Configuration

This page covers settings for running Sematext Agent in containers. Settings that apply to every installation, such as proxy, logging, and journal settings, are on the Sematext Agent configuration page.

Configuration File¶

To use an st-agent.yml configuration file with the agent container, mount the file from the host into the container file system and set the CONFIG_FILE environment variable to its path inside the container. See Sematext Agent configuration for the file format.

Environment Variables¶

Variable	Description
Docker Connection Options
DOCKER_TRANSPORT	Defines the transport protocol for communication with Docker daemon. The default transport is UNIX domain socket (`unix:///var/run/docker.sock`). For TCP transport you have to specify an IP address that's reachable from container (`DOCKER_TRANSPORT=tcp://ip-reachable-from-container:2375/`).
DOCKER_CERT_PATH	Specifies the path to your certificate files when communication with Docker daemon is carried out over secure channel.
Container Monitoring
CONTAINER_ENABLED	Determines whether the container collector is enabled. Default value is `true`. To disable container collector set `CONTAINER_ENABLED=false`.
CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_IMAGE, CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_NAME	These variables control the inclusion of detected containers either by image or container name. Can contain a comma separated list of full container/images names or regular expression patterns (`CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_IMAGE=nginx,mongo*`).
CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE, CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_NAME	These variables control the exclusion of detected containers either by image or container name. Can contain a comma separated list of full container/images names or regular expression patterns (`CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx,mongo`). Important*: By default, the agent skips the following images: `CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=sematext/agent,sematext/app-agent,timberio/vector`. If you modify this environment variable, please ensure to append these options to your configuration.

Populating Environment Variables¶

Environment variables for container-based agents can be directly populated using the manifest. For instance, consider the following installation instruction:

docker run -d --restart always --privileged -P --name st-agent --memory 512MB \
-v /:/hostfs:ro \
-v /sys/:/hostfs/sys:ro \
-v /var/run/:/var/run/ \
-v /sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug \
-v /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro \
-v /etc/group:/etc/group:ro \
-v /dev:/hostfs/dev:ro \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
-e INFRA_TOKEN=85015a9b-6530-4023-9a68-660cce3546b3 \
-e SERVER_BASE_URL=https://spm-receiver.sematext.com \
-e LOGS_RECEIVER_URL=https://logsene-receiver.sematext.com \
-e EVENTS_RECEIVER_URL=https://event-receiver.sematext.com \
-e AIMONITORING_RECEIVER_URL=https://aimonitoring-receiver.sematext.com \
-e COMMAND_SERVER_URL=https://command.sematext.com \
sematext/agent:latest-4

You can add different environment variables preceded by the -e argument. For example, if you want to ignore the discovery of nginx processes, add -e CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx. Remember to place the last \ right after:

docker run -d --restart always --privileged -P --name st-agent --memory 512MB \
-v /:/hostfs:ro \
-v /sys/:/hostfs/sys:ro \
-v /var/run/:/var/run/ \
-v /sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug \
-v /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro \
-v /etc/group:/etc/group:ro \
-v /dev:/hostfs/dev:ro \
-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
-e INFRA_TOKEN=<your-infra-token> \
-e SERVER_BASE_URL=https://spm-receiver.sematext.com \
-e LOGS_RECEIVER_URL=https://logsene-receiver.sematext.com \
-e EVENTS_RECEIVER_URL=https://event-receiver.sematext.com \
-e AIMONITORING_RECEIVER_URL=https://aimonitoring-receiver.sematext.com \
-e COMMAND_SERVER_URL=https://command.sematext.com \
-e CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx \
sematext/agent:latest-4

To skip multiple images simply separate them with a comma. In the example below we ignore containers whose names contain nginx or httpd.

docker run -d --restart always --privileged -P --name st-agent --memory 512MB \
-v /:/hostfs:ro \
-v /sys/:/hostfs/sys:ro \
# ...
-e CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx,apache/httpd \
sematext/agent:latest-4

Note: The CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE values will search for any substring match among the discovered images. Therefore, if you wish to skip the apache/httpd image, you can simply use httpd. This applies similarly to other matching and skipping options such as CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_IMAGE, CONTAINER_MATCH_BY_NAME, and CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_NAME.

If you are using Docker Swarm, append the new line in the environment section of your docker-compose.yml file:

# docker-compose.yml
version: "3"
services:
  st-agent:
    image: sematext/agent:latest-4
    privileged: true
    environment:
      - INFRA_TOKEN=<your-infra-token>
      - SERVER_BASE_URL=https://spm-receiver.sematext.com
      - LOGS_RECEIVER_URL=https://logsene-receiver.sematext.com
      - EVENTS_RECEIVER_URL=https://event-receiver.sematext.com
      - AIMONITORING_RECEIVER_URL=https://aimonitoring-receiver.sematext.com
      - COMMAND_SERVER_URL=https://command.sematext.com
      - CONTAINER_SKIP_BY_IMAGE=nginx
    cap_add:
      - SYS_ADMIN
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - /:/hostfs:ro
      - /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro
      - /etc/group:/etc/group:ro
      - /var/run/:/var/run
      - /sys/kernel/debug:/sys/kernel/debug
      - /sys:/host/sys:ro
      - /dev:/hostfs/dev:ro
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro