Installing Collectors
Last updated on 25 August, 2023The LogicMonitor Collector monitors your infrastructure and collects the data defined by LogicModules for each resource in that location. You do not need to install a Collector on every device, instead one Collector on a server should be used to monitor all the resources in that location. See About the LogicMonitor Collector.
This article walks you through the steps to install a Collector in your LogicMonitor portal.
Installing the Collector in a container
LogicMonitor also supports installing and running the Collector in a Docker container. Installation of a containerized Collector does not support all install options. For example, you can only run the full installation, not the bootstrap, and you will need to run the Collector process as root. See Installing the Collector in a Container.
Installation Settings
In your LogicMonitor portal, navigate to Settings | Collectors | Add | Collector:
Follow the steps in the Add a Collector dialog to complete and verify the Collector installation.
Choose Where to Install a Collector
The first step in adding a Collector is deciding which device will host the Collector.
For each location of your infrastructure, we recommend that you install a Collector on a Windows or Linux server that is physically close to or on the same network as the resources it will monitor. Most often, Collectors are installed on machines that function as syslog servers or DNS servers.
To ensure reliability, the Collector should not communicate across the internet to poll resources in another datacenter, through firewalls or network address translation (NAT) gateways.
Requirements for Collector Servers
The following table lists general requirements for choosing a server to host the Collector.
| Requirement | Details |
| Windows Server or Linux running on a physical or virtual server | LogicMonitor follows the Microsoft Lifecycle Policy for the “Extended Support End Date” and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle for the “End of Maintenance Support 2 (Product retirement)” date to determine which Windows Server and Linux operating systems are supported for Collector installation. We support the following Linux distributions:
Notes: |
| Comprehensive port access | The server must be able to make outgoing HTTPS (port 443) connection to the LogicMonitor servers (proxies are supported). In addition, the ports for the monitoring protocols you intend to use (such as SNMP, WMI, JDBC, etc.) must be unrestricted between your Collector and the resources you want to monitor. For a detailed list of the ports, see About the LogicMonitor Collector. |
| 2GB of RAM | A minimum of 2GB of RAM. (More memory permits a Collector to collect data from more resources.) See Collector Capacity. |
| Reliable time | The Collector should have reliable time, thus the server should have NTP setup or Windows Time Services to synchronize via NTP. If running on a VMware virtual machine, install VMware tools with VMware tools periodic Time Sync disabled. |
| English-language support | LogicMonitor does not support non-English languages. |
Monitor the Collector’s Performance
We recommend that you check the option: Monitor the Device on which the collector is installed. This will allow you to keep track of the CPU utilization, disk usage and other metrics to ensure that the Collector is running and keeping up with its data collection load. See Monitoring Your Collectors.
You may also assign the Collector device into a Device Group. If you leave the device “Ungrouped”, LogicMonitor will automatically add it to the dynamic group “Collectors”. See Device Groups Overview.
Select a Collector
The next step in adding a Collector is specifying the type, version, and the monitoring capacity (size) for the Collector you will install onto your server. You may also assign the new Collector to a Collector Group.
Collector Type
Select the appropriate Collector download file for your server: Linux or Windows. For both Windows and Linux, we support only 64-bit Operating System. The type of Collector you choose to install depends on the resources it will monitor. For example, to collect data from Windows devices, you need to install the Collector on a Windows server.
Collector Version
Select from the available General Release and Early Release Collectors.
| Version | Description |
| General Release | General Release Collectors are our stable release versions. We recommend this version for most infrastructures. |
| Early Release | Early Release Collectors offer new features and functionality which may still be under development. You may want to install this to test the new features. But if you have a large deployment we don’t recommend installing this version to monitor your entire infrastructure. |
You can always change the version by uninstalling and installing a new Collector.
Collector Size
The Collector size refers to the monitoring capacity for the Collector. The number of resources that a Collector can monitor depends on the data collection method that it uses (such as SNMP, JDBC, WMI, and so on). See Collector Capacity.
You can choose from four available Collector sizes:
| Size | Description |
| Nano | This Collector is intended for testing purposes and not recommended for production environments. It does not have a memory requirement as it will consume less than 1GB of system memory and will monitor a limited number of Resources. |
| Small | This Collector will consume approximately 2GB of system memory and is capable of monitoring roughly 200 (Linux Collector) or 100 (Windows Collector) Resources. |
| Medium | This Collector will consume approximately 4GB of system memory and is capable of monitoring roughly 1000 (Linux Collector) or 500 (Windows Collector) Resources. |
| Large | This Collector will consume approximately 8GB of system memory and is capable of monitoring roughly 2000 (Linux Collector) or 750 (Windows Collector) Resources. |
| Extra Large | This Collector will consume approximately 16GB of system memory. |
| Double Extra Large | This Collector will consume approximately 32GB of system memory. |
Assign Collector Group
You may assign the new Collector to an existing Collector Group or create a new group. Collector Groups pool your Collectors based on their physical locations, defined environments (QA, Development, or Production), or if you are an MSP customer and streamlines the configuration and management of multiple Collectors. See Collector Groups.
Download and Install
This step provides options for you to download the installer file for the collector you selected.
Installer Options
Under Download a Collector, you can choose between two installer packages:
- “Bootstrap” downloads a smaller installation package (~500kB) for a faster install using the LogicMonitor CDN.
- “Full package” downloads the installation package which is approximately 200MB.
Installing a Windows Collector
1. Download the installer file directly to your server or use one of the download command options.
For Windows, we provide options to download and install using PowerShell or a URL. Click on the option to copy the download command to your clipboard and then run it on your server.
2. After downloading the installer onto your Windows server, open it to start the Install Shield Wizard.
The Install Shield Wizard will extract the binary and prompt you for credentials. These credentials will correspond to the account that the Collector will run under, which may be Local System or a domain account with local administrator permissions .
- If this Collector is not monitoring other Windows systems, run the service as Local System.
- If this Collector is monitoring other Windows systems in the same domain, run the service as a domain account with local administrator permissions.
- If this Collector is monitoring other Windows systems and they are not part of the same domain, run the service as a local administrator and connect to each resource with local administrator credentials. You may choose to set up the password so that it doesn’t expire, to reduce authentication issues between the Collector and its monitored resources. See Credentials for Accessing Remote Windows Computers.
The LogicMonitor Collector service must be granted “Log on as a service” under “Local Policy/User Rights Assignment” in the Windows server’s local security policy settings. See Troubleshooting Windows Collectors.
If the Windows server is running antivirus software, you will need to add a recursive exclusion for the LogicMonitor Collector application directory. See About the LogicMonitor Collector.
Installing a Linux Collector
Note: There are a number of requirements for Linux environments:
- For Collectors running version 28.500 (or higher numbered versions), the Bourne shell is required for the Linux installation script. You may need to install the “vim-common” package to get the “xxd” binary that the installer depends on.
- For Collectors running version 28.100 (or higher numbered versions), the “sudo” package must be installed on Linux when running the Collector as a non-root user. The installer will also make additions to /etc/sudoers to handle service restart and memory dumps.
- In Linux environments with the Collector running in containers, the Collector must run as root: suid root is /bin/ping.
1. Download the installer file directly to your server (if your server supports web browsing) or onto another server and use a file transfer option (such as scp) to copy it to the server where you will install the collector.
For Linux, we also provide options to download and install using cURL or Wget. Click on the option to copy the download command to your clipboard and then run it on your server.
2. After downloading the installer onto your Linux server, change the permissions to make the binary executable:
# chmod +x <installer-file>.bin
3. Run the executable:
# ./<installer-file>.bin
When the installation completes, you will see a message that it installed successfully.
Note: Installing the Collector on Linux creates a default user, called logicmonitor, to run the Collector as a user without root privileges. Although you can select a different user or run as root, LogicMonitor recommends using this logicmonitor user created by the install script.
If you want to install Linux collector as root, please contact LogicMonitor product team or technical support team.
If you have issues with your Linux collector, see Troubleshooting Linux Collectors.
Verify Connection
After successfully installing the Collector on your Windows or Linux server, return to the “Add a Collector” dialog in LogicMonitor and verify that the Collector is connected to your portal.
Collector Hostname
Each Collector has a name or ID that is registered with the LogicMonitor server when you download the Collector. The Collector’s hostname refers to the IP address or DNS name of the server that the Collector has been installed on.
- For Linux, the Collector will resolve the hostname by running the
hostname -forhostnamecommands. If both commands fail, the hostname defaults to:localhost.localdomain. - For Windows, the hostname is a combination of the domain and
computername.
Next Steps
After installing a Collector, you can start adding resources to be monitored.