1. Installing and Managing Oracle Management Cloud Agents
  2. Install Oracle Management Cloud Agents
  3. Install a Data Collector
  4. Prerequisites for Installing a Data Collector

Prerequisites for Installing a Data Collector

Before you install a data collector, you must meet a set of prerequisites.

This section lists the key considerations and prerequisites for installing data collectors and covers the following:

General Guidelines

Follow these guidelines for deploying data collectors:

  • You can deploy a data collector without a gateway.

  • You can deploy a data collector on a host on which the Oracle Management Repository is present or on another host that has SSH access to the remote host. You do not require an Oracle Enterprise Manager agent to deploy the data collector on either host.

  • You can use the following command to access the Oracle Management Repository from an UNIX-based host:

    ssh -l <the_username_to_log_in_as_on_Oracle_Management_Repository> <Oracle_Management_Repository_host_IP_address>

  • You need to create a user in the Oracle Management Repository. This will be the data collector user and it will be used to collect Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control data. You will enter it as the value of DATA_COLLECTOR_USERNAME parameter from the data collector response file.

  • Before you deploy data collectors to access Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) databases running the Oracle Management Repository (OMR), ensure the following:

    • The staging directory location specified for each RAC database node is the same location that was specified at the time of deploying the data collector.

    • The Oracle database user has read and write privileges on the staging directory.

    • The Oracle Management Repository host user (with SSH privileges to the Oracle Management Repository host) has read write privileges on the staging directory.

  • Before proceeding, ensure that you understand and follow the instructions listed in Generic Prerequisites for Deploying Oracle Management Cloud Agents and Download the Oracle Management Cloud Agent Software.

Port Requirements

During the installation, the AgentInstall script assigns any available port number to the data collector.

Prerequisites Check

Before you install a data collector, you can check if you have met all the prerequisites to perform a seamless agent installation. The AgentInstall.sh script reads the parameters values from the agent.rsp file and performs automated checks to ensure that your environment fulfills the basic requirements for the data collector installation.

Perform the following steps to run the automated prerequisite check:

  1. On your Linux host, navigate to the installer directory where you have the agent.rsp response file.

  2. Open the response file using any standard editor.

  3. Enter values for the mandatory parameters such as TENANT_NAME, OMC_URL, AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY, DATA_COLLECTOR_USERNAME, DATA_COLLECTOR_USER_PASSWORD, OMR_USERNAME, OMR_USER_PASSWORD, OMR_HOST_USERNAME, OMR_STAGE_DIR, OMR_HOST_USER_PASSWORD, OMR_HOSTNAME, OMR_PORT, and OMR_SID.

    Based on your requirement, edit the optional parameters if the default values are not in line with your best practices.

  4. Save the response file.

  5. Run the AgentInstall.sh script passing the parameter EXECUTE_PREREQ=true using the command line interface.

    For example, ./AgentInstall.sh|bat EXECUTE_PREREQ=true

    If the prerequisite check fails, the script stops with relevant error message.

    Alternatively, you can pass the required parameter values using the command line interface to perform the prerequisite check.

    For example, ./AgentInstall.sh|bat TENANT_NAME=<TENANT_NAME> OMC_URL=<OMC_URL> AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY=<AGENT_REGISTRATION_KEY> DATA_COLLECTOR_USERNAME=<DATA_COLLECTOR_USERNAME> DATA_COLLECTOR_USER_PASSWORD=<DATA_COLLECTOR_USER_PASSWORD> OMR_USERNAME=<OMR_USERNAME> OMR_USER_PASSWORD=<OMR_USER_PASSWORD> OMR_HOST_USERNAME=<OMR_HOST_USERNAME> OMR_STAGE_DIR=<OMR_STAGE_DIR> OMR_HOST_USER_PASSWORD=<OMR_HOST_USER_PASSWORD> OMR_HOSTNAME=<OMR_HOSTNAME> OMR_PORT=<OMR_PORT> OMR_SID=<OMR_SID> EXECUTE_PREREQ=true

    Please refer to the log file located under <AGENT_ZIP_FILE_EXTRACTED_DIRECTORY>/AgentInstall_<timestamp>.log for more details.

Create a Dynamic Group in Oracle Enterprise Manager

The owner of a dynamic group specifies the membership criteria during dynamic group creation (or modification) and membership in the group is determined solely by the criteria specified. Membership in a dynamic group cannot be modified directly. Enterprise Manager automatically adds targets that match the membership criteria when a dynamic group is created. It also updates group membership as new targets are added or target properties are changed and the targets match the group's membership criteria.

To create a dynamic group:

  1. Sign in to your on-premises Enterprise Manager Cloud Control as a user with administrative rights.

  2. In your on-premises Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, from the Groups page, click Create and then select Dynamic Group from the drop-down list. Alternately, you can choose Add Target from the Setup menu and then select Group.

  3. On the General tab of the Create Dynamic Group page, enter omcgroup as Name of the dynamic group you want to create. To create a regular dynamic group, the View any Target system wide privilege is required as the group owner must be able to view any target that can potentially match the membership criteria.

  4. In the Define Membership Criteria section, define the criteria for the dynamic group membership by clicking Define Membership Criteria.

    The Define Membership Criteria page appears where you can Add or Remove properties of targets to be included in the group. Group members must match one value in each of the populated target properties. Use the Member Preview section to review a list of targets that match the criteria. Click OK to return to the General page.

    At least one of the criteria on the Define Membership Criteria page must be specified. You cannot create a dynamic group without at least one of the target types, on hosts or target properties specified. Use the following criteria for dynamic groups:

    • Target type

    • Department

    • On Host

    • Target Version

    • Lifecycle Status

    • Operating System

    • Line of Business

    • Platform

    • Location

    • CSI

    • Cost Center

    • Contact

    • Comment

  5. You can add or remove properties using the Add or Remove Target Properties button on the Define Membership Criteria page.

  6. Click OK to create the dynamic group.

Grant Permissions to Cloud Agent Files

You can install the cloud agent as an on-premises Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM) agent host user. If the cloud agent user is different than the EM user then both OS users must be part of the same OS user group with the required permissions provided.

The cloud agent obtains the monitoring credentials from the on-premises EM agent from the following files:

  • AGENT_HOME/agent_inst/sysman/emd/targets.xml

  • AGENT_HOME/agent_inst/sysman/config/private.properties

Where AGENT_HOME is the EM agent installation directory.

If the cloud agent is installed as a different host user, read access to these files must be provided.

For read access, log in to the host as an on-premises EM agent host user and grant the following permissions:

cd $AGENT_HOME/agent_inst    # AGENT_HOME is the EM agent installation directory
chmod g+x sysman
chmod g+x sysman/emd
chmod g+x sysman/config

By default, users in the same group should have read permissions on the sysman/emd/targets.xml and sysman/config/private.properties files. If not, grant the following permissions while still logged in as the EM agent host user: 

cd $AGENT_HOME/agent_inst    # AGENT_HOME is the EM agent installation directory
chmod g+r sysman/emd/targets.xml
chmod g+r sysman/config/private.properties

Granting execution permissions allows all users in a group to access directories and read the monitoring credentials for other targets. To ensure security, we recommend that you install the cloud agent using the same user as the EM agent.