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Desktop Agent installation (silent) and connecting it to Management Console

Important

There are two means to connect an agent to the Management Console upon installation: using agent config or using only IP address on MC (simple mode).

When using config method, admin shall generate sync.conf file in advance. Open the Management Console, go to Settings -> General or Agents -> '+ Connect New Agent' -> Generate Agents Config and generate a configuration file.

server-settings.jpg

Adjust the fields in the config:edit the server's IP address, if necessary, or put there the server's DNS address; you can also regenerate the bootstrap token if it expired or got compromised; if necessary, edit default storage path.

generate_config.png

Download sync.conf file, copy it or use QR come (for mobiles) to deliver it to Resilio Connect Agents. Follow the below mentioned instructions to install and connect Agents to the Management Console.

USING CONFIG FILE

There are three ways to feed sync.conf to the installer:
  • place the “sync.conf” file into the same folder as the downloaded MSI installer and it will be picked up automatically
  • put config to some other dir and point the installer to it (mind the closing slash)
  • paste it as text from clipboard (can be copied from MC)

Once installed, the Resilio Connect Agent will immediately pick up the config file and attempt to connect to Resilio Server using the parameters in config files.

USING CONSOLE'S IP ADDRESS

Select option "Enter Console's address after installation". It requires Agent UI to be started automatically. When installed, enter IP or DNS name of the Management Console, update port if necessary and click 'Connect"

Agent will attempt to connect. If connection was successful, it will show status 'Pending approval' meaning that an Admin must approve this Agent on MC. If it's necessary to update address, click "Abort" and enter the new address.

SILENT INSTALLATION

For silent installation use the following parameters for msiexec.exe utility

msiexec.exe /i Filename.msi ADDSOURCE=ALL /qn SERVICE_USER="Local System" CONFIG_SRC_PATH="C:\path\to\config\Downloads\" /norestart

Flag ADDSOURCE=ALL can be replaced with ADDLOCAL="MainApplication,AgentUi,FileLockingDriver" to specify which extensions you'd like to install.

Flag SERVICE_USER="Local System" can be used to specify service installation under System or a local user. Otherwise, can be omitted, and service will be installed as Local System by default. Add SERVICE_USER_PASSWORD when installing as local user.

Flag CONFIG_SRC_PATH="C:\path\to\config\Downloads\" is necessary to point the service to the config file downloaded from Server. Note the trailing slash in the path, and make sure that config is named sync.conf exactly.

CONFIG_SRC_PATH

must be absolute and must be specified if you want MSI to load config file during installation.

/norestart parameter blocks the automatic reboot of the system right after installation. Reboot is not always required to complete Agent installation. You can manually reboot later at a convenient time if required.

Also note that being silently installed, agent won't open its UI automatically, even though agent UI is enabled in config. One needs to use agent's shortcut on desktop to open it.

USING CONFIG FILE

Starting with Resilio Active Anywhere Platform v4 the Agent may not start due to missing libraries in the system. Error is reported in the Terminal upon start error while loading shared libraries: libfuse.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. Manually install the libraries with sudo apt install libfuse2 fuse3

Download and unpack the Agent binary to your preferred location. Put sync.conf file to some available location, can be the same as binary's. Start agent with the following arguments: ./rslagent --config <path_to_sync.conf>

Please note that on Linux, files created by Resilio Connect are owned by the user running the “rslagent” process and with its umask. It is unaware of any ACLs applied to your filesystem and will use POSIX.1 permissions.

USING CONSOLE'S IP ADDRESS

Download and unpack the binary. Start the agent with the following argument ./rslagent --server IP:8444 DNS or IP addresses are supported. Update the port if necessary. Agent will attempt to connect to the MC. If connection was successful, agent will save the address in its settings and appear in the list of agents in Management Console.

Starting with Resilio Agent v2.12.5, the tar ball comes with a bash script which changes some of system settings to boost performance for the Agent. 
Launching this script is optional, and Admin needs to manually add the executable attribute to the script with command sudo chmod +x adjust adjustsettings.sh. The script does the following:
1) increases system socket buffers to increase speed of synchronization over ZGT protocol 
2) increases number of notify watchers so that the Agent receives file system notifications about all files and does not run out of the watchers
3) remove core dumps limits. With the limits removed, the Agent will be able to create core dump if it crashes. Note, the limit is removed for other applications on the computer as well, thus core dumps created  by them may take a lot of storage space. 

You can also install Connect agent using Linux package from our custom repository. Check this article with complete info.

Resilio Connect can be installed on low-profile Linux devices in the same manner, though please refer to this article for limitations applied to low-profile devices.

USING CONSOLE'S IP ADDRESS

After you launch the installer, select option "Host" and proceed with installation. When installed, enter IP or DNS name of the Management Console, update port if necessary and click 'Connect"

Agent will attempt to connect. If connection was successful, it will show status 'Pending approval' meaning that an Admin must approve this Agent on MC.

On OS X, Agent runs under user account and will only launch upon login.

USING CONFIG FILE

  • Open the downloaded “Resilio Connect Agent.dmg” package, drag the "Resilio Connect" app to the "Applications" folder and launch from there. Select "Config file" option and browse for sync.conf file delivered from the Management Console.
  • Or, select "Editor" and paste the config as text from clipboard (can be copied from Management Console)

STEPS

Resilio Connect Agent is pre-packaged for a few NASes, installation guides are here. For others Agent installation will require Linux administration skills as well as knowledge of your NAS internals. There are certain limitations concerning how Agents run on NASes, therefore please refer to this article for more information.

  1. SSH to your NAS.
    Note that some vendors restrict SSH access to the NAS and enabling it may void your warranty.
  2. Find proper location for your Resilio Connect Agent and put the binary there.
    Some vendors may wipe out /opt folder during reboot and/or NAS upgrade so it is better to put your Resilio Connect Agent to some location vendor designated for 3rd party applications.
  3. Deliver sync.conf from server and put it into appropriate directory on your NAS
  4. Add the parameter "storage_path" to sync.conf and point it to the location where Resilio Connect Agent will store its settings and configuration data. The user running the Agent will require full access permissions to the location. The line will be like this, verify json format after editing config:
    "storage_path":"/some/path",
  5. Ensure that Agent is started up when necessary with the following arguments:
    ./rslagent --config <path_to_sync.conf>
    Note that some NAS vendors re-image standard Linux startup scripts (like /etc/rc.local)

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