Getting Started

Process Collection

Gremlin can collect information about the processes running on the Linux machines where the Gremlin Agent is installed. This process information is required to define Services in Gremlin Reliability Management and helps inform Gremlin's Service features.

As of Linux Agent version 2.25.0, Gremlin automatically enables Process Collection.

What is collected?

For every process visible to the Gremlin Agent, Gremlin will collect:

process ID (PID)
parent process ID (PPID)
active UDP and TCP sockets (ipaddress:port)
path to process executable
command line argument to process

Requirements

Gremlin Agent version 2.18.0
Gremlin Kubernetes Chao version 0.3+
Gremlin must run within the PID namespace of the host; for Kubernetes this means hostPID=true
Gremlin needs the CAP_SYS_PTRACE capability
Gremlin needs the CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH capability

Process Collection is not supported for Windows.

Enable Process Collection

As of Linux Agent version 2.25.0, Gremlin automatically enables Process Collection.

To enable Process Collection, use one of the following methods:

set GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=true in the Gremlin agent environment (by writing to /etc/default/gremlind)
set collect_processes: true in /etc/gremlin/config.yaml

Examples

The following sections show examples for enabling Process Collection on your platform.

Existing installation

shell

1# This setcap command is only required for versions below 2.18.0. These capabilities are set by default in later versions. 
2sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace,cap_dac_read_search+ep /usr/sbin/gremlind \
3  && echo GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=true | sudo tee -a /etc/default/gremlind \
4  && sudo systemctl restart gremlind

APT

shell

1echo "deb https://deb.gremlin.com/ release non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gremlin.list \
2  && sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 9CDB294B29A5B1E2E00C24C022E8EF3461A50EF6 \
3  && sudo apt update \
4  && GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=true sudo -E apt install gremlin gremlind

YUM

shell

1sudo curl https://rpm.gremlin.com/gremlin.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/gremlin.repo \
2  && GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=true sudo -E yum install gremlin gremlind

Kubernetes

If you’re upgrading an existing Helm installation of the Gremlin Agent, run the following command with helm upgrade instead of helm install.

shell

1helm repo add gremlin https://helm.gremlin.com
2helm repo update
3helm install gremlin gremlin/gremlin \
4  --namespace gremlin \
5  --set      gremlin.hostPID=true \
6  --set      gremlin.collect.processes=true \
7  --set      gremlin.secret.managed=true \
8  --set      gremlin.secret.type=secret \
9  --set      gremlin.secret.clusterID=my-cluster \
10  --set      gremlin.secret.teamID=$GREMLIN_TEAM_ID \
11  --set      gremlin.secret.teamSecret=$GREMLIN_TEAM_SECRET

Docker

shell

1docker run -d \
2  --pid=host \
3  --cap-add=SYS_PTRACE \
4  -v /var/lib/gremlin:/var/lib/gremlin \
5  -v /var/log/gremlin:/var/log/gremlin \
6  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
7  -e GREMLIN_TEAM_ID \
8  -e GREMLIN_TEAM_SECRET \
9  -e GREMLIN_IDENTIFIER \
10  -e GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=true \
11  gremlin/gremlin daemon

Disable Process Collection

To disable Process Collection, use one of the following methods:

set GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=false in the Gremlin agent environment (by writing to /etc/default/gremlind)
set collect_processes: false in /etc/gremlin/config.yaml

Examples

The following sections show examples for disabling Process Collection on your platform.

Existing installation

shell

1echo GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=false | sudo tee -a /etc/default/gremlind \
2  && sudo systemctl restart gremlind

APT

shell

1echo "deb https://deb.gremlin.com/ release non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gremlin.list \
2  && sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 9CDB294B29A5B1E2E00C24C022E8EF3461A50EF6 \
3  && sudo apt update \
4  && GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=false sudo -E apt install gremlin gremlind

YUM

shell

1sudo curl https://rpm.gremlin.com/gremlin.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/gremlin.repo \
2  && GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=false sudo -E yum install gremlin gremlind

Kubernetes

If you’re upgrading an existing Helm installation of the Gremlin Agent, run the following command with helm upgrade instead of helm install.

shell

1helm repo add gremlin https://helm.gremlin.com
2helm repo update
3helm install gremlin gremlin/gremlin \
4  --namespace gremlin \
5  --set      gremlin.hostPID=true \
6  --set      gremlin.collect.processes=false \
7  --set      gremlin.secret.managed=true \
8  --set      gremlin.secret.type=secret \
9  --set      gremlin.secret.clusterID=my-cluster \
10  --set      gremlin.secret.teamID=$GREMLIN_TEAM_ID \
11  --set      gremlin.secret.teamSecret=$GREMLIN_TEAM_SECRET

Docker

shell

1docker run -d \
2  --pid=host \
3  --cap-add=SYS_PTRACE \
4  -v /var/lib/gremlin:/var/lib/gremlin \
5  -v /var/log/gremlin:/var/log/gremlin \
6  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
7  -e GREMLIN_TEAM_ID \
8  -e GREMLIN_TEAM_SECRET \
9  -e GREMLIN_IDENTIFIER \
10  -e GREMLIN_COLLECT_PROCESSES=false \
11  gremlin/gremlin daemon