Flatcar Linux

This guide walks you through installing the Infrastructure Agent (Infra Agent) on a Flatcar Linux machine. These instructions can also be found on the Installation page in the Middleware application.

Prerequisites

Butane tool to translate human readable Butane configuration into machine readable Ignition configuration used by Flatcar Linux container Linux.

Install

Step 1: Butane Configuration

You will have to create a systemd service in your Flatcar container Linux’s Butane configuration.

You will have to create a mw-agent.service systemd unit in your existing Butane configuration.

variant: flatcar
version: 1.0.0
systemd:
 Units:
   - name: mw-agent.service
     enabled: true
     contents: |
       [Unit]
       Description=Middleware Agent
       After=docker.service

Step 2: Ignition Configuration

Convert your Butane configuration to Ignition configuration using the following command

butane your-configuration.bn > ignition.ign

Replace your-configuration.bn with the actual configuration file name in the above command

You can now use the contents of ignition.ign to provision and launch your Flatcar Linux container Linux.

Step 3: Add Host Tags [Optional]

Create filterable custom tags by adding the MW_HOST_TAGS environment variable to the installation command as comma-separated key-value pairs. Use the tag name to create an alias for the host (e.g. production).

MW_HOST_TAGS=key1:value1,key2:value2,... MW_API_KEY="<MW_API_KEY>"

Step 4: Verify Installation

Verify the status of the Infra Agent. If status is UP or Exited, the installation was successful. If status is blank, installation was unsuccessful. Run the following command to verify the Infra Agent status:

docker ps -a --filter ancestor=ghcr.io/middleware-labs/mw-host-agent:master

Step 5: Check Your Dashboard

Navigate to Middleware and ensure metrics are appearing in the Unified Dashboard. It can take up to a few minutes for metrics to appear. If metrics do not appear after this time head to our troubleshooting page for some common issues.