Install Core Agent on Linux (RHEL-based)

In Chronosphere Telemetry Pipeline, you can use fleets to manage instances of Core Agent. Use this guide to install Core Agent on RHEL-based Linux distributions.

Supported environments

Core Agent supports the following RHEL-based distributions and architectures:

Dependencies

For RHEL-based installations, Core Agent has the following general dependencies:

• libc
• libsasl
• libsystemd
• libyaml
• OpenSSL
• zlib

To retrieve a list of specific dependencies for your environment, run the following command:

yum -q deplist PACKAGE

Replace PACKAGE with the name of the Core Agent package.

Single line install

Chronosphere provides a basic installation script that’s compatible with most Linux environment. This script always installs the most recent version of Core Agent.

curl -L https://github.com/calyptia/lts-notifications/releases/latest/download/install-package.sh| bash

However, for secure deployments, Chronosphere recommends following the full instruction procedures for your Linux environment.

Mirrors for old CentOS versions

Because CentOS 6, CentOS 7, and CentOS 8 have reached end-of-life, their default yum repositories are unavailable. To install Core Agent on any of these distributions, you must configure an appropriate mirror. For example:

$ sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-* && \
  sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*

Verify signatures

Core Agent packages are signed with calyptia.key. You can use rpm to verify these signatures.

rpm --import calyptia.key && \
rpm -K PACKAGE

Replace PACKAGE with the name of the Core Agent package.

Configure yum

Chronosphere provides the calyptia-fluent-bit package through a yum repository. To add the repository reference to your environment, add a new file in /etc/yum.repos.d/ with the following content:

[calyptia-fluent-bit]
name = Calyptia Fluent Bit
baseurl = https://calyptia-lts-release-standard.s3.amazonaws.com/linux/25.1.5/DISTRO-VERSION
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://calyptia-lts-release-standard.s3.amazonaws.com/linux/25.1.5/calyptia.key
repo_gpgcheck=1
enabled=1

Replace DISTRO with either amazonlinux or package-centos, and replace VERSION with the relevant version number.

Install

After you’ve configured your repository, follow these steps.

1. Run the following command to install Core Agent:

   sudo yum install calyptia-fluent-bit

2. Run the following command to instruct systemd to enable the Core Agent service:

   sudo service calyptia-fluent-bit start

3. Perform a status check to confirm Core Agent is active. The status check should return output similar to the following:

   ● calyptia-fluent-bit.service - Calyptia Fluent Bit
      Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/calyptia-fluent-bit.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
      Active: active (running) since Thu 2023-06-08 15:55:03 UTC; 9s ago
        Docs: https://docs.fluentbit.io/manual/
    Main PID: 16631 (calyptia-fluent)
      CGroup: /system.slice/calyptia-fluent-bit.service
              └─16631 /opt/calyptia-fluent-bit/bin/calyptia-fluent-bit -c //etc/calyptia-fluent-bit/calyptia-fluent-bit.conf

   The default configuration of Core Agent is to collect metrics of CPU usage and send those metrics to stdout. You can see this outgoing data in your /var/log/messages file.

Support for StartLimitIntervalSec in RHEL 7

In Core Agent version 25.1.5 or later, the Core Agent systemd file doesn’t include the StartLimitIntervalSec configuration in RHEL 7 due to incompatibility with systemd 219.

RHEL versions that use systemd 230 or later are unaffected by this change.