Overview

The Datadog UNIX Agent brings host-level monitoring to IBM AIX (PowerPC 8+) so you can visualize system metrics, enable additional Datadog products, and troubleshoot services that still run on-prem.

The UNIX Agent supports Infrastructure Monitoring and Custom Metrics using DogStatsD. Other products like APM, Live Process Monitoring, Cloud Network Monitoring, and Log Management are not supported on the UNIX Agent. See Supported Platforms for the complete list of supported AIX versions.

This page walks you through installing, operating, and removing the Datadog UNIX Agent on AIX.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Root privileges (or sudo) on each host
• Outbound HTTPS (443) to .datadoghq.com
• curl or ksh (shipped on AIX by default)
• Verify your host is running a Supported AIX version

Install the Agent

To install the Agent on AIX, follow the in-app instructions in Fleet Automation, and run the generated script on your hosts.

Installation log files

You can find the Agent installation log in the dd-aix-install.log file. To disable this logging, remove the -e dd-aix-install.log parameter in the installation command.

Commands

Configure the Agent

The Datadog Agent configuration file is located in /etc/datadog-agent/datadog.yaml. This YAML file holds the host-wide connection details used to send data to Datadog including:

• api_key: Your organization’s Datadog API key
• site: Target Datadog region (see Datadog Sites)
• proxy: HTTP/HTTPS proxy endpoints for outbound traffic (see Datadog Agent Proxy Configuration)
• Default tags, log level, and Datadog configurations

A fully commented reference file, located in /etc/datadog-agent/datadog.yaml.example, lists every available option for comparison or to copy and paste.

Alternatively, see the datadog.yaml.example file for all available configuration options.

Integration files

Configuration files for integrations exist in /etc/datadog-agent/conf.d/. Each integration has its own subdirectory, <INTEGRATION>.d/, that contains:

• conf.yaml: The active configuration controlling how the integration gathers metrics and logs
• conf.yaml.example: A sample illustrating supported keys and defaults

Available integrations

Out of the box integrations

cpu

filesystem

iostat

load

memory

uptime

disk

network

Additional integrations

process

lparstats

ibm_was (WebSphere Application Server)

Note: Metric coverage can differ from the UNIX, Linux, Windows, and macOS integrations.

Monitor Agent uptime

You can use the metric datadog.agent.running to monitor the uptime of an Agent. The metric emits a value of 1 if the Agent is reporting to Datadog.

Uninstall the Agent

To remove an installed Agent, run the following installp command:

installp -e dd-aix-uninstall.log -uv datadog-unix-agent

Note: Agent uninstallation logs can be found in the dd-aix-install.log file. To disable this logging, remove the -e parameter in the uninstallation command.

Further Reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles:

Find out more about the Agent's architectureDOCUMENTATION Configure inbound portsDOCUMENTATION Monitor AIX with the Datadog UNIX AgentBLOG