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Install a Cross Platform Frends Agent on Windows

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Written by Tikriti Shabudin
Updated over a year ago

The following steps will install a cross platform Frends Agent on Windows. The images are from Windows 10, therefore they may be slightly different on other Windows Versions.

Prerequisites

1) .NET environment

For Frends 5.7

Both .NET 8.0 ASP.NET Core Runtime Hosting Bundle and .NET 8 Desktop Runtime x64 or SDK from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/8.0

For Frends 5.6 and 5.5

Click to expand

Both .NET 6.0 ASP.NET Core Runtime Hosting Bundle and .NET 6 Desktop Runtime x64 or SDK from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0

For Frends 5.0 to 5.5

Click to expand

Both .NET 3.1 ASP.NET Core Runtime Hosting Bundle and .NET 3.1 Desktop Runtime x64 or SDK from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/3.1

2) Cross-Platform setting enabled in Frends

Under Agent Group "Advanced settings", ensure that the "Cross-Platform" option is enabled, and the "Allow new Agents to connect to Agent Group" option is disabled.

3) Frends Agent User

A local or domain user with administrative rights. (This will be added to config.json)

4) Outbound connectivity

Open necessary ports.

Download Windows Installer

Create a new Agent in the Agent Group.

Click on the downwards facing arrow icon, then click Windows Installer. If you do not see the Windows Installer option, and instead see "Installer without bundled LocalDB", make sure you have the "Cross-Platform" option selected in the advanced settings menu.

Next, go to file explorer and create a new folder named "Frends Agent Install" for example, and extract the Windows Installer folder into it. The Windows Installer contains the following files:

  • appsettings.secrets.json is the dynamically generated Agent configuration settings

  • config.json is for custom Agent settings

  • Frends.Agent.WindowsInstaller.msi is the installer

Setting up the Agent Store

If you are installing the Agent on a HA environment or you use a shared database for other reasons you need to run a database initializer at this point and maybe install a load balancer.

Agent Installation

  • Add Frends Agent User details to config.json. It is possible the details are already in the json file.

  • Run Frends.Agent.WindowsInstaller.msi and follow the installer

  • When completed, the Agent should become active in the Frends UI

Troubleshooting

If you encounter this error, please make sure you have the correct ASP.NET version. Installation steps can be found in the prerequisites section at the beginning of this article.

If you encounter this error, please make sure you have extracted the contents of the Windows Installer folder into a separate location, and are running the Frends.Agent.WindowsInstaller.msi file from there.

If you encounter this error, please make sure that the Domain name, username, and password inside the config.json folder are the same as the ones found in Windows Powershell after running the hostname command, and the Local User was created in the previous step.

Error logs for troubleshooting:

Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> Application

C:\Program Files (x86)\HiQ Finland\Frends Agent\logs

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