Features configuration
This guide describes the F5 NGINX Agent features, and how to enable and disable them using the NGINX Agent configuration file, CLI flags, environment variables, and gRPC updates.
Before you start, make sure that you have:
- NGINX Agent installed in your system.
- Access to the NGINX Agent configuration file, CLI, or container environment.
The following table lists the NGINX Agent features:
| Feature Name | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| configuration | Full read/write management of configurations, controlled by DataPlaneConfig ConfigMode. | On |
| certificates | Inclusion of public keys and other certificates in the configurations toggled by DataPlaneConfig CertMode | Off |
| connection | Sends an initial connection message reporting instance information on presence of Command ServerConfig Host and Port | On |
| file-watcher | Monitoring of file changes in the allowed directories list and references from product configs. | On |
| agent-api | REST API for NGINX Agent. | Off |
| metrics | Full metrics reporting. | On |
| > metrics-host | Host-level metrics (cpu, disk, load, fs, memory, network, paging). | On |
| > metrics-container | Container-level metrics from cgroup information. | On |
| > metrics-instance | OSS and Plus metrics depending on NGINX instance. | On |
| logs | Collection and reporting of NGINX error logs. | Off |
| > logs-nap | F5 WAF for NGINX logs. | Off |
You can enable or disable features using several configuration sources:
Enable features at launch:
./nginx-agent --features=connection,configuration,metrics,file-watcher,agent-apiUse environment variables for containerized deployments:
export NGINX_AGENT_FEATURES="connection,configuration,metrics,file-watcher,agent-api"Define features in the nginx-agent.conf file:
features:
- connection
- configuration
- metrics
- file-watcher
- agent-api-
Access the NGINX instance: Connect using SSH to the VM or server where NGINX Agent is running.
ssh user@your-nginx-instance -
Open the NGINX Agent configuration file in a text editor.
sudo vim /etc/nginx-agent/nginx-agent.conf -
Add the features section: Add the following to the end of the configuration file if it doesn’t already exist.
yamlfeatures: - metrics - metrics-host - metrics-container - metrics-instance -
Restart the NGINX Agent service to apply the changes.
sudo systemctl restart nginx-agent
Once the steps have been completed, users will be able to view metrics data being sent but will not have the capability to push NGINX configuration changes.