Install the infrastructure monitoring agent for Linux

Our infrastructure monitoring agent for Linux can be installed using several package managers. You can use our launcher, or follow the instructions in this document to complete a basic installation.

Install using the launcher

Before installing our infrastructure monitoring agent for Linux, be sure to:

• Review the requirements.
• Have a valid New Relic license key.

To install our infrastructure monitoring agent, click the button for your Linux distribution, then follow the instructions:

Amazon Linux

CentOS

Container (Docker)

Debian

RHEL

SLES

Ubuntu

Other Linux distros

To use the links above, you must be logged to your New Relic account.

If you don't have a New Relic account yet, or prefer to follow the procedure manually, see our step-by-step tutorial in the next section.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Create the configuration file and add your license key:

   echo "license_key: YOUR_LICENSE_KEY" | sudo tee -a /etc/newrelic-infra.yml

2. Determine the distribution version number:

   Debian

   cat /etc/os-release

   Ubuntu

   cat /etc/lsb-release

   Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL

   cat /etc/os-release

   SLES

   cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION_ID

3. Enable New Relic's GPG key.

   Debian

   curl -s https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/gpg/newrelic-infra.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

   Ubuntu

   curl -s https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/gpg/newrelic-infra.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

   Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL

   yum automatically installs the GPG key using the value in gpgkey.

   SLES

   curl https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/gpg/newrelic-infra.gpg -s | sudo gpg --import
   

   There's a known issue with the zypper package manager where GPG keys may not be validated as expected. If you get errors such as Signature verification failed, see New Relic's Explorers Hub for more information.

4. Add the infrastructure monitoring agent repository:

   Debian

   Debian 8 ("Jessie")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt jessie main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Debian 9 ("Stretch")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt stretch main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Debian 10 ("Buster")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt buster main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Ubuntu

   Ubuntu 12 ("Precise")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt precise main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Ubuntu 14 ("Trusty")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt trusty main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Ubuntu 16 ("Xenial")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt xenial main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Ubuntu 18 ("Bionic")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt bionic main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Ubuntu 20 ("Focal")

   printf "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/apt focal main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/newrelic-infra.list

   Amazon Linux

   Amazon Linux

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/6/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   Amazon Linux 2

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/7/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   CentOS / RHEL

   CentOS 5.x, RHEL 5.x

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/5/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   CentOS 6.x, RHEL 6.x

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/6/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   CentOS 7.x, RHEL 7.x

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/7/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   CentOS 8.x, RHEL 8.x

   sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/yum/el/8/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   SLES

   SLES 11.4

   sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/zypp/sles/11.4/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo

   SLES 12.1

   sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/zypp/sles/12.1/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo 

   SLES 12.2

   sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/zypp/sles/12.2/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo 

   SLES 12.3

   sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/zypp/sles/12.3/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo 

   SLES 12.4

   sudo curl -o /etc/zypp/repos.d/newrelic-infra.repo https://download.newrelic.com/infrastructure_agent/linux/zypp/sles/12.4/x86_64/newrelic-infra.repo  

5. Refresh the repositories:

   Debian

   sudo apt-get update

   Ubuntu

   sudo apt-get update

   Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL

   sudo yum -q makecache -y --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo='newrelic-infra'

   SLES

   sudo zypper -n ref -r newrelic-infra

6. Install the newrelic-infra package in root (default), privileged user, or unprivileged user mode. For more information on each running mode, see Linux agent running modes.

   Root (default)

   • Debian and Ubuntu:

     sudo apt-get install newrelic-infra -y

   • Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL:

     sudo yum install newrelic-infra -y

   • SLES:

     sudo zypper -n install newrelic-infra

   Privileged user

   Install the libcap library and set the NRIA_MODE environment variable to PRIVILEGED.

   • Debian and Ubuntu:

     sudo apt-get install libcap2-bin

     sudo NRIA_MODE="PRIVILEGED" apt-get install newrelic-infra

   • Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL:

     sudo yum install libcap

     sudo NRIA_MODE="PRIVILEGED" yum install newrelic-infra

   • SLES:

     sudo zypper install libcap-progs

     sudo NRIA_MODE="PRIVILEGED" zypper install newrelic-infra

   Unprivileged user

   Install the libcap library and set the NRIA_MODE environment variable to UNPRIVILEGED.

   • Debian and Ubuntu:

     sudo apt-get install libcap2-bin

     sudo NRIA_MODE="UNPRIVILEGED" apt-get install newrelic-infra

   • Amazon Linux, CentOS, RHEL:

     sudo yum install libcap

     sudo NRIA_MODE="UNPRIVILEGED" yum install newrelic-infra

   • SLES:

     sudo zypper install libcap-progs

     sudo NRIA_MODE="UNPRIVILEGED" zypper install newrelic-infra

Once the infrastructure monitoring agent is installed or updated, you can start, stop, or check the agent status.

Install using configuration management tools

To install the infrastructure monitoring agent with a configuration management tool, see the documentation for:

• Ansible
• Chef
• Docker (install as container)
• Elastic Beanstalk
• Puppet

Install for Docker containers on instrumented hosts

See Docker instrumentation for infrastructure monitoring.

Install using Azure extensions

See Azure extensions for infrastructure monitoring.

Install using tarball files

For custom setup scenarios, you can install the infrastructure monitoring agent using our tarball files in assisted or manual modes.

This is especially useful when you need to adapt the default installation settings to your environment, or to install the infrastructure monitoring agent on distributions that lack the newrelic-infra package in their repositories.

Update the agent

Follow standard procedures to update the infrastructure monitoring agent.

If you are using sudo to install or update the agent, use the -E argument to allow bypassing the environment variables, or specify the NRIA_MODE environment variable just after sudo.

export NRIA_MODE="SET_MODE_HERE"

OR

sudo -E YOUR_PACKAGE_MANAGER_UPDATE_COMMAND

What's next?

Generate some traffic and wait a few minutes, then view your hosts in the New Relic One UI. If necessary, follow our troubleshooting procedures if no data appears.

The only required configuration option is the license_key setting, which is created as part of the installation procedures. You may also want to:

• Add custom attributes to annotate your infrastructure data.
• Connect your AWS account if your servers are hosted on Amazon EC2.
• Enable log forwarding.
• Add other New Relic infrastructure integrations to collect data from external services.

For more help