Chfagent won’t survive a host reboot so to make sure chfagent is always running, we’ll create a startup config to start the agent when the virtual machine starts. We’ll also create a watchdog to make sure the chfagent is constantly running.

Startup script

PuTTY into the chfagent virtual machine and execute:

sudo nano /etc/init/chfagent.conf

Copy the script below into the editor:

• Replace $api_email with the email provided by Auvik support when your AuvikFlow account was provisioned.
• Replace $api_token with the token provided by Auvik support when your AuvikFlow account was provisioned.
• Replace $interface_IP with the following interface IPs:
  • The IP of a single interface for chfagent to listen on
  • 0.0.0.0 to listen on all interfaces

description "chfagent for AuvikFlow"
author "Ray Patel / Mark Jasek / Auvik Networks Inc."

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on shutdown

script
   echo "Starting chfagent for AuvikFlow..."
   echo $$ > /var/run/chfagent.pid
   exec chfagent -api_email=$api_email -api_token=$api_token -host=$interface_ip -port 2055
end script

pre-start script
   echo "[`date`] Starting chfagent" >> /var/log/chfagent.log
end script

pre-stop script
   rm /var/run/chfagent.pid
  echo "[`date`] Stopping chfagent" >> /var/log/chfagent.log
end script

Once you copy the script over and save it, run the follow command to test the script:

init-checkconf /etc/init/chfagent.conf

If you receive the output below, the script has run successfully:

File /etc/init/chfagent.conf: syntax ok

Watchdog script

Use your favorite text editor to create a new cron directory and a watchdog script, called watchdog.sh, inside of it.

sudo mkdir /home/root/cron && sudo mkdir /home/root/tmp && sudo vi /home/root/cron/watchdog.sh

Your script should resemble the script below:

• Replace $api_email with the email provided by Auvik support when your AuvikFlow account was provisioned.
• Replace $api_token with the token provided by Auvik support when your AuvikFlow account was provisioned.
• Replace $interface_IP with the following interface IPs:
  • The IP of a single interface for chfagent to listen on
  • 0.0.0.0 to listen on all interfaces

#!/bin/bash

mkdir -p "$HOME/tmp"
PIDFILE="/var/run/chfagent.pid"

if [ -e "${PIDFILE}" ] && (ps -u $(whoami) -opid= |
                          grep -P "^\s*$(cat ${PIDFILE})$" &> /dev/null); then
 echo "Already running."
 exit 99
fi

/usr/bin/chfagent -api_email=$api_email -api_token=$api_token -host=$interface_ip -port 2055  > /var/log/chfagent.log &

echo $! > "${PIDFILE}"
chmod 644 "${PIDFILE}" 

Now, make sure the script is executable:

sudo chmod +x /home/root/cron/watchdog.sh

Add your script to cron

Open crontab as root:

sudo crontab -e 

Add the following line to it:

* * * * * /home/root/cron/watchdog.sh > /home/root/cron/watchdog.log 2>&1 

The above cronjob checks every minute if chfagent is running. If it finds chfagent isn’t running, it starts it.

Chfagent requires super-user permissions to open a socket to the virtual machine’s network interface.