Agent Deployment Guide

Automated deployment strategies and best practices for scaling SysManage agent deployment across your infrastructure.

Deployment Overview

SysManage agents can be deployed using various automation tools and strategies depending on your infrastructure size and management preferences.

🔧 Configuration Management

Deploy agents using infrastructure automation tools

Ansible playbooks
Puppet manifests
Chef cookbooks
SaltStack states

📦 Package Managers

Use system package managers for standardized deployment

APT repositories (Debian/Ubuntu)
YUM/DNF repositories (RHEL/CentOS/Fedora)
Chocolatey (Windows)
Homebrew (macOS)

🐳 Containerized Deployment

Deploy agents as containers for modern infrastructure

Docker containers
Kubernetes DaemonSets
Docker Swarm services
Podman deployments

Ansible Deployment

Ansible is the recommended tool for automated agent deployment. Here's a sample playbook:

Basic Ansible Playbook

---
- name: Deploy SysManage Agent
  hosts: all
  become: yes
  vars:
    sysmanage_server: "sysmanage.example.com"
    sysmanage_port: 8443
    agent_version: "latest"

  tasks:
    - name: Download SysManage agent
      get_url:
        url: "https://releases.sysmanage.org/{{ agent_version }}/sysmanage-agent-{{ ansible_system | lower }}-{{ ansible_architecture }}"
        dest: "/tmp/sysmanage-agent"
        mode: '0755'

    - name: Install agent
      command: /tmp/sysmanage-agent install --server {{ sysmanage_server }} --port {{ sysmanage_port }}
      creates: /etc/sysmanage-agent/config.toml

    - name: Start and enable agent service
      systemd:
        name: sysmanage-agent
        state: started
        enabled: yes

Advanced Playbook with Certificate Management

---
- name: Deploy SysManage Agent with mTLS
  hosts: all
  become: yes
  vars:
    sysmanage_server: "sysmanage.example.com"
    ca_cert_path: "/etc/sysmanage/ca.crt"

  tasks:
    - name: Create sysmanage directories
      file:
        path: "{{ item }}"
        state: directory
        mode: '0755'
      loop:
        - /etc/sysmanage
        - /var/log/sysmanage-agent

    - name: Copy CA certificate
      copy:
        src: "{{ ca_cert_path }}"
        dest: /etc/sysmanage/ca.crt
        mode: '0644'

    - name: Generate agent certificate request
      command: sysmanage-agent cert-request --output /tmp/agent.csr
      creates: /tmp/agent.csr

    - name: Install and configure agent
      template:
        src: agent-config.toml.j2
        dest: /etc/sysmanage-agent/config.toml
        mode: '0600'

Kubernetes Deployment

Deploy agents as a DaemonSet to ensure one agent per node:

DaemonSet Configuration

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: DaemonSet
metadata:
  name: sysmanage-agent
  namespace: sysmanage
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: sysmanage-agent
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: sysmanage-agent
    spec:
      hostNetwork: true
      hostPID: true
      hostIPC: true
      containers:
      - name: sysmanage-agent
        image: sysmanage/agent:latest
        securityContext:
          privileged: true
        env:
        - name: SYSMANAGE_SERVER
          value: "sysmanage-server.sysmanage.svc.cluster.local"
        - name: NODE_NAME
          valueFrom:
            fieldRef:
              fieldPath: spec.nodeName
        volumeMounts:
        - name: host-root
          mountPath: /host
          readOnly: true
        - name: agent-config
          mountPath: /etc/sysmanage-agent
      volumes:
      - name: host-root
        hostPath:
          path: /
      - name: agent-config
        configMap:
          name: sysmanage-agent-config

Docker Deployment

Run agents as Docker containers with proper host access:

Docker Run Command

docker run -d \
  --name sysmanage-agent \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --privileged \
  --network host \
  --pid host \
  --ipc host \
  -v /:/host:ro \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -e SYSMANAGE_SERVER=sysmanage.example.com \
  -e SYSMANAGE_PORT=8443 \
  sysmanage/agent:latest

Docker Compose

version: '3.8'

services:
  sysmanage-agent:
    image: sysmanage/agent:latest
    container_name: sysmanage-agent
    restart: unless-stopped
    privileged: true
    network_mode: host
    pid: host
    ipc: host
    volumes:
      - /:/host:ro
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
      - ./agent-config:/etc/sysmanage-agent
    environment:
      - SYSMANAGE_SERVER=sysmanage.example.com
      - SYSMANAGE_PORT=8443
      - LOG_LEVEL=info

Mass Deployment Strategies

Phased Rollout

Deploy to test environment first
Gradual rollout by groups
Monitor each phase before proceeding
Rollback plan for issues

Blue-Green Deployment

Maintain two identical environments
Deploy to inactive environment
Switch traffic after validation
Quick rollback capability

Canary Deployment

Deploy to small subset first
Monitor metrics and performance
Gradually increase deployment size
Automated rollback on failures

Deployment Checklist

Pre-deployment

Server connectivity verified
Certificates prepared and distributed
Network firewall rules configured
Agent configuration templates ready
Backup and rollback plan documented

During Deployment

Monitor deployment progress
Verify agent connectivity
Check service status on each host
Validate certificate authentication
Test basic agent functionality

Post-deployment

Confirm all agents are reporting
Verify metric collection
Test command execution
Update monitoring dashboards
Document deployment configuration

Deployment Troubleshooting

Agent Not Connecting

Check network connectivity to server
Verify server hostname and port
Check certificate validity
Review firewall rules
Examine agent logs

Certificate Issues

Verify CA certificate installation
Check certificate expiration
Validate certificate chain
Ensure proper permissions
Test manual certificate validation

Service Startup Failures

Check system service logs
Verify configuration file syntax
Ensure proper file permissions
Check available system resources
Validate dependencies