The Heex Runtime Environment is an out-of-the-box solution for deploying and running your agents (i.e., Monitors and Recorders) alongside the Kernel executable on your production systems.

While our SDK aims to tackle the development of agents to enable the monitoring and extraction of smart data, the installer tool suite seeks to facilitate and automate their deployment on our customers’ target machines.

In brief, the Heex Runtime Environment deploys the Monitors, Recorders and Kernel executables and runs them as services on the target system. An alternative to service is possible on linux (e.g. when not supported on dockers for example). After this first installation, any subsequent installation will offer to update the executables with their most recent version available in the installer.

Once all the agents are developed, compiled, tested, and ready to be used in production for a system, you can use our installer tool to create the installer. It will bundle the environment into a self-extracting installer and manage which agents to run.

And finally, once you have manually run the installer once, any future installation/update of your system can be done Over The Air, from any Dev Station.

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How to create the Heex Runtime Environment

Prerequisites :

  • HeexSDK
  • Your agents executables
  • A system configuration file of your production environment
  • HeexCLI

You will now package your custom agents and the Kernelexecutable to facilitate their deployment to your new production system. This packaging process creates the Heex Runtime Environment.

📝 Note:

For information, the installer contains:

  • Kernel binaries
  • your custom Agents binaries that you have included (Monitors and Recorders)
  • the target System systemConf.json configuration file (optional)
  • Configuration files

If you need a special configuration, check Configuration before going to the next step.

This is a two-step process:

Let’s do an example with agents from get-started folder.

1. Copy your custom agents’ executables into the /agents folder of HeexSDK.

cd ~/Heex_SDK_version/get-started/cpp
copy GetStartedMonitor.exe ../../agents
copy GetStartedRecorder.exe ../../agents

2. create your installer using the CLI in the Heex_SDK_<version> directory

  • Make sure to use the path of the systemConf.json of your production system, not your Dev Station.
  • Run the following command to generate the HRE installer:
.\heex.exe hre package -c <downloaded_path>\systemConf.json

💡 Tip: 🎉 CONGRATULATIONS!

You have created your Heex Runtime Environment!

Please refer to the extra configurations in the section below before going to the next step.

How to manually install Heex Runtime Environment onto your production system ?

We strongly recommend you to check the kernel configuration to set the running configuration for the agent kernel.
The previous package step generated an installer for your production system. We will perform the installation.

  1. Copy the installer file to the Production system.
  2. Run it as a root user with the sudo command on Linux or with administrative rights on Windows. On linux, you can also set the execution mode, see note below.
    1. You shall see logs listing the Kernel executable and agent names and UUIDs that are getting deployed and installed as services (or background processes if applicable)
    2. Once the installation is completed, all agents shall be running.

📝 Note: execution mode

On linux, the default installation shall run your agents as services if systemctl is available on your system. If not, or if you want to have your executables running as background processes, you can add an option to the heex-installer by adding --execution_mode background to your installation command. Please understand that when in background process mode, any system reboot will not automatically re-run your agents.

/* 3. Check the system status on Heex Cloud. You should system your system UP. comment as it is not possible through the webplatform, periodic trigger shall indicate that */

💡 Tip: 🏆 CONGRATULATIONS!

You have installed the agents on your Production system!

📝 Note: Heex Runtime Environment uninstall

You can uninstall the agents by using the --uninstall option with the installer. More information can be found here on how to configure the installer.

How to update your Heex Runtime Environment onto your production system

Once you have installed an environment on your system, and you need to update it (ie add or remove new agents, update the kernel …), you have 2 options:

  1. Manually installing it by re-applying the previous step
  2. Automatically install it Over The Air (recommended)