Agent application settings

Additional settings available for the cross platform Agents.

When setting up a Frends Agent, there are configuration files and options available to adjust the Agent's settings. This is especially useful and important for containerized deployments, when Agents may be deployed without manual intervention.

Settings files

The Agent application reads settings from a number of files:

1. appsettings.json

2. appsettings.production.json

3. secrets/appsettings.secrets.json

The configuration in these files cascade in priority, with latter files overriding settings from earlier ones.

The files appsettings.json and secrets/appsettings.secrets.json are overwritten during installation, so lasting changes shouldn't be made there and you should make your changes to the appsettings.production.json file instead. The production file has to be created manually, into the same folder as appsettings.json file.

All changes to the files are applied to the Agent after restarting the Agent. Reinstallation is not necessary to apply the settings.

Available settings

Most of these settings should be pre-configured correctly when downloading the configuration from the Frends UI. However, you can manually edit them in appsettings.json file. Here is an explanation of what the different settings are used for and where they come from. ​ ​SA = Single Agent in Agent group. ​HA = High availability, multiple Agents in Agent Group.

Agent database settings

If the Agent Group has multiple Frends Agents either AgentDatabaseConnectionString or SharedStateStore has to be set to be able to run Schedule and FileWatch Triggers. If neither is set the Agent State will be stored in SQLite and not shared between agents.

AgentDatabaseConnectionString (optional, SQL Server, HA)

This value is configured in the Agent Group view under UI and all agents in the Agent Group have to use the same connection string.

DataDirectory (optional, containers, SQLite, SA)

This determines where the SQLite databases are stored for the agent.

For a single Agent running in a container this needs to be set to a location outside the container itself to store Schedule and FileWatch Trigger states.

SharedStateStore

Settings for Shared State configuration.

Properties:

• ConnectionString: A database connection string (string)

Generic settings

These settings are required for the Agent to run. These settings are provided by the CORE when downloading the installation configuration

AgentGroupName

Name of the Agent Group where the Agent runs.

AgentName

Name of the Agent.

AzureServiceBusSasTokenConfiguration

Configuration for Azure Service Bus connection.

Contains properties:

• Endpoint: Azure Service Bus namespace, e.g. foobar.windows.net (string)

• UseAmqpWebSockets: Whether to use AMQP WebSockets instead of Azure Service Bus for communications (bool)

• SasTokensPerQueueIdentifier: SAS tokens for each queue, if required (key-value pairs of string: string)

Not required, if RabbitMqConnectionString is configured.

EnvironmentName

Name of the Environment where the Agent runs.

​LogStepStoreUri

The location where the Frends Agent will log Process instance steps.

Can either be an URL for an Azure blob container (with the SAS token) or a Windows file URI (file://).

LargeMessageStoreUri

Messages that do not fit in the Message bus get transferred via this location.

Can either be an URL for an Azure blob container (with the SAS token) or a Windows file URI (file://).

ProcessHostPackageStoreUri

The location where from the Frends Agent will download the Processes built by the UI.

Can either be an URL for an Azure blob container (with the SAS token) or a Windows file URI (file://).

RabbitMqConnectionString

Connection string for RabbitMQ connection.

Not required, if an Azure Service Bus connection has been configured.

Optional settings

CertificateThumbprintOrPath

Specifies the certificate the Agent uses to secure its API and HTTP(S) endpoints. Accepts either a certificate thumbprint or a full file path to a .pfx file.

• Thumbprint — Provide a hex thumbprint string, e.g. A1B2C3D4E5F6.... The certificate must be pre-installed on the machine. The Agent searches the My store in CurrentUser by default. Use the CertificateStore setting to switch to LocalMachine.

• File path — Provide the full path to a .pfx file, e.g. /app/secrets/cert.pfx. The Agent must have read access to the file. If the certificate is password-protected, also set CertificatePassword.

  • Note: Updating the Frends Agent will overwrite this setting, unless the new Frends Agent application settings file is edited accordingly.

• Empty / not set — The Agent auto-generates a self-signed certificate. Not recommended for production, especially in containers where the certificate will regenerate on each new instance.

CertificateStore

The name of the certificate store, where the specified certificate is located.

Default: CurrentUser

Other supported values: LocalMachine

CertificatePassword

This setting is used if a certificate for HTTPS is provided with a file path.

HealthCheckApiKey

If left empty, HTTP(S) health check endpoints (/FrendsStatusInfo and /FrendsStatusInfoLiveness) will be accessible without any authentication. Leave this empty if you have Gateway Agents in the same Agent Group.

If set, the health check endpoints will require the API key set here to be set in 'health-check-api-key' header.

HttpPorts(json) or HttpPortsString(environment variable)

If this is set the Frends Agent will attempt to start listening for HTTP traffic on the configured ports.

HttpPorts expects a json array of integers, e.g. [ 9996, 9997 ]. HttpPortsString expects a string where the ports are comma separated, for example "9996, 9997".

HttpStatusinfoPort

If you wish to host the status info page on a separate HTTP port you can configure this option.

This value should be a integer, e.g. "HttpStatusinfoPort": 9901.

HttpsPorts (json) or HttpsPortsString (environment variable)

If this is set the Frends Agent will attempt to start listening for HTTP traffic on the configured ports.

HttpsPorts expects a JSON array of integers, e.g [ 443, 9999 ]. HttpsPortsString expects a string where the ports are comma separated, e.g. "443, 9999".

InstallationIdentifier (SQLite)

This value needs to unique for all Agents running on the same machine. Can be ignored if only one agent is running on the machine.

NativeAiSettings (json)

Configuration for AI Connector connection timeouts. Contains properties:

• FrendsAiClientTimeoutSeconds: timeout in seconds for calling FrendsAi endpoint

• FileDownloadClientTimeoutSeconds: timeout in seconds for AI Connector fetching files

These both default to 100 seconds which is suitable in most cases.

Gateway Agent Settings

These settings are relevant if the Frends Agent is a Gateway Agent.

GatewayTargetAddresses

If this setting is set the Frends Agent will considered to be a Gateway Agent.

This should be a JSON string array with the all the addresses for the targets ["https://agent1.local:443","https://agent2.local:443"].

​AllowUnsafeServerCertificateForGateway

If this setting is set the target Frends Agents do not need to have valid SSL certificates for the Gateway to proxy traffic to the Agents.

Default is false.

​TimeoutMinutesForGateway

Maximum timeout the Gateway will wait for a response from the target Frends Agents.

Default is 10 minutes.

Miscellaneous settings

The following options are optional and should only be set if one knows what they are doing.

AppDomainSetupTimeout

The timeout timespan for the initial package directory and app domain setup.

Type: Timespan

Default: 10 minutes

CheckInstancesForZombiesRunningLongerThanMinutes

Amount of minutes for a Process to run before it will be checked if it is a zombie, and terminated if it is.

Default: 900

EnableOTPLMetrics

Enables the Frends Agent to start collecting and publishing OpenTelemetry metrics for a separately installed and configured OpenTelemetry Collector software.

The setting will follow URL set in OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT OS environment variable to push the OpenTelemetry data into.

EnableOTPLTracing

Enables the Frends Agent to start collecting and publishing OpenTelemetry traces for a separately installed and configured OpenTelemetry Collector software.

The setting will follow URL set in OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT OS environment variable to push the OpenTelemetry data into.

FileSystemInstanceLoggingPath

If set, the Agent will log Instances to a file in the specified path.

HeartBeatStatusInfoDebounceDelay

Amount of time spent per received heartbeat status message to ignore other following messages in the observable sequence.

Type: Timespan

Default: 2 seconds

MaxConcurrentRemoteSubprocessesPerCpu

Maximum amount of concurrent Remote Subprocesses per CPU.

Default: 64

MaxConcurrentBlobTransfersPerCpu

Maximum amount of concurrent blob transfers per CPU core.

Default: 4

MaxLogFlushWaitDurationSeconds

Maximum amount of time in seconds to wait before time-outing a log flush.

Default: 300

MaxSubprocessDepth

Maximum amount of Subprocesses a Process can start.

Default: 30