Minion Management

A Minion is a lightweight, secure collector that monitors and communicates with the devices on your network, shares collected data, and connects your network with OpenNMS Cloud/Lōkahi.

This section describes management tasks for installed Minions. If you have not yet installed at least one Minion, see <documentation> for instructions.

Each Minion is associated with a location. A location defines a network area where you installed your Minion. The Minion’s security certificate is closely tied to the location. With OpenNMS Cloud, you install your first Minion as part of the onboarding process. We create a location called "default" to associate with this Minion.

Before you can add a Minion, you need to create a location.

Create a location

A location defines the network area where you installed your Minion.

Follow these steps to add a location:

  1. Click Locations in the left navigation menu.

  2. Click the + Location button.

  3. Type the location name in the field.

    Note that you cannot edit the location name after you save the location.

  4. Click Save.

The new location is saved. From the Locations list, you can edit the location (to add a Minion to it) or delete it.

Associate a Minion with a location

To install a Minion on your system and associate it with a location, make sure your system meets the following requirements:

  • CPU: 3GHz quad core x86_64 and above

  • RAM: 8GB (physical) and above

  • Storage (disk space): 100GB with SSD and above

  • Docker environment with Docker Compose (installation instructions: Mac, Linux, Windows)

  • Access to a terminal window

  • Network Time Protocol (NTP) installed and configured

We recommend using Linux for production environments. Mac and Windows work as test environments for the Minion, but sending traps to the Minion does not work correctly. Traps will not be associated with the correct node, and passive discovery will not be able to find the node that is sending traps.

To associate a Minion with a location, follow these steps:

  1. Click Locations in the left navigation menu.

  2. In the Locations list, click the vertical ellipsis (⋮) next to the location you want to add the Minion to.

  3. Click Edit.

  4. Click Download Certifcate.

  5. Create a permanent directory for the Minion on the device where you want to run it.

  6. Copy the downloaded security certificate to the permanent directory. Do not change its name.

  7. Copy the password in the Unlock File Password field.

  8. Open the certificate file and, when prompted, enter the password in the field.

  9. Open a terminal window.

  10. In OpenNMS, copy the Docker command.

  11. Paste the command into the terminal window.

  12. Edit the PATH_TO_DOWNLOADED_FILE with the full path to the certificate file.

  13. Run the command.

  14. In OpenNMS, click Save.

Your Minion will appear in the Locations screen once it is running and OpenNMS detects it.

View Minion details

You can view details about the Minion including latency and status on the Inventory page (select Inventory from the left navigation menu).

Delete a location

To delete a location, follow these steps:

  1. Click Locations in the left navigation menu.

  2. Find the location that you want to remove and select the vertical ellipsis beside its name.

  3. Choose Delete and confirm deletion.

Delete a Minion

If you delete your only Minion, you will no longer receive network monitoring data.

Follow these steps to delete a Minion:

  1. Click Locations in the left navigation menu.

  2. In the locations list, click the location with the Minion you want to delete.

  3. Click the vertical ellipsis beside the Minion name and click Delete.

    You are prompted to confirm deletion.

  4. Click Delete.