Installing and Configuring Agents

The section provides more information about monitoring Oracle instances and the necessary steps for discovering and configuring the Oracle Server agent.

This section covers the following key areas:

About Monitoring Extensions

During the installation process you can choose to install and configure one or more of the monitoring extensions. The monitoring extensions provide a more in-depth analysis of the monitored instance and the environment it is running on, creating a whole and unified status.

SQL Performance Investigator Extension

SQL Performance Investigator allows you to rapidly identify bottlenecks, anomalies, and application trends by focusing on top resource consumers and providing multi-dimensional SQL domain drilldowns. SQL PI allows you to:

  • Monitor real-time Oracle database performance at a glance
  • Gather and diagnose historical views
  • Identify and anticipate performance issues
  • Analyze and optimize execution plan changes
  • Compare day-to-day values to identify anomalies and application changes

    The SQL-PI extension is installed by default.

Operating System Extension

Monitoring the operating system allows you to identify resource consumption and provides a full view of the server health. An Infrastructure agent, which is created automatically as part of the monitoring process, monitors the operating system.

The Operating System extension is enabled by default.

VMWare Extension

Monitoring the VMWare system allows you to identify resource consumption and provides a full view of the data center and ESX health when the server is part of a VMWare environment.

Installing and Monitoring a Single Oracle Instance


Enabling Foglight Cloud to monitor Oracle instances requires the creation of the Foglight agents that monitor these instances and ensuring that these agents communicate properly with Foglight Cloud .

Foglight for Oracle provides a graphic, intuitive method for creating and configuring multiple agents, which can be used instead of Foglight’s default method for creating agents and editing their properties using the Agent Administration dashboard. Foglight for Oracle allows you to run a wizard that provides a common entry point for adding and discovering all database instances within a user-specified range, and then configuring these instances for monitoring.


To run the instance installation wizard:

  1. On the Welcome page, click Monitor Databases or click Databases in the navigation pane. On a fresh installation, no instances are listed for Oracle in the Databases dashboard.

    If a user-defined database group is selected, the title of the databases table displays the name of this group instead of All; however, all newly discovered or created databases are added to the general (All) group of databases.

  2. Choose the agent manager on which the agent is running. The default is the agent manager with the least agents installed.
    • Click the Agent Manager Host link located in the bottom left corner of the dialog box. A dialog box appears with a list of all agent managers connected to the Foglight management server.
    • Select the appropriate host name and click Set.

      You have the option to set this host as the default for all future installations.

  3. Use the Connection Details section to select the requested method for entering connection details:
    • TNS — used for selecting a database from the tnsnames.ora file by clicking Load file.
    • Host — Manually enter Host, port and either service name or SID.
  4. Use the Login Credentials section to specify the username and password to be used for monitoring the Oracle instance.
  5. Use SSL: Select whether an SSL connection should be used.
  6. In the Configuration section, select the Alarm Template to use for this instance. The Factory Template will be applied by default. For more information, refer to Viewing, Creating, and Managing Alarm Templates.
  8. (Optional) - In the Monitoring Extension pane, click the Operating System link. To configure the extension, choose the connection details of the host on which the Oracle instance is running:
    • Log in to the host using the same account used for monitoring Oracle- This option is set by default when the Oracle connection details are of types: Active Directory (AD) Authentication or Using the Active Directory account running your agent manager.
    • Log in to the host using different log in credentials- logging in through either of the following authentication methods:
      • Windows: Log in through a Windows account. The user name should be entered in the domain\username format (for example, COLUMBIA\JSmith).
      • Local User: Log in through the same credentials that are used to run monitored software on the Oracle host. The user name should be entered in the domain\username format (for example, COLUMBIA\JSmith).
      • SSH (login credentials): Log in through a user account on Linux.
      • SSH (RSA): Log in through a RSA key on Linux.
      • SSH (DSA): Log in through a DSA key on Linux.
  9. (Optional) - In the Monitoring Extensions pane, click Collect VM statistics. To configure the extension, select the connection details of the vCenter or ESX on which the Oracle instance is running:
    • The name of IP address of the vCenter server that hosts the Oracle instance virtual machine, or the name of its parent ESX server.
    • The port number used by the vCenter server system or by ESX server for listening to the connections from the vSphere Client (default: 443).
    • The name and password of the user that has the privileges required for connecting to the vCenter server or ESX server and retrieving information.
  10. Click Monitor.

    If the monitoring verification fails click the message that is displayed on the Status column and resolve the issue according to the instructions that appear in the dialog box. For example, insufficient privileges, incorrect credentials or an Agent Manager that reached its full monitoring capacity.

  11. When the installation completes successfully, the Monitoring Initialized Successfully dialog box appears. Click Add another Database or Finish to exit.

Discovering Multiple Instances to Monitor

To discover additional instances to monitor:

  1. On the Databases dashboard, click Monitor and select Oracle. The Monitor Oracle Instance dialog box appears.

  2. Click the Use this option to discover multiple SQL-Server instances link. The Select an Agent Manager dialog box appears.

  3. Choose an Agent Manager host, click Validate to validate the Agent Manager system resources, and then click Next.

    At the bottom of the pane you can select a default agent manager for all future installations.

  4. Click Add instances and select one of the following methods for adding instances:

    • Load a TNS file.
    • Add manually.

  5. Select the check boxes beside the instances whose credentials are to be configured.

  6. Click Set credentials to provide the login credentials of the instances.

  7. Follow the steps described in Installing and Monitoring a Single Oracle Instance, starting with Step 5 to enter the monitoring credentials and enable the monitoring extensions for this instance.

    To use stored credentials when enabling the Operating System monitoring extension, click Operating System > Select from stored credentials link to open the Stored Credentials dialog box.Here you can review the log in credentials and authentication methods used for logging in to Foglight. Foglight stores encrypted credentials in lockboxes, which may be password-protected for added security. Database agents store all user log in credentials in a default lockbox called DB-Agent Lockbox. If credentials have already been entered in another lockbox, use the Lockbox list to select from that lockbox.

  8. Click Validate. If during the connectivity validation process several RACs with a single active node are detected, a dialog box appears asking you to identify the RACs that are not RAC One Node.

  9. Select the check boxes near the multi-node RACs and click OK. After the validation process completes, all instances that passed the validation process successfully are displayed in the table with the status Validated.

  10. Select the validated instances and click Next.

  11. Use the Monitor Oracle Instances screen to review the table that displays all instances that passed the connectivity validation successfully.

    • To add other instances or modify the connection details of existing instances, click Previous.
    • To confirm the selection and start monitoring the instances, click Next.

    The table displays all instances that were configured for monitoring. At the end of this process, the Status column of the instance table displays either the status Monitored for the instances that connected successfully to the database, or a status that indicates failure of the connectivity verification process and the reason for the failure. Click this text to view a dialog box that allows changing the credentials or to grant privileges, depending on the message that appears on the Status column:

  • If the message is Insufficient database privileges, this issue can be resolved using the Insufficient Database Privileges dialog box that appears. For details, refer to the next step.
  • For all other messages, the Database Connection Failed dialog box appears. For details, refer to Step 11.
  1. Click Insufficient Database Privileges. The Insufficient Database Privileges dialog box appears. This dialog box allows you to specify a SYSAdmin (System Administrator) user with sufficient privileges. Enter a SYSAdmin user and password, and then click Grant Privileges. Alternatively, click the View script link, to the right of the Grant privileges button, to grant privileges manually with a script.
  2. Click the message’s text. A dialog box that shows the message details appears. Click Show details to view the error description. Click Set credentials to display the dialog box used for entering the credentials, and enter the required changes.

Loading a TNS file

To load a TNS file:

  1. Click Load TNS file. The Select a file dialog box opens.
  2. Click Choose file and browse for the requested file.
  3. Click Open.
  4. Click OK. The Oracle Instances dialog box appears, displaying the Oracle instances that were discovered in the provided tnsnames file

Adding instances manually

To add instances manually:

  1. Click Add instances.
  2. Click Add manually. The Add New Oracle Instance dialog box appears.
  3. Use this dialog box to enter the following details:
    • Server name - the Oracle instance name. For default instance, specify the host name; for named instance, use the format: host name\instance name.
    • Port - Required for a Oracle instance whose TCP/IP connection port is other than the default port (1433).

      If no port is specified, the wizard uses the port provided by the SQL Browser service (dynamic port), in which case this service must be started. After the instance monitoring configuration is complete, instances whose port was provided by the SQL Browser service have the number 0 displayed in their Port row.

  4. Click Finish. The newly added instance now appears on the table, with the status ‘Set credentials’.
  5. Proceed with the wizard, starting from Step 5 mentioned in the section Discovering Multiple Instances to Monitor.