Install OneAgent on Linux

Latest Dynatrace
How-to guide
5-min read

Follow this guide to download and install Dynatrace OneAgent on Linux.

To get started, log in to your Dynatrace SaaS environment at Dynatrace.com using the credentials provided during signup. Then follow the installation steps.

Requirements

You can install OneAgent on any Linux system that's supported by Dynatrace, regardless of the packaging system your distribution depends on.

Permissions

You need Download/install OneAgent permissions to download and install OneAgent.
You only need elevated privileges to start OneAgent installation. This requires that your system meets specific requirements. Otherwise, add the NON_ROOT_MODE=0 parameter to the installation command to disable OneAgent non-privileged mode.
You need permissions and credentials to restart all your application services.

Resources

Check the disk space requirements.
Your host requires 200 MB free memory to run OneAgent installation and update.
All hosts you want to monitor must be able to send data to the Dynatrace cluster. Depending on your Dynatrace deployment and on your network layout and security settings, you may choose to either provide direct access to the Dynatrace cluster or set up an ActiveGate.

Limitations

There are certain limitations when deploying OneAgent on a Linux host with Oracle Database Server 19c or with mounted NFS drives. See Troubleshoot OneAgent installation.

Allow connections through firewall

Ensure that your firewall settings allow communication to Dynatrace.
Depending on your firewall policy, you may need to explicitly allow certain outgoing connections. The remote Dynatrace addresses to add to the allow list are given on the installation page for OneAgent.

Installation

Go to Discovery & Coverage and select Install > Install OneAgent.
Enter or select the following parameters.
- OS type
  
  Choose Linux as your operating system.
- Architecture
  
  OneAgent supports the following CPU architectures:
  - x86 - 64-bit Intel/AMD
  - s390 - 64-bit IBM Z mainframe (s390) Learn more
  - ARM - ARM64 (AARch64) including AWS Graviton processors
  - PowerPC (LE) - 64-bit PowerPC (ppc64le)
- Monitoring mode
  
  Options are Full-Stack, Infrastructure, or Discovery.
  
  If you are using a free Dynatrace trial, select Full-Stack to see everything that Dynatrace is capable of observing. You can always change the monitoring mode after installation. For details, see OneAgent monitoring modes.
- Optional parameters
  - Add a custom host name for easier identification.
  - Set a network zone for this host.
  - If your environment is segmented (for example, into development and production), consider organizing your hosts into host groups.
  - Apply tags to the host to organize your monitored environments in a meaningful way.
  - Add host properties to automate the addition of metadata to your hosts.
  OneAgent command-line installer provides more options to customize your installation.
Paste an access token with the Download OneAgent and ActiveGate installers (InstallerDownload) scope into Installer download token, or select Generate token to create one now and automatically paste it. This token is required to download the OneAgent installer from your environment. The token is automatically appended to the download and installation commands you'll use later.
Download OneAgent

Paste the provided command into your terminal window and run it.
Verify signature

After the download is complete, select Copy in the Verify signature box to copy the wget command to the clipboard, then paste the provided command into your terminal window and run it. Make sure your system is up to date, especially SSL and related certificate libraries.
Run the installer

Paste the command into your terminal window and run it. You only need root access to start OneAgent installation. Elevated privileges are dropped as soon as Dynatrace OneAgent is deployed.
If you’re on an Ubuntu Server
```
sudo /bin/sh Dynatrace-OneAgent-Linux-1.0.0.sh
```
If you’re using Red Hat Enterprise Linux
```
su -c '/bin/sh Dynatrace-OneAgent-Linux-1.0.0.sh'
```
If you start a root session
```
/bin/sh Dynatrace-OneAgent-Linux-1.0.0.sh
```
Install OneAgent as the privileged user

Depending on your environment, you can choose whether OneAgent is installed using a privileged user.
Show deployment status

Displays the recently connected hosts.

If you plan to download Dynatrace OneAgent directly to a server, note that outdated or missing libraries (for example, CA certificates or OpenSSL) prevent the installer from downloading.
Dynatrace uses encrypted connections. OpenSSL is required to enable wget to access the server. You can also download the installer by selecting Download OneAgent installer in the page footer and saving the installer script to any location you want, which bypasses the wget command altogether.

What happens during installation?

Dynatrace OneAgent is a set of specialized services configured for your monitoring environment. These services monitor various aspects of your hosts, including hardware, operating system, and application processes.

During the installation process, the installer:

Installs executable code and libraries that are used by Dynatrace OneAgent. OneAgent binaries are installed in the /opt/dynatrace/oneagent directory and startup scripts are created in /etc/init.d (on systemd systems, startup scripts are created in /etc/systemd/system/). One of the Linux OneAgent components, liboneagentproc.so, is located in the system library directory (/lib or /lib64 depending on your architecture) and is enabled at /etc/ld.so.preload.
Creates its own user (dtuser). This user is created without a password. It's not possible to log in with this user. For security purposes, services that don’t require root privileges will run under this user. Installation, however, still requires root access.
Checks the system’s global proxy settings.
Checks for a connection to Dynatrace Server or ActiveGate (if you installed ActiveGate and downloaded the OneAgent installer after ActiveGate was connected to Dynatrace).
Detects all SELinux-aware applications and adjusts the SELinux security policy accordingly.
Allows Dynatrace OneAgent to inject its own libraries into monitored processes.
Modifies the core pattern configuration so that OneAgent can detect and report process crashes. The original core_pattern configuration will still work following installation and will be preserved in /opt/dynatrace/oneagent/agent/conf/original_core_pattern, where you can define your own core settings using the format as specified in Linux Programmer's Manual.

For a summary of the changes made to your system by OneAgent installation, see OneAgent security on Linux.

You've arrived!

Great, the setup is complete! You can now take a look around your new monitoring environment.

You can access your monitoring environment anytime by going to Dynatrace website and selecting Login in the upper-right corner.

One last thing: to monitor your processes, you need to restart them. You can restart your processes at any time, even during your organization's next planned maintenance period. For details, see Infrastructure & Operations and Processes.