This lab will guide you in the process of installing the optional Monitoring agent on a pre-created Apache web server. Installing and configuring the Monitoring agent allows us to collect more detailed metrics that would not normally be possible, such as memory utilization and application-specific metrics. In this case, we will collect metrics from our Apache web server application.
Learning Objectives
Successfully complete this lab by achieving the following learning objectives:
- Initialize Monitoring Workspace
- Within your lab project, create a new Cloud Monitoring Workspace, which will monitor only your project.
- Once the Workspace is initialized, go to the Compute Engine interface.
- Install Monitoring Agent on Compute Engine Instance
- Connect to the instance via SSH in the web console. All the below commands will be run in the instance terminal.
- Add the agent’s installation location as a repository, and then update your repositories.
- Install the latest version of the Monitoring agent.
- Verify the agent is working as expected. You should receive feedback that the agent is active and initialization succeeded.
- Download the Apache configuration file into the agent’s directory.
- Restart the agent.
- Exit SSH.
- Open the Demonstration Web Page and Generate Some Traffic
- Open the web server’s website by clicking on the IP address from the Compute Engine screen.
- Refresh your page a few times to generate traffic.
- Confirm Agent Installation and Apache Configuration Success in Monitoring Workspace
- Go back to your Monitoring Workspace, and open Dashboards.
- You should see a new dashboard titled Apache HTTP Server. If it does not appear, wait a few minutes and refresh your screen again.
- Enter the dashboard once it does appear.
- View the available charts for:
- HOST (agent-less metrics)
- AGENT (non-application-specific, agent-collected metrics)
- APACHE (application-specific metrics)
