AppDynamics Policy

Overview Configuration reference

AppDynamics installation prerequisites

Before using the policy, download the AppDynamics C/C++ SDK on the machine or within the container running the AI Gateway data plane. To use the AppDynamics policy, the libappdynamics.so shared library must be available on all data plane nodes running AI Gateway. You can install the AppDynamics C/C++ SDK or extract the libappdynamics.so shared library, which is the only required file.

For information about installation and configuration, see the AppDynamics SaaS and AppDynamics On-Premises documentation.

Recommended installation

We recommended installing the libappdynamics.so in the /usr/local/kong/lib directory. This directory is included in the AI Gateway search path for shared libraries, so the libappdynamics.so file will be found automatically.

If you’re using the AI Gateway quickstart container, perform the following steps:

Extract the SDK:

tar -xzf appdynamics-sdk-native-64bit-linux-VERSION.tgz

Copied!

Locate the library file:
```
cd appdynamics-cpp-sdk/lib
```
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Copy the file into the container running the AI Gateway data plane:
```
docker cp libappdynamics.so <container_id>:/usr/local/kong/lib
```
Copied!

Alternative installation

If you prefer to install the libappdynamics.so file in a different location, you can do so.

If AI Gateway is deployed on RHEL or CentOS, the libappdynamics.so file can be in the /usr/lib64 directory, which is included in the default search path for shared libraries.
If AI Gateway is deployed on Debian or Ubuntu, the libappdynamics.so file can be in the /usr/lib directory, which is included in the default search path for shared libraries.
If these options aren’t available, the libappdynamics.so file can be in one of the locations configured by the system’s shared library loader.
Alternatively, the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable can be set to the directory containing the libappdynamics.so file when starting AI Gateway.

Enable the AppDynamics policy

The AppDynamics policy is not bundled in AI Gateway packages by default. Before you configure the plugin, you must enable it:

Docker: Set export KONG_PLUGINS=bundled,app-dynamics in the environment
Kubernetes: Set KONG_PLUGINS=bundled,app-dynamics using the Custom Plugin instructions.
Package install: Set plugins=bundled,app-dynamics in kong.conf before starting AI Gateway.

AppDynamics policy configuration

The AppDynamics policy is configured through environment variables that must be set when AI Gateway is started. The AppDynamics policy uses the AppDynamics C/C++ SDK to send information to the AppDynamics controller. See the AppDynamics C/C++ SDK documentation for more information about the configuration parameters.

All non-default environment variables in the table must be set.

The policy uses the following environment variables:

Variable	Description	Type	Default
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_HOST`	Hostname of the AppDynamics controller.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_PORT`	Port number used to communicate with the controller.	Integer	`443`
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_ACCOUNT`	Account name used with the controller.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_ACCESS_KEY`	Access key used with the AppDynamics controller.	String
`KONG_APPD_LOGGING_LEVEL`	Logging level of the AppDynamics SDK agent.	Integer	`2`
`KONG_APPD_LOGGING_LOG_DIR`	Directory where agent log files are written.	String	`/tmp/appd`
`KONG_APPD_TIER_NAME`	Tier name used for business transactions.	String
`KONG_APPD_APP_NAME`	Application name reported to AppDynamics.	String	`Kong`
`KONG_APPD_NODE_NAME`	Node name reported to AppDynamics. This value defaults to the system’s hostname.	String	`hostname`
`KONG_APPD_INIT_TIMEOUT_MS`	Maximum time to wait for a controller connection when starting, in milliseconds.	Integer	`5000`
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_USE_SSL`	Use SSL encryption in controller communication. `true`, `on`, or `1` are all interpreted as `True`, any other value is considered `false`.	Boolean	`on`
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_HTTP_PROXY_HOST`	Hostname of the proxy used to communicate with controller.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_HTTP_PROXY_PORT`	Port number of the controller proxy.	Integer
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_HTTP_PROXY_USERNAME`	Username used to identify to proxy. This value is a string that is never shown in logs. This value can be specified as a vault reference.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_HTTP_PROXY_PASSWORD`	Password used to identify with the proxy. This value is a string that is never shown in logs. This value can be specified as a vault reference.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_CERTIFICATE_FILE`	Path to a self-signed certificate file. For example, `/etc/kong/certs/ca-certs.pem`.	String
`KONG_APPD_CONTROLLER_CERTIFICATE_DIR`	Path to a certificate directory. For example, `/etc/kong/certs/`.	String
`KONG_APPD_ANALYTICS_ENABLE`	Enable or disable Analytics Agent reporting. When disabled (default), Analytics-related logging messages are suppressed.	Boolean	`false`

Possible values for the `KONG_APPD_LOGGING_LEVEL` parameter

The KONG_APPD_LOGGING_LEVEL environment variable is a numeric value that controls the desired logging level.

Value	Name	Description
0	`TRACE`	Reports finer-grained informational events than the `debug` level, which may be useful to debug an application.
1	`DEBUG`	Reports fine-grained informational events that may be useful to debug an application.
2	`INFO`	Default log level. Reports informational messages that highlight the progress of the application at a coarse-grained level.
3	`WARN`	Reports on potentially harmful situations.
4	`ERROR`	Reports on error events that may allow the application to continue running.
5	`FATAL`	Fatal errors that prevent the agent from operating.

Agent logging

The AppDynamics agent sorts log information into separate log files, independent of AI Gateway logs. By default, log files are written to the /tmp/appd directory. This location can be changed by setting the KONG_APPD_LOGGING_LOG_DIR environment variable.

If problems occur with the AppDynamics integration, inspect the AppDynamics agent’s log files in addition to the AI Gateway logs.

Important: ARM isn’t supported by the AppDynamics agent. The agent only supports x86 architecture.

AppDynamics node name considerations

The AppDynamics policy sets the KONG_APPD_NODE_NAME to the local hostname by default, which typically reflects the container ID of the containerized application. Multiple instances of the AppDynamics agent must use different node names, and one agent must exist for each of AI Gateway’s worker processes, where the node name is suffixed by the worker ID. This results in multiple nodes being created for each AI Gateway instance, one for each worker process.