Activate the agent

If you haven't already installed the agent, see Use deployment scripts to add and protect computers or Manually install the Deep Security Agent for instructions.

Before the installed agent can protect its computer or be converted to a relay, you must activate the agent with Deep Security Manager. Activation registers the agent with the manager during an initial communication.

To do this, you can either:

• Activate the agent from the manager. Go to Computers, right-click the computer whose agent you want to activate or reactivate and select Actions > Activate/Reactivate. (Alternatively, click Activate or Reactivate in the computer's Details window.)
• Activate the agent through a deployment script. See Use deployment scripts to add and protect computers for details.
• Activate the agent from the computer where the agent is installed. Run this command:
  dsa_control -a dsm://<dsm_host_or_IP>:<port>/
  where:
  <dsm_host_or_IP> is replaced with the Deep Security Manager hostname or IP address, and
  <port> is replaced with the Deep Security Manager heartbeat port, which is 4120, by default.
  For details on this command, including additional parameters, see Command-line basics.
• Activate the agent through an event-based task ("Computer Created (by System)" event) to automatically activate computers when they connect to the manager or when the manager syncs with an LDAP directory, cloud account, or vCenter. For more information, see Automatically perform tasks when a computer is added or changed.

Before activation, the agent will have one of these statuses:

• No Agent: Indicates one of the following situations:
  • No agent is running or listening on the default port.
  • An agent is installed and running but is working with another manager and communications are configured as agent-initiated. In this case, the agent is not listening for this manager. To correct this situation, deactivate the agent from the computer.
• Activation Required: The agent is installed and listening, and is ready to be activated by the manager.
• Reactivation Required: The agent is installed and listening and is waiting to be reactivated by the manager.
• Deactivation Required: The agent is installed and listening, but has already been activated by another manager.
• Unknown: The computer has been imported (as part of an imported Computers list) without state information, or has been added by way of an LDAP directory discovery process.

After a successful activation, the agent state is Online. If the activation failed, the computer status is Activation Failed with the reason for the failure in brackets. Click this link to display the system event for more details on the reason for the activation failure.

Deactivate the agent

If you want to transfer control of a computer from one Deep Security Manager installation to another, you must deactivate the agent with its current manager, and then re-activate it with the new manager.

You can normally deactivate the agent from the Deep Security Manager that is currently managing the agent. If the Deep Security Manager cannot communicate with the agent, you may have to perform the deactivation manually. To run the commands below, you must have administrator privileges on the local machine.

To deactivate the agent on Windows:

1. From a command line, change to the agent directory (Default is C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\Deep Security Agent)
2. Run the following: dsa_control -r

To deactivate the agent on Linux:

1. Run the following: /opt/ds_agent/dsa_control -r

Stop or start the agent

To start or stop the agent on Windows:

• Stop: from the command line, run the following: sc stop ds_agent
• Start: from the command line, run the following: sc start ds_agent

To start or stop the agent on Linux:

• Stop: run the following: /etc/init.d/ds_agent stop
• Start: run the following: /etc/init.d/ds_agent start

Stop or start the appliance

Stopping or starting the appliance can only be done locally on the host computer.

To start or stop the appliance on Linux: