Check_mk agent -- must it be updated everytime check_mk server is updated?

Hi,
I’m currently looking at migration plan for several sites running on older rev of check_mk (1.2.x) to latest.
I know how to upgrade the sites, but I notice several monitored hosts within each site that have the older check_mk agent installed.

  1. can I get away with upgrading the sites and still monitoring the hosts using older check_mk agent?
  1. does the check_mk agent have to updated everytime check_mk server is updated (within the same major version) ? or is there backwards compatibility?

  2. can someone point me to a doc that explains the (fastest/simplest/non-disruptive) way to update several hosts to the desired version of check_mk agent?

thx

Yes - it can only be that some information is missing what is only provided by newer agents

As before agents can be older then the server.

Depends on the type of software distribution you are using for your servers.
If you use the enterprise edition you can also use the agent bakery and deployment.

So, even thought we now run CEE instead of raw, instead of doing the Agent Bakery style approach, we opted to use our existing CM mechanisms to push the changes out to our hosts. That may be a viable approach for people using raw.

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For those who do not use the agent bakery: Remember to also check and, if necessary, update the agent plugins you have installed on your monitored hosts.

And if you want to monitor the agent version: There’s a check for that! :wink:

WATO → Host & Service Parameters → Access to Agents → [CHECK_MK AGENT] Check for correct version of Check_MK agent

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I’m running on raw and when it was just a few hosts that needed updating I did it manually, or just didn’t bother to upgrade the agent

But for now I have puppet in place to take care of the distribution of new agent versions. I just replace the check_mk_agent script on the puppet master and off it goes to all the clients. If you prefer nice GUIs to configure something like this you can also try rudder which will do the same for you. (And I bet there’s many more of these tools).

thanks for the tip! I’ll look into both, knowing our system admins do use puppet today.

In puppet it’s very easy. Just distribute the check_mk_agent script (and plugins you use) to the right place. Somthing like this in your manifest should do the trick:

class checkmk {
file {
“/usr/bin/check_mk_agent”:
ensure => present,
source => “puppet:///modules/checkmk/check_mk_agent.linux”,
mode => “u+rwx”,
}
}

And as soon as you update the file on your puppet server it will spread out on all you’re clients like magic.

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