Installing synthetic-enabled ActiveGate

With DESK Synthetic, you can run your monitors from a private synthetic location, which is a location in your private network infrastructure where you install a synthetic-enabled ActiveGate.

With monitors executed on such an ActiveGate, you can check the availability of internal resources that are inaccessible from outside your network. Follow the steps below to install a synthetic-enabled ActiveGate and configure your private synthetic location.

Private browser monitors

To run browser monitors from a private location, you must first satisfy the engine dependencies, before you install the ActiveGate. See Browser monitors in private locations for detailed instructions.

Install synthetic-enabled ActiveGate

A synthetic-enabled ActiveGate is used exclusively to run synthetic monitors. A clean ActiveGate installation set to Synthetic monitoring will disable all other ActiveGate features, including communication with OneAgents.

Note that you can't execute synthetic monitors using an ActiveGate that's configured for multi-environment support.

Environment ActiveGate Cluster ActivGate

From the navigation menu, click Deployment status and click Install ActiveGate. Select the operating system.

You can assign Cluster ActiveGates to private locations since version 1.176. Log in to the Cluster Management Console to download the Cluster ActiveGate installer. For more information, see How to install a Cluster ActiveGate

Follow the instructions for your ActiveGate version:

Version 1.165+ Version 1.159+ Version 1.158 and earlier

For What's the purpose of this ActiveGate?, select Run synthetic monitors from a private location.
Download the installer.
Install ActiveGate using the instructions displayed in the web UI. Make sure you use the exact command displayed in the DESK web UI.

Set the Enable synthetic monitoring switch to the On position.
Install ActiveGate following the displayed instructions.

For more information, see Install an Environment ActiveGate.

Install ActiveGate using the instructions displayed in the web UI. For more information, see Install an Environment ActiveGate.
After the installation is complete, using your server’s command line, edit the custom.properties file as shown below. Depending on your ActiveGate version and deployment setup, you'll find this file at either in /var/lib/desk/gateway/config or /var/lib/desk/gateway/gateway/config.
Add a [synthetic] section if one doesn't exist.
- On a new line, add the property synthetic_enabled = true.
  The resulting flag should look like this:
```
[synthetic]
synthetic_enabled = true
```
- Save the file.
Restart the ActiveGate process on your server (the service doesn't support the restart method, so you must do this manually:
- Stop the service with:
  sudo /etc/init.d/deskgateway stop
- The above is a non-blocking option, so use:
  sudo /etc/init.d/deskgateway status
  before you proceed with the next step to verify that the service has stopped.
- Start the service with:
  sudo /etc/init.d/deskgateway start

Add a private location

Environment ActiveGate Cluster ActiveGate

In the DESK web UI, go to Settings > Web & mobile monitoring > Private synthetic locations.
Click Create location.
Give your location a custom Name, for example Boston office, 3rd floor.
Map it from an existing geographic location or add a new one. This is defined by Region, City, and Geographic coordinates.
Add the synthetic-enabled ActiveGate you've just installed to the location.
Click Add.
Click Save.

Managed only

Use the Cluster API to create a location and assign a Cluster ActiveGate to it. The Cluster API comes with the Open API doc, which is accessible from the Cluster Management Console. In the Cluster Management Console, expand the User menu, select Cluster Management API and select the Cluster API definition. You can also use the JSON model as a reference.


        synthetic/cluster-api-spec.json

Download

The Cluster API base URL is <cluster-url>/api/cluster/v1

Use the GET /synthetic/nodes endpoint to list all the synthetic-enabled Cluster ActiveGates in your environment. Among other parameters, you'll receive the host IP address and the entityId in the response. For example:

{
"nodes": [
  {
    "entityId": "3086117876",
    "hostname": "gdn.dyna.trace",
    "ips": [
      "238.245.160.14"
    ],
    "version": "1.175.0.20181210-173639",
    "browserMonitorsEnabled": true
  }
]
}

Use the POST /synthetic/locations endpoint to create a new location and assign a synthetic-enabled Cluster ActiveGate to it. Use the entityId you determined in the previous step as one of the values for nodes and set type to CLUSTER. See an example of a request body for the POST call.

{
  "type": "CLUSTER",
  "name": "DESK Gdansk Lab",
  "countryCode": "PL",
  "regionCode": "PL82",
  "city": "Gdansk",
  "latitude": 54.3990,
  "longitude": 18.5766,
  "nodes": [
    "3086117876"
  ]
}

If your call is successful, you will receive a 200 OK response.

Now, when you create your HTTP or browser monitor, simply select the location you've just created from the list of all available locations.

Requirements

For ActiveGate version 1.163 and earlier, only two ActiveGates should be assigned to a single location for load balancing and fail-over.
Only IPv4 and DNS UDP are supported for network configuration.
Minimum hardware requirements are the same as for other clean ActiveGate installations, but we recommend a minimum of 25GB of free disk space and 8GB RAM because of the enhancements planned for future releases.
You can assign Cluster ActiveGate to a private locations since DESK Managed version 1.176.