When will AIX auto-injection be GA?

[steven_schneide]

When will AIX auto-injection be GA?

[piotr_szczepani · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

There is no solid date yet, we're aiming for Q1 2020 but there is still some work ongoing. We will announce this release on our blog so keep your eyes peeled.

Best!

Piotr

[kalle_lahtinen]

Hi @Piotr S.

Any chance you could give an update on this? We're looking at a fairly large Dynatrace implementation where practically all servers are AIX. Having this feature would save a lot of time, but on the other hand I'd feel safer working on a GA version instead of preview 🙂 What does it look like currently, are there any specific challenges with the automation that would make the manual method still the best alternative?

[piotr_szczepani]

Hi @Kalle L.

Im happy to infor you that from version 1.189 the auto-injection of code modules for AIX is in GA. When you navigate to your host settings->monitoring mode you can find a switch "Allow AIX kernel extension" that will enable auto-injetion.

[kalle_lahtinen]

Cool, thanks for the info! This page still shows the preview as being under progress, but I guess it just hasn't been updated in a while: https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/whats-new/preview-and-early-adopter-releases/#expand-901175--...

By the way if we have some old servers where the manual method has been used, I guess the way to start using the auto injection is to first remove the manually inserted injection lines, and then enable this "Allow AIX kernel extension" setting? And is it really so that it's only configured server by server, there's no global setting to have it enabled everywhere?

[kalle_lahtinen]

Hi again @Piotr S.,

Since the mail notifications were down the last time I wrote, I thought I'd bump this question in case you happen to see it this time 🙂

[kalle_lahtinen]

Hey,

Looks like the instructions have now been updated:

https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/technology-support/operating-systems/aix/operation/enable-aut...

I have to admit though that this part puzzles me a bit:

Update OneAgent version 1.187 and earlier

If you manually configured your AIX host to inject OneAgent code modules, we recommend that you clear the LDR_PRELOAD and the LDR_PRELOAD64 environment variables after you enable the automated injection. This enables you to uninstall OneAgent simply using the uninstall script without the need to clear the environment variables.

-> So if I want to start using the auto-injection for a host where I earlier enabled it manually, I need to 1. enable the kernel extension 2. then remove the manually inserted preload variables. But why am I then uninstalling something...? Am I the only one who doesn't get these instructions? 🙂

"we recommend that you clear ... without the need to clear"

[Julius_Loman]

I believe the clearing of the env variables is important as preloading non-existent libraries (in case you uninstall OneAgent) may result into broken applications or unstable system.

[kalle_lahtinen]

Hi Julius,

Yep that's indeed correct. Perhaps I didn't get the relevance of this either regarding the auto-injection (since the need to remove the manual injections also existed earlier) or to the update process (moving from manual to auto-mode - not uninstalling anything). But I suppose the point there was just to remind users to take care of that aspect 🙂

[Julius_Loman]

Actually this is mentioned in the docs here, unfortunately with no warning. Exporting LDR_PRELOAD to a nonexistent library will resulting will break executions of new binaries:

# expot LDR_PRELOAD=/nonexistent
# sh
exec(): 0509-036 Cannot load program sh because of the following errors:

        0509-150   Dependent module /nonexistent could not be loaded.

        0509-022 Cannot load module /nonexistent.

        0509-026 System error: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.

The very same will happen if you uninstall or delete oneagent directory and you forget to clean up the exports.

[steven_schneide]

Yes, we have this now in Preview, EAP. The GA version is v194, v196?
Ty DT

[kalle_lahtinen]

I'm not part of the preview/EAP myself, but Piotr said up there that version 1.189 should already be GA?