Performing maintenance on your agent - AWS DataSync
Accessing your agent's local consoleConfiguring your agent's DHCP and DNS settingsChecking your agent's system resourcesSynchronizing the time on your VMware agentRunning maintenance-related commands for your agent

Performing maintenance on your agent

While AWS manages your AWS DataSync agent once it's deployed and activated, there might be cases where you need to change your agent's settings or troubleshoot an issue. Here are some examples of why you'd work with your agent through its local console:

  • Manually assign an IP address to the agent.

  • Check your agent's system resources.

Important

You don't need to use the agent's local console for standard DataSync functionality.

Accessing your agent's local console

How you access the local console depends on the type of agent you're using.

For security reasons, you can't remotely connect to the local console of the DataSync agent virtual machine (VM).

  • If this is your first time using the local console, log in with the default credentials. The default user name is admin and the password is password.

    Note

    We recommend changing the default password. To do this, on the console main menu enter 5 (or 6 for VMware VMs), then run the passwd command to change the password.

To connect to an Amazon EC2 agent's local console, you must use SSH.

Before you begin: Make sure that your EC2 instance's security group allows access with SSH (TCP port 22).

  1. Open a terminal and copy the following ssh command:

    ssh -i /path/key-pair-name.pem instance-user-name@instance-public-ip-address

    • For /path/key-pair-name, specify the path and file name (.pem) of the private key required to connect to your instance.

    • For instance-user-name, specify admin.

    • For instance-public-ip-address, specify the public IP address of your instance.

  2. Run the ssh command to connect to the instance.

Once connected, the main menu of the agent's local console displays.

Configuring your agent's DHCP and DNS settings

The default network configuration for the agent is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). With DHCP, your agent is automatically assigned an IP address. In some cases, you might need to manually assign your agent's IP as a static IP address, as described following.

  1. Log in to your agent's local console.

  2. On the AWS DataSync Activation - Configuration main menu, enter 1 to begin configuring your network.

  3. On the Network Configuration menu, choose one of the following options.

    To Do this
    Get information about your network adapter

    Enter 1.

    A list of adapter names appears, and you are prompted to enter an adapter name—for example, eth0. If the adapter you specify is in use, the following information about the adapter is displayed:

    • Media access control (MAC) address

    • IP address

    • Netmask

    • Agent IP address

    • DHCP enabled status

    You use the same adapter name when you configure a static IP address (option 3) as when you set your agent's default route adapter (option 5).
    Configure DHCP

    Enter 2.

    You are prompted to configure the network interface to use DHCP.
    Configure a static IP address for your agent

    Enter 3.

    You are prompted to enter the Network adapter name.

    Important

    If your agent has already been activated, you must shut it down and restart it from the DataSync console for the settings to take effect.
    Reset all your agent's network configuration to DHCP

    Enter 4.

    All network interfaces are set to use DHCP.

    Important

    If your agent has already been activated, you must shut down and restart your agent from the DataSync console for the settings to take effect.
    Set your agent's default route adapter

    Enter 5.

    The available adapters for your agent are shown, and you are prompted to choose one of the adapters—for example, eth0.
    Edit your agent's Domain Name System (DNS) configuration

    Enter 6.

    The available adapters of the primary and secondary DNS servers are displayed. You are prompted to provide the new IP address.
    View your agent's DNS configuration

    Enter 7.

    The available adapters of the primary and secondary DNS servers are displayed.

    Note

    For some versions of the VMware hypervisor, you can edit the adapter configuration in this menu.
    View routing tables

    Enter 8.

    The default route of your agent is displayed.

Checking your agent's system resources

When you log in to your agent console, virtual CPU cores, root volume size, and RAM are automatically checked. If there are any errors or warnings, they're flagged on the console menu display with a banner that provides details about those errors or warnings.

If there are no errors or warnings when the console starts, the menu displays white text. The View System Resource Check option will display (0 Errors).

If there are errors or warnings, the console menu displays the number of errors and warnings, in red and yellow respectively, in a banner across the top of the menu. For example, (1 ERROR, 1 WARNING).

To check your agent's system resources

  1. Log in to your agent's local console.

  2. On the AWS DataSync Activation - Configuration main menu, enter 4 to view the results of the system resource check.

    The console displays an [OK], [WARNING], or [FAIL] message for each resource as described in the table following.

    For Amazon EC2 instances, the system resource check verifies that the instance type is one of the instances recommended for use with DataSync. If the instance type matches that list, a single result is displayed in green text, as follows.

    [ OK ] Instance Type Check

    If the Amazon EC2 instance is not on the recommended list, the system resource check verifies the following resources.

    • CPU cores check: At least four cores are required.

    • Disk size check: A minimum of 80 GB of available disk space is required.

    • RAM check:

      • 32 GB of RAM assigned to the instance for task executions working with up to 20 million files, objects, or directories.

      • 64 GB of RAM assigned to the instance for task executions working with more than 20 million files, objects, or directories.

    • CPU flags check: The agent VM CPU must have either SSSE3 or SSE4 instruction set flags.

    If the Amazon EC2 instance is not on the list of recommended instances for DataSync, but it has sufficient resources, the result of the system resource check displays four results, all in green text.

    The same resources are verified for agents deployed in Hyper-V, Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), and VMware VMs.

    VMware agents are also checked for supported version; unsupported versions cause a red banner error. Supported versions include VMware versions 6.5 and 6.7.

Synchronizing the time on your VMware agent

If you're using a VMware agent, you can view or edit your Network Time Protocol (NTP) server configuration and synchronize the agent's time with your VMware hypervisor host.

  1. Log in to your agent's local console.

  2. On the AWS DataSync Activation - Configuration main menu, enter 5.

  3. On the System Time Management menu, do one of the following:

    To Do this
    View and synchronize your VM time with NTP server time

    Enter 1.

    The current time of your agent displays. Your agent determines the time difference between your agent and NTP server, and prompts you to synchronize the times.

    In some situations, an agent's time might drift. For example, there might be a prolonged network outage and your hypervisor host and agent don't get time updates, so your agent's time is different from the actual time. When there's a time drift like this, a discrepancy occurs between the stated times when operations (such as snapshots occur) and the actual times that the operations occur.
    Edit your NTP server configuration

    Enter 2.

    You're prompted to provide an NTP server configuration.
    View your NTP server configuration

    Enter 3.

    Your NTP server configuration displays.

Running maintenance-related commands for your agent

In your DataSync agent's local console, you can perform some maintenance tasks and diagnose issues with your agent.

To run a configuration or diagnostic command in your agent's local console

  1. Log in to your agent's local console.

  2. On the AWS DataSync Activation - Configuration main menu, enter 5 (or for 6 a VMware VM) for the Command Prompt.

  3. Use the following commands to perform the following tasks with your agent.

    Command Description
    dig Look up DNS information about the host.
    diskclean Perform disk cleanup.
    exit Return to the console configuration menu.
    h Display a list of available commands.
    ifconfig Display or configure network interfaces.
    ip Display or configure routing, devices, and tunnels.
    iptables Set up and maintain IPv4 packet filtering and network address translation (NAT).
    ncport Test connectivity to a specific network TCP port.
    nping Get information to troubleshoot network issues.
    save-iptables Save IP table firewall rules permanently.
    save-routing-table Save a newly added routing table entry.
    sslcheck Verify whether an SSL certificate is valid.
    tcptraceroute Collect traceroute output on TCP traffic to a destination.

  4. Follow the onscreen instructions.