Create a private synthetic location
With Dynatrace 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 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 clickpath monitors
- measure external resources with synthetic monitors run from internal locations
- monitor APIs, both internal and external
Private synthetic locations are supported by 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 ActiveGate has more demanding hardware and system requirements than a regular Environment or Cluster ActiveGate.
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 machine, uninstall it first.
- The synthetic-enabled ActiveGate is used exclusively to run synthetic monitors. The 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 proxy for private synthetic monitoring.
- Only IPv4 and DNS UDP are supported for network configuration.
- In Dynatrace Managed offline deployments, you won't be able to save screenshots.
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. Make sure the machine on which you install the ActiveGate has access to the internet.
If the web UI-guided installation fails or you prefer to prepare the machine for the synthetic engine yourself, learn how to manually install Chromium and other dependencies.
- For Environment ActiveGate, from the navigation menu, select Deploy Dynatrace > Install ActiveGate. For Cluster ActiveGate, go to Dynatrace Cluster Management Console, select the browse [...] button and select Add new Cluster ActiveGate.
- Select the operating system and follow the on-screen instructions.
- For What's the purpose of this ActiveGate?, select Run synthetic monitors from a private location.
- Download the installer.
-
Linux
Select Linux distribution. When you run the installer, it automatically downloads Chromium and the dependencies required by the synthetic monitors 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 example:
- Install ActiveGate. Make sure you use the exact command displayed in the Dynatrace web UI.
Add a private location
- In the Dynatrace web UI, 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 new one. This is defined by Region, City, and Geographic coordinates.
- Add the synthetic-enabled ActiveGate you've just installed to the location.
- Select Add.
- Select Save.
Managed only
Use the Cluster API v2 to create a location and assign a Cluster ActiveGate to it.
- 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
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 a location 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 fornodes
and settype
toCLUSTER
. See an example of a request body for thePOST
call.
{
"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 200
OK 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 machine for the synthetic engine yourself, you can install Chromium and other dependencies using the procedure below.
Ubuntu Server
-
Install synthetic engine dependencies:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y install xvfb x11-xkb-utils xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable
-
Install Chromium 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 xdg-utils
-
Download and install Chromium.
- Download the deb packages 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.
- Extract the installation packages. Go to the directory where you saved the archive and run the following command:
This will create amkdir /tmp/chromium ; tar xzf chromium.tgz -C /tmp/chromium
/tmp/chromium
directory and extract the packages into it. - Install extracted packages.
This will install all the packages extracted to thesudo dpkg -i /tmp/chromium/*.deb
/tmp/chromium/
directory. You can delete the/tmp/chromium/
directory and the downloadedchromium.tgz
archive after successful Chromium installation.
-
Disable automatic update of Chromium packages:
echo "chromium-browser hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections echo "chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
-
Optional Install non-latin TrueType fonts:
sudo apt-get install xfonts-cyrillic fonts-arphic-uming ttf-wqy-zenhei fonts-wqy-microhei ttf-wqy-microhei ttf-wqy-zenhei xfonts-wqy fonts-hosny-amiri
Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS
-
Set up repositories
- Register Red Hat instance.
sudo subscription-manager register --auto-attach
- Enable the Red Hat
Extras
andOptional
repositories, 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 Red Hat instance.
sudo subscription-manager register --auto-attach
- Enable the Red Hat
Extras
andOptional
repositories, 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
-
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
- Download the rpm packages 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.
- Extract the installation packages. Go to the directory where you saved the archive and run the following command:
This will create amkdir /tmp/chromium ; tar xzf chromium.tgz -C /tmp/chromium
/tmp/chromium
directory and extract the packages into it. - Install extracted packages.
This will install all the packages extracted to thesudo yum install -y /tmp/chromium/*.rpm
/tmp/chromium/
directory. You can delete the/tmp/chromium/
directory and the downloadedchromium.tgz
archive after successful Chromium installation.
-
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 xfonts-cyrillic fonts-arphic-uming ttf-wqy-zenhei fonts-wqy-microhei ttf-wqy-microhei ttf-wqy-zenhei xfonts-wqy fonts-hosny-amiri
After you satisfy the dependencies, run the installer with root rights with the --enable-synthetic
parameter set to manual
. For example:
/bin/sh ./Dynatrace-ActiveGate-Linux.sh --enable-synthetic=manual