Agent registration on cloned systems

Troubleshooting
1

Hi,
I have a question regarding the agent registration of hosts, that are regularly being “deployed” from a golden master image. We use Citrix XenApp and have there a golden master, where we install all applications as well as the CMK-Agent. This master image is the “deployed/cloned” to multiple windows server, that boot from that image, and then apply their own settings like hostname or ip address.
If I install and register CMK Agent on the master, the cloned servers tell me, that the host was not registered. Seems to be correct, but there is no way I could do this, because cloning and starting is an automated process that could happen every day.
Is there a solution for this?

CMK version:2.2.0p16
OS version:Debian bookworm 12.2
Error message: [agent] Agent controller not registered(!!)
Output of “cmk --debug -vvn hostname”:

Checkmk version 2.2.0p16
+ FETCHING DATA
  Source: SourceInfo(hostname='server116', ipaddress='xxx.xxx.xxx.116', ident='agent', fetcher_type=<FetcherType.TCP: 8>, source_type=<SourceType.HOST: 1>)
[cpu_tracking] Start [7fbba7a6c750]
Read from cache: AgentFileCache(server116, path_template=/omd/sites/sitename/tmp/check_mk/cache/{hostname}, max_age=MaxAge(checking=0, discovery=270.0, inventory=270.0), simulation=False, use_only_cache=False, file_cache_mode=6)
Not using cache (does not exist)
[TCPFetcher] Execute data source
Connecting via TCP to xxx.xxx.xxx.116:6556 (5.0s timeout)
Detected transport protocol: TransportProtocol.TLS (b'16')
Closing TCP connection to xxx.xxx.xxx.116:6556
[cpu_tracking] Stop [7fbba7a6c750 - Snapshot(process=posix.times_result(user=0.0, system=0.0, children_user=0.0, children_system=0.0, elapsed=0.0))]
  Source: SourceInfo(hostname='server116', ipaddress='xxx.xxx.xxx.116', ident='piggyback', fetcher_type=<FetcherType.PIGGYBACK: 4>, source_type=<SourceType.HOST: 1>)
[cpu_tracking] Start [7fbba7a6da10]
Read from cache: NoCache(server116, path_template=/dev/null, max_age=MaxAge(checking=0.0, discovery=0.0, inventory=0.0), simulation=False, use_only_cache=False, file_cache_mode=1)
[cpu_tracking] Stop [7fbba7a6da10 - Snapshot(process=posix.times_result(user=0.0, system=0.0, children_user=0.0, children_system=0.0, elapsed=0.010000001639127731))]
+ PARSE FETCHER RESULTS
<<<esx_vsphere_vm:cached(1703241185,270)>>> / Transition NOOPParser -> HostSectionParser
<<<esx_vsphere_vm:cached(1703241081,270)>>> / Transition HostSectionParser -> HostSectionParser
<<<veeam_client:cached(1703241078,270):sep(9)>>> / Transition HostSectionParser -> HostSectionParser
<<<labels:sep(0)>>> / Transition HostSectionParser -> HostSectionParser
  HostKey(hostname='server116', source_type=<SourceType.HOST: 1>)  -> Not adding sections: Agent controller not registered
  HostKey(hostname='server116', source_type=<SourceType.HOST: 1>)  -> Add sections: ['esx_vsphere_vm', 'labels', 'veeam_client']
Received no piggyback data
[cpu_tracking] Start [7fbba7aa7850]
value store: synchronizing
Trying to acquire lock on /omd/sites/sitename/tmp/check_mk/counters/server116
Got lock on /omd/sites/sitename/tmp/check_mk/counters/server116
value store: loading from disk
Releasing lock on /omd/sites/sitename/tmp/check_mk/counters/server116
Released lock on /omd/sites/sitename/tmp/check_mk/counters/server116
ESX CPU              demand is 0.803 Ghz, 4 virtual CPUs
ESX Datastores       Stored on VMstore (22.0 TiB/17.0% free)
ESX Guest Tools      VMware Tools are installed and the version is current
ESX Heartbeat        Heartbeat status is green
ESX Hostsystem       Running on server144.int.sitename.de
ESX Memory           Host: 17.4 GiB, Guest: 2.88 GiB, Ballooned: 0 B, Private: 17.2 GiB, Shared: 0 B
ESX Mounted Devices  HA functionality guaranteed
ESX Name             server116
ESX Snapshots        Count: 0
[cpu_tracking] Stop [7fbba7aa7850 - Snapshot(process=posix.times_result(user=0.010000000000000009, system=0.0, children_user=0.0, children_system=0.0, elapsed=0.010000001639127731))]
[agent] Agent controller not registered(!!), [piggyback] Successfully processed from source 'server144', Successfully processed from source 'server140', Successfully processed from source 'server82', Piggyback file too old: 6 h, execution time 0.0 sec | execution_time=0.020 user_time=0.010 system_time=0.000 children_user_time=0.000 children_system_time=0.000 cmk_time_agent=0.010```
2

I know a lot want to do this but its really a bad idea to have the agent in the golden image. preferably you should install it with SCCM (That can also have issues if you don’t handle UUID correctly)

We have a PS1 script that handles the installation and the registration and we let SCCM run this.

3

You can have the agent installed in a VM template.
After deployment the command line can be used to register the agent for TLS and possibly the agent updater. This can be fully automated.

cmk-agent-ctl.exe register --help

check_mk_agent.exe updater register --help

4

Thanks for the hint, I’ll try to implement it in a startup script or scheduled task.
I can’t test with SCCM as we don’t use it.

5

Thanks again for your help, I created a simple Powershellscript with the needed parameters that is executed by a scheduled task at system startup.

6

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