Configure Agent Modes
Agent modes provide the ability to control metric collection to fit your scale and specific requirement. You can choose one of the following modes to do so:
Monitor
Monitor Light
Troubleshooting
Secure
Secure Light
Custom Metrics Only
Using the appropriate mode for a specific environment can reduce the amount of resources (cpu and memory) that the agent consumes by avoiding unnecessary work.
Monitor
The Monitor mode offers an extensive collection of metrics. We recommend this mode to monitor enterprise environments.
monitor
is the default mode if you are running the Enterprise
tier. To switch back to the
Monitor mode from a different mode, do one of the following:
Add the following to the
dragent.yaml
file and restart the agent:feature: mode: monitor
Remove the parameter related to the existing mode from the
dragent.yaml
file and restart the agent. For example, to switch fromtroubleshooting
mode tomonitor
, delete the following lines:feature: mode: troubleshooting
Monitor Light
Monitor Light caters to the users that run agents in a resource-restrictive environment, or to those who are interested only in a limited set of metrics.
Monitor Light provides CPU, Memory, File, File system, and Network metrics. For more information, see Metrics Available in Monitor Light.
Enable Monitor Light Mode
To switch to the Monitor Light mode, edit the dragent.yaml
file:
Open the
dragent.yaml
file.Add the following configuration parameter:
feature: mode: monitor_light
Restart the agent.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting mode offers sophisticated metrics with detailed diagnostic capabilities. Some of these metrics are heuristic in nature.
In addition to the extensive metrics available in the Monitor mode,
Troubleshooting mode provides additional metrics such as net.sql
and
additional segmentation for file and network metrics. For more
information, see Additional Metrics Values Available in
Troubleshooting.
Enable Troubleshooting Mode
To switch to the Troubleshooting mode, edit the dragent.yaml
file:
Open the
dragent.yaml
file.Add the following configuration parameter:
feature: mode: troubleshooting
Restart the agent.
Secure
The secure mode supports only Sysdig Secure features.
Sysdig agent collects no metrics in the secure mode, which, in turn, minimizes network consumption and storage requirement in the Sysdig backend. Lower resource usage can help reduce costs and improve performance.
In the Secure mode, the Monitor UI shows no data because no metrics are sent to the collector.
This feature requires agent v10.5.0 or above.
Enable Secure Mode
Open the
dragent.yaml
file.Add the following:
feature: mode: secure
Restart the agent.
Secure Light
The secure light mode supports only the following Sysdig Secure features:
- Runtime Policies
- Activity Audit (only executed commands)
- Captures
Sysdig agent running in secure_light
mode consumes fewer resources than that of running in the secure mode.
This feature requires agent v12.10.0 or above.
Enable Secure Light
Open the
dragent.yaml
file.Add the following:
feature: mode: secure_light
Restart the agent.
Custom Metrics Only Mode
Custom Metrics Only mode collects the same metrics as the Monitor Light mode, but also adds the ability to collect the following:
- Custom Metrics: StatsD, JMX, App Checks, and Prometheus
- Kubernetes State Metrics
As such, Custom Metrics Only mode is suitable if would like to use most of the features of Monitor mode but are limited in resources.
This mode is not compatible with Secure. If your account is configured for Secure, you must explicitly disable Secure in the agent configuration if you wish to use this mode.
This mode requires agent v12.4.0 or above.
Enable Custom Metrics Only Mode
Open the
dragent.yaml
file.Add the following configuration parameter:
feature: mode: custom-metrics-only
If your account is enabled for Secure, add the following:
security: enabled: false secure_audit_streams: enabled: false falcobaseline: enabled: false
This configuration explicitly disables the Secure features in the agent. If you do not disable Secure, the agent will not start due to incompatiblity issues.
Restart the agent.
Feedback
Was this page helpful?
Glad to hear it! Please tell us how we can improve.
Sorry to hear that. Please tell us how we can improve.