Create a private Synthetic location
With Dynatrace Synthetic Monitoring, 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 from a private location, you can bring the testing capabilities available in public locations right into your own environment. With private locations you can:
- Measure internal web page performance and availability.
- Measure complex internal applications with browser clickpath monitors.
- Measure external resources with synthetic monitors run from internal locations.
- Monitor APIs, both internal and external.
Private Synthetic locations support all types of Dynatrace synthetic monitors.
System and hardware requirements for private locations
Make sure the machine you'll use for running private synthetic monitors complies with system and hardware requirements for private Synthetic locations. Note that Synthetic-enabled ActiveGates have more demanding hardware and system requirements than a regular Environment or Cluster ActiveGates.
Before you begin
- You cannot execute synthetic monitors using an ActiveGate that's configured for multi-environment support.
- You can create a private location using a clean-installed Synthetic-enabled Environment ActiveGate version 1.169+ or Cluster ActiveGate with Dynatrace Managed version 1.176+. If you want to use an existing ActiveGate host, uninstall ActiveGate first.
- The Synthetic-enabled ActiveGate is used exclusively to run synthetic monitors. A clean ActiveGate installation set to Synthetic monitoring disables all other ActiveGate features, including communication with OneAgents.
- You need to make sure the ActiveGate can connect to other Dynatrace components as well as the resource you want to test. See Setting up a proxy for private synthetic monitoring.
- Only IPv4 and DNS UDP are supported for network configuration.
- For new Dynatrace Managed version 1.216+ installations, screenshots are stored and served locally from the Dynatrace Cluster. For other Managed offline deployments, you will not be able to save screenshots.
Install a 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. Make sure the host on which you install the ActiveGate has access to the internet.
If the web UI-guided installation fails or you prefer to prepare the host for the Synthetic engine yourself, you can manually install Chromium and other dependencies.
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For Environment ActiveGate, from the Dynatrace menu, go to Deploy Dynatrace > Install ActiveGate. For Cluster ActiveGate, go to the Dynatrace Cluster Management Console, select the Browse button (…) and select Add new Cluster ActiveGate.
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Select the operating system and follow the instructions displayed.
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For What's the purpose of this ActiveGate?, select Run synthetic monitors from a private location.
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Download the installer.
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Linux only Select a Linux distribution. When you run the installer, it automatically downloads Chromium and the dependencies required by the Synthetic engine. On RedHat and CentOS, you'll need to enable repositories from which the installer downloads the dependencies. The web UI provides you with all the required commands for doing so, as shown in the example below:
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Install ActiveGate. Make sure you use the exact command displayed in the Dynatrace web UI.
Add a private location
- From the Dynatrace menu, go to Settings > Web & mobile monitoring > Private synthetic locations.
- Select Create location.
- Give your location a custom Name, for example
Boston office, 3rd floor. - Map it from an existing geographic location or add a custom geographic location defined by Country, Region, City, and Geographic coordinates.
- Add the Synthetic-enabled ActiveGate you've just installed to the location. Note that an ActiveGate can only be assigned to a single location.
- Select Add.
- Select Save.
Use the Cluster API v2 to create a location and assign a Cluster ActiveGate to it.
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Use the GET all 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
entityIdin 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 a location endpoint to create a new location and assign a Synthetic-enabled Cluster ActiveGate to it. Note that an ActiveGate can only be assigned to a single location. Use the
entityIdyou received in the previous step as one of the values fornodesand settypetoCLUSTER. See an example of a request body for thePOSTcall:{ "type": "CLUSTER", "name": "Dynatrace Gdansk Lab", "countryCode": "PL", "regionCode": "PL82", "city": "Gdansk", "latitude": 54.3990, "longitude": 18.5766, "nodes": [ "3086117876" ] }If your call is successful, you'll receive a
200OK response.
Create a private monitor
Now, when you create your HTTP or browser monitor, select the location you've just created from the list of all available locations. For more information, see Create an HTTP monitor, Create a single-URL browser monitor, or Record a browser clickpath.
Install Chromium and dependencies manually (Linux only)
If the web UI-guided installation fails or you prefer to prepare the host for the Synthetic engine yourself, you can install Chromium and other dependencies using the procedure below. Ensure that you can connect to https://synthetic-packages.s3.amazonaws.com to access Chromium and dependencies.
We strongly recommend that you keep your Linux-based Synthetic-enabled ActiveGates and Chromium versions updated—Dynatrace supports Chromium versions that are no more than two versions behind the latest Dynatrace-supported version for a specific ActiveGate release. See also how to update Chromium manually in Manage private Synthetic locations.
Ubuntu Server
Note
Chromium development for Ubuntu 16.04 stopped at version 90.
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Install Synthetic engine dependencies:
Synthetic engine dependencies:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install xvfb x11-xkb-utils xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalableChromium dependencies:
sudo apt-get -y install libasound2 libatk-bridge2.0-0 libatk1.0-0 libc6:amd64 libcairo2 libcups2 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgtk-3-0 libnspr4 libnss3 libxss1 libwayland-server0 libgbm1 xdg-utilsSynthetic engine dependencies:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install xvfb x11-xkb-utils xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalableChromium dependencies:
sudo apt-get -y install fonts-dejavu-coresudo snap install gnome-3-28-1804 gtk-common-themes -
Download and install Chromium.
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Download the deb (Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04) or snap (Ubuntu 20.04) package archive. This is a safe and verified archive hosted by Dynatrace.
You can verify the authenticity of the packages using the signature files stored together with the package archives.
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Extract the installation packages. Go to the directory where you saved the archive and run the following command:
mkdir /tmp/chromium ; tar xzf chromium.tgz -C /tmp/chromiumThis creates a
/tmp/chromiumdirectory and extracts the packages into it. -
Install the extracted packages.
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/chromium/*.debsudo snap ack /tmp/chromium/chromium.assertsudo snap install --devmode /tmp/chromium/chromium.snapThis installs all the packages extracted to the
/tmp/chromium/directory. You can delete the/tmp/chromium/directory and the downloadedchromium.tgzarchive after successful Chromium installation.
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Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 only Disable automatic update of Chromium packages.
Note that for Ubuntu 20.04, auto-update is disabled as part of the installation command in Step 2 above.
echo "chromium-browser hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections echo "chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections -
After you satisfy the dependencies, run the ActiveGate installer with root rights with the
--enable-syntheticparameter set tomanual. For example:/bin/sh ./Dynatrace-ActiveGate-Linux.sh --enable-synthetic=manual
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS
Note
- The latest Dynatrace-supported Chromium version for Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 7 is available with ActiveGate version 1.235+.
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Set up repositories.
- Register the Red Hat instance.
sudo subscription-manager register --auto-attach - Enable the Red Hat
ExtrasandOptionalrepositories as well asEPEL(Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux ).sudo subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-extras-rpms sudo subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-optional-rpms sudo rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
- Register the Red Hat instance.
sudo subscription-manager register --auto-attach - Enable the Red Hat
ExtrasandOptionalrepositories as well asEPEL(Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux ).sudo subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-baseos-rpms sudo subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms sudo rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm
- Enable
EPEL(Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux ).sudo yum install epel-release
- Register the Red Hat instance.
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Install Synthetic engine dependencies.
sudo yum install -y xorg-x11-server-Xvfb xorg-x11-xkb-utils xorg-x11-server-utils xorg-x11-fonts-100dpi xorg-x11-fonts-75dpi xorg-x11-fonts-Type1 curl -
Download and install Chromium.
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Download the rpm package archive. This is a safe and verified archive hosted by Dynatrace.
You can verify the authenticity of the packages using the signature files stored together with the package archives.
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Extract the installation packages. Go to the directory where you saved the archive and run the following command:
mkdir /tmp/chromium ; tar xzf chromium.tgz -C /tmp/chromiumThis will create a
/tmp/chromiumdirectory and extract the packages into it. -
Install extracted packages.
sudo yum install -y /tmp/chromium/*.rpmThis will install all the packages extracted to the
/tmp/chromium/directory. You can delete the/tmp/chromium/directory and the downloadedchromium.tgzarchive after successful Chromium installation.
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Disable automatic update of Chromium packages:
sudo yum -y install yum-plugin-versionlock sudo yum versionlock chromium sudo yum versionlock chromium-common -
optional Install non-Latin TrueType fonts:
sudo yum install dejavu-fonts-common.noarch dejavu-sans-fonts.noarch -
After you satisfy the dependencies, run the ActiveGate installer with root rights with the
--enable-syntheticparameter set tomanual. For example:/bin/sh ./Dynatrace-ActiveGate-Linux.sh --enable-synthetic=manual