common Agent on an Power Systems compute node with the AIX® operating system, make sure that you download and install Common Agent version 6.3.0 or later.

A problem with Common Agent version 6.2.1 can cause a duplicate managed endpoint (MEP) to be created for a relocated logical partition. If you install Common Agent version 6.2.1 on an AIX compute node and relocate a logical partition from that compute node to another system, you might see two managed endpoints (MEPs) for the same logical partition instead of one. The MEP on the source compute node (or the compute node from which the logical partition was relocated) is unnecessary and should be deleted. To delete the duplicate MEP, remove the MEP on the source compute node in the management software web interface after inventory collection is complete for the source compute node.

Complete the following steps to import the agent packages:

1. Acquire the Remote Deployment installation packages for the IBM Flex System Manager agents.

   View this document for information about acquiring the installation packages:

   http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas7452a24e9851ad53f86257f8f004bce0b.

2. Copy the packages to the IBM Flex System Manager system. See Importing updates for instructions about copying packages to the management node.
3. Import the packages with the Agent Installation Wizard.
4. Make any required changes to the diragent.rsp and or platform.rsp response files. See the topic for your operating system under "Installing Common Agent manually" or "Installing Platform Agent manually" for instructions about how to change the response files.

Complete the following steps to install agents using the Agent Installation Wizard:

1. Start the Agent Installation Wizard by right-clicking an agent package and selecting Release Management > Install Agent.
2. In the Agent Installation Wizard Agents page, complete the following steps:
   1. Select the agent or subagent package that you want to install in the Available list.
      Note: A subagent plugs in to a base agent and provides additional capabilities to support IBM Flex System Manager plug-ins such as IBM Flex System Manager VMControl. This documentation uses the collective term "agents" to refer to both agents and subagents.
   2. Click Add. The selected agent package is displayed in the Selected list.
      Note: The Agent Installation Wizard can install only one agent package at a time. If more than one agent package is displayed in the Selected list, you will not be able to advance to the Systems page.
   3. Click Next.
3. In the Agent Installation Wizard Systems page, complete the following steps:
   1. Select the managed systems on which you want to install the agent package in the Available list.
   2. Click Add. The selected systems are displayed in the Selected list.
      Note: Depending on the agent package being installed, some selected systems might not be valid targets for installation. The wizard checks the selected systems for some or all of the following criteria to ensure that the systems are valid targets for installing the selected agent package before allowing you to continue:

      • operating system family
      • operating system version
      • operating system distribution
      • operating system name
      • server architecture
   3. Click Next.
4. In the Agent Installation Wizard Summary page, review the Selected Agents and Selected Systems lists to ensure that they are correct.
   • If the selections are not correct, click Back and make the necessary changes.
   • If the selections are correct, click Finish.
   After you click Finish, the Run - Install Agent window opens.
5. In the Run - Install Agent window, click the Schedule tab. On this page, you can choose to run the job immediately or schedule the job to run at a later time.
   1. A job name is required and the Name field provides a unique default name. To change the default name, type a job name in the field.
   2. To run the job immediately, click Run Now and go to step 6. Otherwise, click Schedule.
   3. In the Schedule list, select how frequently you want the job to run. The default setting is Once. Other values are Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, or Custom. Also, you can specify whether to run the job on the weekend.
   4. Select the date and time to run the job for the first time.
   5. Select the time range for the job to repeat.
6. Click the Notification tab. On this page you can customize a notification that is sent by e-mail.
   1. Select from the available criteria to customize when the mail notification is sent. You can specify that the mail be sent when one of the following criteria is met:
      • When the job begins.
      • When the job completes successfully.
      • When the job fails. You can further customize this criterion by setting either the percentage of target systems on which the job had errors or the number of systems on which the job had errors. Therefore, if the job runs on five systems, the job has errors on two systems, and you set the criterion threshold to 50%, the notification is not sent.
      • When the job receives any error.
   2. Type your mail address, mail server, and mail server port.
      Tip: You can provide only one mail address.
7. Click the Options tab. On this page you can select additional options for the job behavior.
   1. Select whether you want the job to run according to your management server's time or the target system's time.
      Tip: Make sure that you know the time and time zone to which the respective systems' clocks are set.
   2. Select whether you want the job to fail if a system is offline or if you want the job to run when the system is online again.
8. Click OK to save the job.

   Click Cancel to exit from the Launch Job window without saving the job.

   If the job is created successfully, a message is displayed on the page from which you started the Scheduler. If the job creation fails, a message is displayed in the Launch Job window so that you can correct the job.

   The job created by the Agent Installation Wizard will transfer the agent self-extracting script and the agent response file into the following directory, which depends on your agent level, on the target system:

   Common Agent

   /tmp/commonagent_tmp

   Platform Agent

   /tmp/platformagent_temp

   After the files are copied, the installation file sets are extracted into the /tmp directory and installed. The files are then removed after a successful installation. You need to ensure that there is sufficient space on the target system to copy the self-extracting script and extract the file sets. Refer to the space requirements as specified in "Hardware requirements for systems running Common Agent or Platform Agent".
   If the agent deployment completes with errors, check the log file for your target operating system for a possible root cause:

   • AIX and Linux:
     • Common Agent: /var/log/dirinst.log
     • Platform Agent: /opt/ibm/platform/log/install.log
   • Windows: %WINDIR%/diragentinst_timestamp.log or %WINDIR%/platint_timestamp.log

   Note: For more information about error log files, see "Information to provide to the IBM Technical Support Center".
   Notes for AIX:

   • Refer to "Installing Common Agent on AIX" for more detail on the self-extracting script and the response file options.
   • For AIX server and agents, it is less space consuming to remotely install agents using NIM as explained in the IBM Flex System Manager Best Practices wiki page "Installing IBM Flex System Manager Common Agent for AIX using NIM" at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/W3e8d1c956c32_416f_a604_4633cd375569/page/Installing+IBM+Systems+Director+Common+Agent+for+AIX+using+NIM. Installing with NIM does not allow the use of a response file.