OneAgent filesystem monitoring in Linux hosts

[brenidie]

Can anyone share a link where can I customize filesystem monitoring in Dynatrace, if it is possible. Example for in Linux, I have /appl/* directory with multiple sub directory and I wanted to have this /appl/application_dir specific folder to be monitored. Will this be possible?

[AntonioSousa]

This is not possible at the moment, that I know of. You coukld eventually do it with a Dynatrace OneAgent extension.

[brenidie]

Thank you, Antonio. It clears out the question on my end.

[fstekelenburg · Accepted solution]

Nowadays this can be done through the (OneAgent) Filesystem monitoring extension.
See it in the Dynatrace Hub: Filesystem monitoring | Dynatrace Hub

[sknowlton]

Is there a reason that the dtuser would require execute permission?

[radek_jasinski]

Hi @sknowlton 

If I'm not wrong the dtuser account created during Dynatrace OneAgent installation is intended for launching unprivileged processes within Dynatrace. It's specifically designed with limited capabilities and is not meant for general use or for executing operational commands.

Regarding the requirement for execute permissions, particularly for running commands like starting or stopping the OneAgent, these actions must be performed as the root user. This is a standard practice for services installed on Linux systems, as managing system services typically requires root privileges. Therefore, the dtuser does not require execute permission for these operations, and it's advised not to use dtuser for purposes other than what it's intended for by Dynatrace.

Radek

[sknowlton]

Hi Radek,

We are talking about the Filesystem monitoring OneAgent extension.

The only documented requirement is to give the Dynatrace account (dtuser) permission to access the folders being monitored.

Just providing read permission did not provide any metric data.  Providing execute permission makes this extension work nicely for the given folder.

Unfortunately, the user and group that own the folder are in IDM, whereas dtuser is a local account.  So, we can't add dtuser to the owner group.  We can't give execute permission to "everyone".

Why should the account require execute permission?

[sknowlton]

It seems that the execute permission is normal for directory listing and access to file metadata.

This should be included in the Filesystem Monitoring extension documentation.