Features configuration

Overview

This guide describes the F5 NGINX Agent features, and how to enable and disable features using the NGINX Agent configuration file.

Before you begin

Before you start, make sure that you have:

  • NGINX Agent installed in your system.
  • Access to the NGINX Agent configuration file.

Features

The following table lists the NGINX Agent features.

Feature Name Description Default/Non-default
registration Registering the NGINX Agent with the management plane. Default
nginx-config-async Enable the publishing and uploading of NGINX configurations from the management plane. Default
metrics Enable collecting of NGINX metrics. Default
metrics-throttle Batch metrics before sending. Non-default
metrics-sender Reports metrics over the gRPC connection. Non-default
dataplane-status Report the health of the NGINX Instance. Default
process-watcher Observe changes to the NGINX process. Default
file-watcher Observe changes to the NGINX configuration or any changes to files on disk. Default
activity-events Send NGINX or NGINX Agent related events to the management plane. Default
agent-api Enable the NGINX Agent REST API. Default

Use Cases

Enable metrics only

  1. Access the NGINX Instance: SSH to the virtual machine/server where NGINX Agent is running.
    ssh user@your-nginx-instance
  1. Edit NGINX Agent configuration:
    sudo vim /etc/nginx-agent/nginx-agent.conf
  1. Add Features section: Add the following yaml to the end of the file:
    features:
      - metrics
      - metrics-throttle
      - dataplane-status
  1. Restart the NGINX Agent service: Restart the NGINX Agent service to enable changes.

Once the steps have been completed, users will be able to view metrics data being sent but will not have the capability to push NGINX configuration changes.

Enable the publishing of NGINX configurations and disable the collection of metrics.

  1. Access the NGINX Instance: SSH to the virtual machine/server where NGINX Agent is running.
    ssh user@your-nginx-instance
  1. Edit NGINX Agent configuration:
    sudo vim /etc/nginx-agent/nginx-agent.conf
  1. Add Features section: Add the following yaml to the end of the file:
    features:
      - nginx-config-async
      - dataplane-status
      - file-watcher
  1. Restart the NGINX Agent service: Restart the NGINX Agent service to enable changes.

Once the steps have been completed, users will be able to publish NGINX configurations but metrics data will not be collected by the NGINX Agent.