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Partha Host Agent Installation

The Gyeeta Host Agent (named partha) has to be installed on each Linux host that needs to be monitored. The Agent is a lightweight process and uses max 10% of one CPU core and less than 300 MB Memory RSS.

Host Requirements to install partha​

Minimum Linux Kernel and CPU Requirements​

The partha Host Agent requires a Linux Kernel with minimum kernel version of 4.4.

partha currently supports only x86_64 processors. Also, only Intel/AMD processors released after 2012 are supported as partha is compiled with avx instruction support.

Requirement of Kernel Headers for older kernels​

The partha agent needs Kernel Headers package to be installed on older kernels for eBPF support. Users need to ensure that the Kernel Headers package is installed on the hosts to be monitored as otherwise partha will not run.

Older Distributions where Kernel Headers package required​

  • Ubuntu 18, 19, 20
  • Debian 10, 11
  • RHEL / CentOS 8.x, Rocky Linux 8.x
  • Amazon Linux 1 and 2
  • Fedora Linux 35 and below

Newer Distributions include eBPF CO-RE BTF (BPF Type Format) Support and do not require Kernel Headers for eBPF based applications.

On Google Container Optimized OS (COS), the partha container will itself download the currently running Kernel's Headers and so, the Kernel Package is not needed.

Command to install Kernel Headers (needed for older Distributions only) :

sudo apt update && sudo apt-get -y install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
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In case the Kernel Headers package is not found using the commands above, please try updating the package list for example using sudo apt update / sudo yum distro-sync / sudo dnf distro-sync and retrying the commands.

In rare cases, a host reboot may be needed.

Partha Host Agent priviliged process​

The Host Agent partha needs to be run as a priviliged process with sys_admin, net_admin and other Linux capabilities as it utilizes eBPF and other monitoring methods.

If partha is run as a container, partha needs to be a priviliged container. Also partha needs to run in the Host Network Namespace and Host PID Namespace.

Serverless monitoring not supported​

Currently Gyeeta does not support monitoring of Serverless environments such as AWS Lambda and Fargate.

GKE Support​

Gyeeta supports Google Kubernetes Engine (Standard) mode only. GKE Autopilot is not supported.

Network Connectivity Requirements​

The partha Host Agent needs to connect to shyama Central server and a shyama assigned madhava Intermediate server. The partha Agent will not listen on any port and no incoming connection firewall rules need to be set. It will just act as a TCP client and connect to remote shyama and madhava servers.

Installation Instructions​

Different Install Options exist :

Except for Kubernetes installs, please ensure that the the Partha Config file in JSON format is ready as per Partha Config.

Install using Shell script​

Users can download a shell script that takes care of the installation and configuration of the Partha Agent.

note

Before installing Partha, users need to create a JSON config file as per the Partha Config.

Also, although this install script will try installing the Kernel Headers, if not present, users are advised to first install the Linux Kernel Headers before running this script if running on an older Linux distro. Please refer to Kernel Headers.


curl -o /tmp/install-gyeeta-partha.sh -s https://gyeeta.io/packages/install-gyeeta-partha.sh

# Then run the install script as : 
# sudo bash /tmp/install-gyeeta-partha.sh <Path to Partha Config file in JSON format>

# Example Install Command (Please configure the /tmp/partha.json config file first) :

sudo bash /tmp/install-gyeeta-partha.sh /tmp/partha.json

The install script SHA256 can be checked before installing. The SHA256 of the install script is available at SHA256 file

Stopping/Starting/Uninstalling the Partha Agent​

Command to stop the Partha Agent

sudo systemctl stop gyeeta-partha

Command to start the Partha Agent

sudo systemctl start gyeeta-partha

Command to uninstall Partha Agent

sudo systemctl disable gyeeta-partha; sudo apt-get remove gyeeta-partha

Install using Kubernetes Helm Chart​

Kubernetes 1.19 or higher is needed along with Helm v3.

Refer to Partha Helm Chart for a detailed explanation on installing Partha Agents in Kubernetes.

A short explanation is shown below :


helm repo add gyeeta https://gyeeta.io/helmcharts
helm repo update
helm show values gyeeta/partha > /tmp/partha.yaml

# Thereafter you can edit the /tmp/partha.yaml file if you need to change any option. 
# After editing the /tmp/partha.yaml, install the partha Helm chart using :

helm install --namespace gyeeta --create-namespace partha1  gyeeta/partha -f /tmp/partha.yaml

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On Older Linux Distributions, users are required to first install the Linux Kernel Headers before running the Partha Helm Chart. Please refer to Kernel Headers.

Running as a Docker container​

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Before running the Docker container, users running older Linux distributions need to install the Kernel Headers as per Install Kernel Headers link.

The partha container needs to be run as a priviliged container and also needs to be in the Host Network and PID Namespace.

A JSON config file needs to be created first as per partha Config

In the example command below, /tmp/partha.json config file has already been created on the main host.

The docker container will only run as a root user.


docker run -td --rm --name partha --read-only --privileged --env CFG_JSON_FILE=/tmp/partha.json --network=host --pid=host --cgroupns=host -v /proc:/proc -v /sys/:/sys/ -v /tmp/partha.json:/tmp/partha.json:ro ghcr.io/gyeeta/partha

Install using native rpm or deb packages​

Gyeeta native rpm or deb packages are available. The install is to be followed by Partha configuration.

curl https://pkg.gyeeta.workers.dev/pgp-key.public | sudo gpg --yes --dearmor --output /usr/share/keyrings/gyeeta-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/gyeeta-keyring.gpg] https://pkg.gyeeta.workers.dev/apt-repo stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gyeeta.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y gyeeta-partha
note

Although this install package will try installing the Kernel Headers, if not present, users on older Linux distributions are advised to first install the Linux Kernel Headers before installing the package. Please refer to Kernel Headers.

partha Configuration post Installation​

After the deb or rpm package has been installed, the Partha config file /opt/gyeeta/partha/cfg/partha_main.json needs to be edited as per Partha Config.

Start Partha after editing the partha_main.json

# After editing the /opt/gyeeta/partha/cfg/partha_main.json config file
sudo systemctl start gyeeta-partha
sudo systemctl enable gyeeta-partha

Stopping/Starting/Uninstalling the Partha Agent​

Command to stop the Partha Agent

sudo systemctl stop gyeeta-partha

Command to start the Partha Agent

sudo systemctl start gyeeta-partha

Command to uninstall Partha Agent

sudo systemctl disable gyeeta-partha; sudo apt-get remove gyeeta-partha

Manual Tar Package install​

If none of the above options can be used to install the Gyeeta Partha agent, a manual tarball extract and configure can be used to install.

note

Before running the Manual Tar install, users on older Linux distributions need to install the Kernel Headers as per Install Kernel Headers link.

Example Install Command

mkdir ~/gyeeta
cd ~/gyeeta
curl -L https://github.com/gyeeta/gyeeta/releases/download/$( curl https://api.github.com/repos/gyeeta/gyeeta/releases/latest -s | grep tag_name | awk -F\" '{print $4}' )/partha.tar.gz | tar xzf -
cd ./partha

# Set Partha capabilities : needs sudo
sudo ./setperm.sh

# Thereafter create the cfg/partha_main.json partha config file and then start the partha server as

./runpartha.sh start