How to run tfc-agent binary as a Service with systemd

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Irving
  • Updated

This article provides instructions for configuring the tfc-agent binary to run as a persistent service using systemd on a Linux system.

Prerequisites

  • A Linux system with systemd.
  • The rsyslog service enabled.
  • A local copy of the tfc-agent binaries.

Expected Outcome

The tfc-agent binary is managed as a service via systemd, allowing it to start on boot and restart automatically on failure.

Procedure

  1. Create a directory for the agent binaries and an environment file. Copy the binaries into the new directory.

    # mkdir /opt/tfc_agent
# cp /path/to/binaries/tfc-agent* /opt/tfc_agent/

  2. Create a file with the HCP Terraform agent environment variables. For a full list of environment variables, refer to the agent configuration documentation. The TFC_ADDRESS variable is only required for Terraform Enterprise.

    Execute the following command as the root user.

    # cat > /opt/tfc_agent/tfc-agent.env << EOF
TFC_ADDRESS="https://tfe.example.net"
TFC_AGENT_TOKEN=$TFC_AGENT_TOKEN
TFC_AGENT_NAME=$AGENT_NAME
TFC_AGENT_LOG_LEVEL=INFO
EOF

    After completing these steps, your directory structure should appear as follows.

    /opt/tfc_agent
├── tfc-agent
├── tfc-agent-core
└── tfc-agent.env

  3. Create a new systemd service file.

    Execute the following command as the root user.

    # cat > /etc/systemd/system/tfc-agent.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=Service to automatically start TFC/E Agent
After=network.target

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/opt/tfc_agent/tfc-agent.env
Type=simple
ExecStart=/opt/tfc_agent/tfc-agent
KillSignal=SIGINT
WorkingDirectory=/opt/tfc_agent
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
StandardOutput=syslog
StandardError=syslog
SyslogIdentifier=%n
EOF

  4. Reload the systemd daemon, then enable and start the tfc-agent service.

    # systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl enable tfc-agent
# systemctl start tfc-agent

Verification

  1. Verify that the tfc-agent service has started successfully. The log level in this example was set to TRACE for verbose output.

    $ systemctl status tfc-agent

    The output shows the service is active and running.

    ● tfc-agent.service - Service to automatically start TFC/E Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/tfc-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2023-02-27 11:33:45 CST; 1h 45min ago
 Main PID: 7493 (tfc-agent)
    Tasks: 28 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/tfc-agent.service
           ├─7493 /opt/tfc_agent/tfc-agent
           └─7514 /opt/tfc_agent/tfc-agent-core

Feb 27 13:18:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:18:49.781-0600 [DEBUG] core: Updating status: status.agent=idle
Feb 27 13:18:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:18:49.781-0600 [DEBUG] core: Executing HTTP request: attempt=0 method=PUT url=https://tfe.example.net/api/agent/status
Feb 27 13:18:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:18:49.916-0600 [DEBUG] core: HTTP request succeeded: method=PUT url=https://tfe.example.net/api/agent/status status=204
Feb 27 13:19:11 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:19:11.816-0600 [DEBUG] core: Executing HTTP request: attempt=0 method=GET url=https://tfe.example.net/api/agent/jobs
Feb 27 13:19:11 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:19:11.974-0600 [DEBUG] core: HTTP request succeeded: method=GET url=https://tfe.example.net/api/agent/jobs status=204
Feb 27 13:19:11 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:19:11.974-0600 [DEBUG] core: Server specified delay for next job fetch: delay=30s
Feb 27 13:19:11 td230 tfc-agent.service[7493]: 2023-02-27T13:19:11.974-0600 [DEBUG] core: No jobs ready

  2. Review the tfc-agent service logs for detailed information.

    $ journalctl -xu tfc-agent -f

    The output displays agent activity, including registration and job handling.

    Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 systemd[1]: Started Service to automatically start TFC/E Agent.
Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:19:49.127-0600 [INFO] agent: Starting: name=ubuntu version=1.6.0
Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:19:49.144-0600 [INFO] core: Starting: version=1.6.1
Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:19:49.490-0600 [INFO] core: Agent registered successfully with HCP Terraform: agent.id=agent-RSo7KWFqoxbU7HJG agent.pool.id=apool-NPva8oWcq14i1hv5
Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:19:49.646-0600 [INFO] agent: Core version is up to date: version=1.6.1
Feb 27 11:19:49 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:19:49.646-0600 [INFO] core: Waiting for next job
Feb 27 11:22:23 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:23.419-0600 [INFO] core: Job received: job.type=plan job.id=run-ufee6ynJNRQUWxYH
Feb 27 11:22:23 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:23.419-0600 [INFO] terraform: Handling run: run.id=run-ufee6ynJNRQUWxYH run.operation=plan organization.name=havananet workspace.name=memtest
Feb 27 11:22:24 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:24.126-0600 [INFO] terraform: Extracting Terraform from release archive
Feb 27 11:22:24 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:24.776-0600 [INFO] terraform: Terraform CLI details: version=1.3.2
Feb 27 11:22:24 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:24.776-0600 [INFO] terraform: Downloading Terraform configuration
Feb 27 11:22:24 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:24.890-0600 [INFO] terraform: Running terraform init
Feb 27 11:22:26 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:26.745-0600 [INFO] terraform: Running terraform plan
Feb 27 11:22:28 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:28.501-0600 [INFO] terraform: Generating and uploading plan JSON
Feb 27 11:22:29 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:28.836-0600 [INFO] terraform: Generating and uploading provider schemas JSON
Feb 27 11:22:30 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:30.345-0600 [INFO] terraform: Persisting filesystem to remote storage
Feb 27 11:22:31 td230 tfc-agent.service[28407]: 2023-02-27T11:22:31.645-0600 [INFO] terraform: Finished handling run

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