Node Management agent

The Node Management agent is a skill that oversees and manages other skills on a node.

It performs the following tasks:

Manages credentials on nodes.
Maintains the desired state of skills on nodes as specified in the skill assembly.
Applies skill settings based on global default settings or override settings.
Reports the node’s status.
Manages node attributes.

The Node Management agent is the first skill installed during node enrollment. Without it, Chef 360 Platform can’t install other skills.

Default settings

The Node Management agent has the following default settings:

It fetches skills from Chef’s public Habitat Builder.
It fetches skills from the stable release channel.
It checks in with Chef 360 Platform every hour.
It updates skill definition metadata every hour.
Its log level is warning.

For more information, see the Node Management agent documentation

Register the Node Management agent

To register the Node Management agent in Chef 360 Platform, follow these steps:

Create a JSON file that defines the Node Management agent settings:
```
{
"bldrUrl": "<HABITAT_BUILDER_URL>",
"bldrChannel": "<CHANNEL>",
"bldrAuthToken": "<TOKEN>",
"nodeCheckinInterval": <CHECK_IN_INTERVAL>,
"updateSkillMetadataInterval": <UPDATE_SKILL_INTERVAL>,
"logLevel": "<LOG_LEVEL>"
}
```
Replace:
- <HABITAT_BUILDER_URL> with the Chef Habitat Builder URL. Use https://bldr.habitat.sh for Chef’s Habitat Builder or the URL of your own Habitat Builder deployment.
- <CHANNEL> with the release channel from which to install skills. For example, stable.
- <TOKEN> with the authentication token for Habitat Builder. If you’re using Chef’s Habitat Builder, set this to an empty string.
- <CHECK_IN_INTERVAL> with the interval (in seconds) at which check-in occurs. Values start at 3600 (1 hour).
  The check-in interval splay is automatically set to a value between 0 and half the check-in interval time.
- <UPDATE_SKILL_INTERVAL> with the interval (in seconds) at which skill definitions are updated. Values start at 3600 (1 hour).
  The update skill interval splay is automatically set to a value between 0 and half the check-in interval time.
- <LOG_LEVEL>: The logging level of the agent. For example, debug.
  Supported log levels:
  debug
  Reports detailed information that can aid in identifying issues or debugging a workload. This includes the info, warn, and error logs.
  info
  Reports general information about the system’s operations.
  warn
  Reports potential failures, but the operation can continue functioning for the time being.
  error
  Reports errors that prevent the execution of an operation.

chef-node-management-cli management skill update-agent --body-file <PATH_TO_JSON_FILE>

It returns the following response:

{
 "code" : 200,
 "message" : update-agent successful
}

Modify Node Management agent settings

You can modify the Node Management agent settings. For example, you can configure it to fetch skills from your own deployment of Habitat Builder.

If you want to modify the Node Management agent settings, follow these steps:

Create a JSON file with the following settings:
```
{
  "settings": [
    {
      "name": "authToken",
      "value": ""
    },
    {
      "name": "bldrUrl",
      "value": "<HABITAT_BUILDER_URL>"
    },
    {
      "name": "bldrChannel",
      "value": "<CHANNEL>"
    },
    {
      "name": "logLevel",
      "value": "<LOG_LEVEL>"
    },
    {
      "name": "nodeCheckinInterval",
      "value": "<CHECK_IN_INTERVAL>"
    },
    {
      "name": "updateSkillMetadataInterval",
      "value": "<UPDATE_SKILL_INTERVAL>"
    }
  ],
  "skillName": "node-management-agent"
}
```
Replace:
- <HABITAT_BUILDER_URL> with the Chef Habitat Builder URL. Use https://bldr.habitat.sh for Chef’s Habitat Builder or the URL of your own Habitat Builder deployment.
- <CHANNEL> with the release channel from which to install skills. For example, stable.
- <CHECK_IN_INTERVAL> with the interval (in seconds) at which check-in occurs. Values start at 3600 (1 hour).
  The check-in interval splay is automatically set to a value between zero and half the check-in interval time.
- <UPDATE_SKILL_INTERVAL> with the interval (in seconds) at which skill definitions are updated. Values start at 3600 (1 hour).
  The update skill interval splay is automatically set to a value between zero and half the check-in interval time.
- <LOG_LEVEL>: The logging level of the agent. For example, debug.
  Supported log levels:
  debug
  Reports detailed information that can aid in identifying issues or debugging a workload. This includes the info, warn, and error logs.
  info
  Reports general information about the system’s operations.
  warn
  Reports potential failures, but the operation can continue functioning for the time being.
  error
  Reports errors that prevent the execution of an operation.

Get the override settings ID with the find-all-settings command:

chef-node-management-cli management setting find-all-settings --profile <PROFILE_NAME>

Update the Node Management agent settings with the update-skillSettings command:

chef-node-management-cli management setting update-skillSettings \
  --skillName node-management-agent \
  --body-file <PATH_TO_JSON_FILE> \
  --settingId <SETTINGS_ID> \
  --profile <PROFILE_NAME>

More information

Learn about override settings.
Explore the skill definition documentation.