Working with Amazon Inspector Classic agents on Linux-based operating systems - Amazon Inspector Classic
Verifying that the Amazon Inspector Classic agent is runningStopping the Amazon Inspector Classic agentStarting the Amazon Inspector Classic agentModifying Amazon Inspector Classic agents settingsConfiguring proxy support for an Amazon Inspector Classic agentUninstalling the Amazon Inspector Classic agent

This is the user guide for Amazon Inspector Classic. For information about the new Amazon Inspector, see the Amazon Inspector User Guide. To access the Amazon Inspector Classic console, open the Amazon Inspector console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/inspector/, and then choose Amazon Inspector Classic in the navigation pane.

Working with Amazon Inspector Classic agents on Linux-based operating systems

You can install, remove, verify, and modify the behavior of Amazon Inspector Classic agents. Sign in to your Amazon EC2 instance running a Linux-based operating system, and run any of the following procedures. For more information about the operating systems that are supported for Amazon Inspector Classic, see Amazon Inspector Classic supported operating systems and Regions.

Important

The Amazon Inspector Classic agent relies on Amazon EC2 instance metadata to function correctly. It accesses instance metadata using version 1 or version 2 of the Instance Metadata Service (IMDSv1 or IMDSv2). See Instance Metadata and User Data to learn more about EC2 instance metadata and access methods.

Note

The commands in this section function in all AWS Regions that are supported by Amazon Inspector Classic.

Verifying that the Amazon Inspector Classic agent is running

  • To verify that the agent is installed and running, sign in to your EC2 instance and run the following command:

    sudo /opt/aws/awsagent/bin/awsagent status

    This command returns the status of the currently running agent, or an error stating that the agent cannot be contacted.

Stopping the Amazon Inspector Classic agent

  • To stop the agent, run the following command:

    sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent stop

Starting the Amazon Inspector Classic agent

  • To start the agent, run the following command:

    sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent start

Modifying Amazon Inspector Classic agents settings

After the Amazon Inspector Classic agent is installed and running on your EC2 instance, you can modify the settings in the agent.cfg file to alter the agent's behavior. On Linux-based operating systems, the agent.cfg file is located in the /opt/aws/awsagent/etc directory. After you modify and save the agent.cfg file, you must stop and start the agent for the changes to take effect.

Important

We highly recommend that you modify the agent.cfg file only with the guidance of AWS Support.

Configuring proxy support for an Amazon Inspector Classic agent

To get proxy support for an agent on a Linux-based operating system, use an agent-specific configuration file with specific environment variables. For more information, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/proxy_settings.

Complete one of the following procedures:

To install an agent on an EC2 instance that uses a proxy server

  1. Create a file called awsagent.env and save it in the /etc/init.d/ directory.

  2. Edit awsagent.env to include these environment variables in the following format:

    • export https_proxy=hostname:port

    • export http_proxy=hostname:port

    • export no_proxy=169.254.169.254

    Note

    Substitute values in the preceding examples with valid hostname and port number combinations only. Specify the IP address of the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254) for the no_proxy variable.

  3. Install the Amazon Inspector Classic agent by completing the steps in the Installing the agent on a Linux-based EC2 instance procedure.

To configure proxy support on an EC2 instance with a running agent

  1. To configure proxy support, the version of the agent that is running on your EC2 instance must be 1.0.800.1 or later. If you enabled the auto-update process for the agent, you can verify that your agent's version is 1.0.800.1 or later by using the Verifying that the Amazon Inspector Classic agent is running procedure. If you didn't enable the auto-update process for the agent, you must install the agent on this EC2 instance again by following the Installing the agent on a Linux-based EC2 instance procedure.

  2. Create a file called awsagent.env, and save it in the /etc/init.d/ directory.

  3. Edit awsagent.env to include these environment variables in the following format:

    • export https_proxy=hostname:port

    • export http_proxy=hostname:port

    • export no_proxy=169.254.169.254

    Note

    Substitute values in the preceding examples with valid hostname and port number combinations only. Specify the IP address of the instance metadata endpoint (169.254.169.254) for the no_proxy variable.

  4. Restart the agent by first stopping it using the following command:

    sudo /etc/init.d/awsagent restart

    Proxy settings are picked up and used by both the agent and the auto-update process.

Uninstalling the Amazon Inspector Classic agent

To uninstall the agent

  1. Sign in to your EC2 instance running a Linux-based operating system where you want to uninstall the agent.

    Note

    For more information about the operating systems that are supported for Amazon Inspector Classic, see Amazon Inspector Classic supported operating systems and Regions.

  2. To uninstall the agent, use one of the following commands:

    • On Amazon Linux, CentOS, and Red Hat, run the following command:

      sudo yum remove 'AwsAgent*'

    • On Ubuntu Server, run the following command:

      sudo apt-get purge 'awsagent*'