Install and uninstall the Cloud Monitor agent

Agent version

C++ 3.X is the recommended version.

The Java and Go versions of the agent are no longer maintained. The C++ version uses significantly fewer resources than the Go and Java versions. Therefore, we recommend installing the C++ version of the agent.

The following table compares the control script paths for legacy and current Agent versions:

• Billing: Installing the Cloud Monitor agent, viewing host monitoring charts, and creating alert rules are free of charge.

• System requirements

  Operating system	Hardware architecture
  Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and later	i386, AMD64
  Linux 2.6.23 and later (must include the Glibc library)	i386, AMD64, ARM64

  The Cloud Monitor agent is compatible with any Linux distribution that meets the following conditions: the kernel version is 2.6.23 or later, and the Glibc library is included. Commonly compatible distributions include (but are not limited to) CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Alibaba Cloud Linux, Anolis OS, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, and Kylin OS.

  Basic monitoring metrics (such as CPU usage and network traffic) are collected directly from the host and do not require the agent, so they are not affected by the Linux distribution. OS-level metrics such as memory usage and disk usage require the Cloud Monitor agent to be installed before they can be collected.

  For supported installation paths, resource consumption, and logs for the C++ agent, see Cloud Monitor agent overview.

Host network requirements

• The host must be able to access the internet, either directly or through a NAT Gateway or a proxy server.

• Firewall allowlist configuration

  If a firewall or an ECS security group is configured for the host, you must add the Cloud Monitor server addresses and ports to the allowlist.

  Note

  Third-party hosts use port 443 to report data and perform heartbeat checks over the internet.

  Server address	Query method	Server port	Description
  Heartbeat service	nslookup cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com or ping cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com	8080, 3128, 443	Used for agent heartbeat checks.
  Data reporting	VPC: nslookup metrichub-<regionid>.aliyun.com Internet: nslookup metrichub-cms-<regionid>.aliyuncs.com	80, 443	Used to report monitoring data. <regionid> is the region ID of the Alibaba Cloud host. Run the following command to obtain the region ID: curl http://100.100.100.200/latest/meta-data/region-id. Data reporting over the internet is available only in the China (Hangzhou), China (Shanghai), China (Beijing), and China (Shenzhen) regions.
  Metadata service	Fixed CIDR block: 100.100.0.0/16	0-65535	Obtains instance information (Alibaba Cloud hosts only).

Fix DNS resolution failures

This section applies only to Linux hosts.

If nslookup cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com returns Name or service not known or no servers could be reached, the host cannot resolve the Cloud Monitor heartbeat service domain, and the Cloud Monitor agent goes offline. Fix the issue by following these steps:

1. Edit /etc/resolv.conf and add the following Alibaba Cloud internal DNS servers:

   nameserver 100.100.2.136
   nameserver 100.100.2.138

2. Restart the Cloud Monitor agent:

   cd /usr/local/cloudmonitor && ./cloudmonitorCtl.sh restart

3. Verify that the agent processes are running:

   ps aux | grep argusagent

   Normally, two to three processes are displayed (daemon, wrapper, and main process).

4. Test DNS resolution again:

   nslookup cms-cloudmonitor.aliyun.com

   If an IP address is returned, DNS resolution has been restored.

Comparison of installation methods

Install the agent automatically or manually based on your host type and network environment.

Installation notes

• Installing the Cloud Monitor agent does not affect business operations or require restarting your ECS instance. After installation, the agent starts automatically and begins collecting monitoring data. If you are concerned about the impact, install the agent during off-peak hours.

• Automatic installation does not change the root account's login state (for example, noLogin). Even if direct root login is disabled on the host, Cloud Assistant Agent (aliyun-service) can still perform the installation on behalf of root.

• The Cloud Monitor agent (argusagent) and the Simple Log Service collection agent (loongcollector) are independent components with no dependency on each other. Installing, uninstalling, or restarting one does not affect the other.

• For non-ECS hosts such as Simple Application Servers, you must install the Cloud Monitor agent to view OS-level metrics such as memory and disk usage in the console. Basic monitoring metrics such as CPU usage and network traffic are collected from the host and do not require the agent.

1. Go to the Host Monitoring page.

2. On the Host Monitoring page, select the hosts on which you want to install or upgrade the agent, and then click Batch Install/Upgrade Agent in the lower-left corner. In the dialog box that appears, click OK.

   Note

   • For newly purchased Alibaba Cloud hosts, you can turn on the Automatically Install CloudMonitor Agent on Newly Purchased ECS Instances switch in the upper-right corner. Once enabled, the Cloud Monitor agent is automatically installed on new ECS hosts. Otherwise, you must install the agent manually.

   • The installation or upgrade takes about 5 minutes. When the Agent Status of a target host changes from Installing to Running, the operation is complete.

Log on to the Simple Application Server instance over SSH as the root user, and then run the following command to install the Cloud Monitor agent:

ARGUS_VERSION=4.0.0 /bin/bash -c "$(curl -s https://cms-agent-cn-shenzhen.oss-cn-shenzhen-internal.aliyuncs.com/Argus/agent_install-2.0.3.sh)"

Replace cn-shenzhen in the command with the region ID of the instance. ARGUS_VERSION specifies the agent version to install. After the command finishes, run the following command to confirm that the agent process is running:

ps aux | grep argusagent

The monitoring data of Simple Application Server instances is not displayed on the Host Monitoring page. After the agent is installed, log on to the Cloud Monitor console and choose Cloud Service Monitoring > Compute > Simple Application Server to view the monitoring data. The corresponding namespace is acs_swas.

1. Go to the Host Monitoring page.

2. On the Host Monitoring page, click Host & Agent Operations above the host list, and then click Manual Installation from the drop-down menu.

3. In the Manual Installation dialog box, follow the steps below to complete the installation.

Start the agent

• Linux

  Run the following command to start the Cloud Monitor agent:

  bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh start

• Windows

  Run the following command to start the Cloud Monitor agent:

  net start argusagent

Check the agent status

• Linux

  Run the following command to check the agent status:

  ps aux | grep argusagent | grep -v grep

  If the output resembles the following, the agent is running correctly.

  root      2284  0.0  0.0  22516  1488 ?        Ss   Sep14   0:00 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent -d
  root      2286  0.2  0.3 939652 14300 ?        Sl   Sep14   3:15 /usr/local/cloudmonitor/bin/argusagent

• Windows

  1. To open the Service window, press Win+R to open the Run dialog box, enter services.msc, and then click OK.

  2. Check the status of the argusagent service.

     If the status is Running, the agent is running correctly.

Stop the agent

• Linux

  Run the following command to stop the Cloud Monitor agent:

  bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop

• Windows

  Run the following command to stop the Cloud Monitor agent:

  net stop argusagent

Uninstall the agent

After uninstalling the C++ version of the Cloud Monitor agent, you can no longer monitor the host in real time, but historical monitoring data remains available.

• Linux

  # 1. Stop the Cloud Monitor agent.
  bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh stop
  # 2. Uninstall the Cloud Monitor agent.
  bash /usr/local/cloudmonitor/cloudmonitorCtl.sh uninstall
  # 3. Delete the cloudmonitor directory.
  rm -rf /usr/local/cloudmonitor

  If the cloudmonitorCtl.sh script does not exist, uninstall the agent by performing the following steps:

  1. Locate the agent directory: find / -name cloudmonitor -type d

  2. Stop the service: systemctl stop cloudmonitor

  3. Disable the service: systemctl disable cloudmonitor

  4. Terminate residual processes: kill -9 $(pgrep argusagent)

     Note

     The argusagent service is configured with KillMode=none, so systemctl stop does not terminate the process. A running process recreates the /usr/local/cloudmonitor directory. Therefore, you must terminate the process before you delete the directory.

  5. Delete the agent directory: rm -rf /usr/local/cloudmonitor

  6. Delete the service file: rm -f /etc/systemd/system/cloudmonitor.service

  7. Reload systemd: systemctl daemon-reload

  8. Delete the configuration directory: rm -rf /etc/cloudmonitor

  After the uninstallation, run the following commands to verify that the agent is completely removed:

  • systemctl status cloudmonitor returns not-found.

  • ls /usr/local/cloudmonitor reports No such file or directory.

  • ps aux | grep argusagent returns no process.

  • find / -name cloudmonitor -type d returns no result.

• Windows

  # 1. Stop the Cloud Monitor agent.
  net stop argusagent
  # 2. Uninstall the Cloud Monitor agent.
  "C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor\bin\argusagent_service.exe" uninstall
  # 3. Delete the cloudmonitor directory.
  cd "C:\Program Files\Alibaba"
  rd /s /q cloudmonitor

  Note

  If the installation path contains spaces (for example, C:\Program Files\Alibaba\cloudmonitor), you must enclose the full executable path in double quotation marks in the uninstall command, as shown in step 2. Without the quotation marks, Windows fails to locate the executable and returns the error '...' is not recognized as an internal or external command.

  If you encounter permission errors or command execution failures, verify that the current Windows user has Administrator privileges and that the file path is correct.