IMPORTANT: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the current release documentation.

« Elastic Agents Uninstall Elastic Agent »

› ›

Install Elastic Agents

edit

Install Elastic Agents

edit

This functionality is in beta and is subject to change. The design and code is less mature than official GA features and is being provided as-is with no warranties. Beta features are not subject to the support SLA of official GA features.

To collect and ship data to the Elastic Stack, install an Elastic Agent on each host you want to monitor. These steps assume that you’re running a fresh installation. If Elastic Agent is already running on your system and you want to upgrade to a new version, see Upgrade Elastic Agent.

You have a couple options for installing and managing an Elastic Agent:

Install a Fleet-managed Elastic Agent (recommended)

With Fleet, you enroll each agent in a policy defined in Kibana and stored in Elasticsearch. The policy specifies how to collect observability data from the services you want to monitor. The Elastic Agent connects to a trusted Fleet Server instance to retrieve the policy and report agent events.

We recommend using Fleet management because it makes the management and upgrade of your agents considerably easier.

See Install a Fleet-managed Elastic Agent.
Run an Elastic Agent standalone (advanced users)

With standalone mode, you manually configure and manage Elastic Agents locally on the systems where they are installed. This approach is recommended for advanced users only.

See Run Elastic Agent standalone (advanced users).

Install a Fleet-managed Elastic Agent

edit

This section shows the commands to install an Elastic Agent and enroll it in Fleet. If you’re a new user, read the Quick Start and follow the in-product steps in Kibana, if possible, instead of following the steps described here.

Prerequisites:

A Fleet Server must be running in a location accessible to the Elastic Agent. See Fleet Server.
You must have an enrollment token generated by Fleet. Don’t have a Fleet enrollment key? Read the Quick start guide to learn how to get one from Fleet.
You must have the host and IP where Fleet Server is running. Not sure where it’s running? Look at the Fleet settings in Kibana.
If you’re running Elastic Agent 7.9 or earlier, stop the agent and manually remove it from your host.

To install an Elastic Agent and enroll it in Fleet:

On your host, download and extract the installation package.

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/elastic-agent/elastic-agent-7.13.4-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf elastic-agent-7.13.4-darwin-x86_64.tar.gz

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/elastic-agent/elastic-agent-7.13.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf elastic-agent-7.13.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

To simplify upgrading to future versions of Elastic Agent, we recommended that you use the tarball distribution instead of the DEB distribution.

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/elastic-agent/elastic-agent-7.13.4-amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i elastic-agent-7.13.4-amd64.deb

To simplify upgrading to future versions of Elastic Agent, we recommended that you use the tarball distribution instead of the RPM distribution.

curl -L -O https://artifacts.elastic.co/downloads/beats/elastic-agent/elastic-agent-7.13.4-x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -vi elastic-agent-7.13.4-x86_64.rpm

From the agent directory, run the following commands to install Elastic Agent, enroll it in Fleet, and start it as a service.

On macOS, Linux (tar package), and Windows, run the install command to install Elastic Agent as a managed service, enroll it in Fleet, and start the service. The DEB and RPM packages include a service unit for Linux systems with systemd, so use the enroll command instead of install.

You must run this command as the root user because some integrations require root privileges to collect sensitive data.

cd elastic-agent-7.13.4-darwin-x86_64
sudo ./elastic-agent install -f --url=<fleet_server_url> --enrollment-token=<enrollment_token>

	`fleet_server_url` is the host and IP where Fleet Server is running, and `enrollment_token` is the enrollment token acquired from Fleet.
	Omit `-f` to run an interactive installation.

You must run this command as the root user because some integrations require root privileges to collect sensitive data.

cd elastic-agent-7.13.4-linux-x86_64
sudo ./elastic-agent install -f --url=<fleet_server_url> --enrollment-token=<enrollment_token>

	`fleet_server_url` is the host and IP where Fleet Server is running, and `enrollment_token` is the enrollment token acquired from Fleet.
	This command requires a system and service manager like systemd.
	Omit `-f` to run an interactive installation.

Open a PowerShell prompt as an Administrator (right-click the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator).

From the PowerShell prompt, change to the directory where you installed Elastic Agent, and run:

.\elastic-agent.exe install -f --url=<fleet_server_url> --enrollment-token=<enrollment_token>

	`fleet_server_url` is the host and IP where Fleet Server is running, and `enrollment_token` is the enrollment token acquired from Fleet.
	Omit `-f` to run an interactive installation.

You must run this command as the root user because some integrations require root privileges to collect sensitive data.

sudo elastic-agent enroll --url=<fleet_server_url> --enrollment-token=<enrollment_token> 
sudo systemctl enable elastic-agent 
sudo systemctl start elastic-agent

	`fleet_server_url` is the host and IP where Fleet Server is running, and `enrollment_token` is the enrollment token acquired from Fleet. Not sure where Fleet Server is running? Look at the Fleet settings in Kibana.
	The DEB package includes a service unit for Linux systems with systemd. On these systems, you can manage Elastic Agent by using the usual systemd commands. If you don’t have systemd, run `sudo service elastic-agent start`.

You must run this command as the root user because some integrations require root privileges to collect sensitive data.

sudo elastic-agent enroll --url=<fleet_server_url> --enrollment-token=<enrollment_token> 
sudo systemctl enable elastic-agent 
sudo systemctl start elastic-agent

	`fleet_server_url` is the host and IP where Fleet Server is running, and `enrollment_token` is the enrollment token acquired from Fleet.
	The RPM package includes a service unit for Linux systems with systemd. On these systems, you can manage Elastic Agent by using the usual systemd commands. If you don’t have systemd, run `sudo service elastic-agent start`.

Refer to Installation layout for the location of installed Elastic Agent files.

Because Elastic Agent is installed as an auto-starting service, it will restart automatically if the system is rebooted.

To confirm that Elastic Agent is installed and running, go to the Agents tab in Fleet.

If you run into problems, see Troubleshoot common problems.

Installation layout

edit

When you run the install command, Elastic Agent installs files in the following locations. You cannot override these installation paths because they are required for upgrades.

/Library/Elastic/Agent/*: Elastic Agent program files
/Library/Elastic/Agent/elastic-agent.yml: Main Elastic Agent configuration
/Library/Elastic/Agent/fleet.yml: Main Elastic Agent Fleet configuration
/Library/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent-json.log: Log files for Elastic Agent^[1]
/Library/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/default/*-json.log: Log files for Beats shippers
/usr/bin/elastic-agent: Shell wrapper installed into PATH

/opt/Elastic/Agent/*: Elastic Agent program files
/opt/Elastic/Agent/elastic-agent.yml: Main Elastic Agent configuration
/opt/Elastic/Agent/fleet.yml: Main Elastic Agent Fleet configuration
/opt/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent-json.log: Log files for Elastic Agent^[1]
/opt/Elastic/Agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/default/*-json.log: Log files for Beats shippers
/usr/bin/elastic-agent: Shell wrapper installed into PATH

C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent*: Elastic Agent program files
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\elastic-agent.yml: Main Elastic Agent configuration
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\fleet.yml: Main Elastic Agent Fleet configuration
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\data\elastic-agent-*\logs\elastic-agent-json.log: Log files for Elastic Agent^[1]
C:\Program Files\Elastic\Agent\data\elastic-agent-*\logs\default\*-json.log*: Log files for Beats shippers

/usr/share/elastic-agent/*: Elastic Agent program files
/etc/elastic-agent/elastic-agent.yml: Main Elastic Agent configuration
/etc/elastic-agent/fleet.yml: Main Elastic Agent Fleet configuration
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent-json.log: Log files for Elastic Agent^[1]
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/default/*-json.log*: Log files for Beats shippers
/usr/bin/elastic-agent: Shell wrapper installed into PATH

/usr/share/elastic-agent/*: Elastic Agent program files
/etc/elastic-agent/elastic-agent.yml: Main Elastic Agent configuration
/etc/elastic-agent/fleet.yml: Main Elastic Agent Fleet configuration
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/elastic-agent-json.log: Log files for Elastic Agent^[1]
/var/lib/elastic-agent/data/elastic-agent-*/logs/default/*-json.log*: Log files for Beats shippers
/usr/bin/elastic-agent: Shell wrapper installed into PATH

^[1] Logs are numbered log.1, log.2, and so on as they are rotated off the main log.

« Elastic Agents Uninstall Elastic Agent »