Configuring Your Collector for Use with HTTP Proxies

If your environment does not allow the Collector to directly connect with the LogicMonitor data centers, you can configure the Collector to communicate through an HTTP proxy.

Updating SSL and Proxy Settings

By default, Collectors are not configured to use proxies. To change this, you will need to make updates to several proxy settings located in one of the Collector’s configuration files (i.e. the agent.conf file). For detailed instructions on editing the agent.conf file, see Editing the Collector Config Files.

Once updated, the new settings should look similar to these:

# SSL & Proxy settings
ssl.enable=true
proxy.enable=true
proxy.host=10.0.0.54
proxy.port=8080
proxy.user=domain\username
proxy.pass=password
proxy.exclude=
proxy.global=false
proxy.pass.isencrypted=false

These new settings designate the following:

• ssl.enable=true Designates that the Collector will make the outbound connection using SSL.
• proxy.enable=true Designates that the Collector will use these settings.
• proxy.host= Designates the IP address of the proxy server.
• proxy.port= Designates the port the proxy server uses.
• proxy.user= Designates the username the Collector uses when connecting to the proxy.
• proxy.pass= Designates the password the Collector uses when connecting to the proxy.
• proxy.pass.isencrypted= Indicates if the proxy password is encrypted or not.

Note: the settings specified above reflect a Windows-based proxy requiring authentication. Linux Collectors support only basic authentication. Windows Collectors support NTLM and other native windows authentication methods.

Changing the proxy password

If a proxy server has password-based authentication, its credentials are stored in the proxy.user and proxy.pass fields. The proxy password is encrypted. To indicate the encryption, the proxy.pass.isencrypted is set to “true”. You can set proxy.pass.isencrypted= “false” if you want to change the proxy password.

Note: This setting is available in Collector version 30.104 or later.

1. Navigate to Settings > Collectors.
2. On the Collectors page, find the Collector you want to configure and click the Settings icon in the Manage column.  
3. In the Manage Collector dialog box, select “Collector Configuration” from the Support dropdown menu.
4. Open the configuration file you want to edit.
5. Toggle the Edit agent.conf manually switch to manually edit the file.
6. Enter a new password in plain text in the proxy.pass field.
7. Set the proxy.pass.isencrypted value to “false”.
   
   
8. Click Save and Restart.
   After restarting, the password is encrypted and the proxy.pass.isencrypted field is set to “true”.

Troubleshooting Collector Proxy Configuration

Next we’ve highlighted some common issues experienced (and how to resolve them) when configuring Collectors to be used with HTTP proxies.

Issue: Proxy Authentication Required

When the Collector is configured to use a proxy that requires basic authentication, the Collector may throw the following exception:

[MSG] [WARN] [main::controller:main] [Controller2._initConfiguration:461] Unexpected status encountered from server. Will retry., CONTEXT=retry=30s, statusCode= 500, errMsg=Unable to tunnel through proxy. Proxy returns "HTTP/1.1 407 Proxy Authentication Required"

In this case, you will want to add the following configuration to the Collector’s wrapper.conf:

wrapper.java.additional.16=-Djdk.http.auth.tunneling.disabledSchemes=

Issue: Invalid SSL Certificate

If a Collector does not get a valid SSL certificate issued directly from LogicMonitor, it will fail to properly start. In the below example, all SSL certificates in the client environment were being intercepted and reissued using special security software (e.g. Blue Coat Proxy).

[03-26 15:53:03.222 EDT] [MSG] [INFO] [statusmonitor:::] [StatusListener$1.run:106] Receive peer request, CONTEXT=command=keepalive, charset=windows-1252, peer=/***.***.***.***:******
[03-26 15:53:03.268 EDT] [MSG] [WARN] [statusmonitor::scheduler:] [PropertyFilePersistentHandler._load:94] task file not found, CONTEXT=filename=C:\Program Files (x86)\LogicMonitor\Agent\conf\persistent_task.conf, EXCEPTION=C:\Program Files (x86)\LogicMonitor\Agent\conf\persistent_task.conf (The system cannot find the file specified)
java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Program Files (x86)\LogicMonitor\Agent\conf\persistent_task.conf (The system cannot find the file specified)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open0(Native Method)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(FileInputStream.java:195)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:138)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:93)
at com.santaba.common.util.scheduler.impl.PropertyFilePersistentHandler._load(PropertyFilePersistentHandler.java:88)
at com.santaba.common.util.scheduler.impl.PropertyFilePersistentHandler.<init>(PropertyFilePersistentHandler.java:30)
at com.santaba.common.util.scheduler.Schedulers.newPersistentScheduler(Schedulers.java:17)
at com.santaba.agent.collector3.CollectorDb._newScheduler(CollectorDb.java:172)
at com.santaba.agent.collector3.CollectorDb.<init>(CollectorDb.java:68)
at com.santaba.agent.collector3.CollectorDb.<clinit>(CollectorDb.java:65)
at com.santaba.agent.agentmonitor.StatusListener._getAgentStatusResponse(StatusListener.java:279)
at com.santaba.agent.agentmonitor.StatusListener$1.run(StatusListener.java:117) /
[03-26 15:53:03.947 EDT] [INFO] [1] [default] [controller] [Controller2._initHttpService:469] Agent starting with ID - 00baae57-3971-4239-9610-b512aae9c21csbagent
[03-26 15:53:04.232 EDT] [MSG] [INFO] [main::controller:main] [SSLUtilities.checkCertificates:160] Invalid or wrong SSL Certificates found, CONTEXT=info=Found total 2 certificates:
Subject: CN=*.logicmonitor.com, OU=Domain Control Validated
Issuer: CN=SSLInterception87
Type: X.509
SHA1: 9a:a6:ff:33:85:cc:13:4c:3a:13:11:77:5c:ef:5e:a7:74:65:6b:de
MD5: 61:35:08:b5:ec:71:a2:ae:05:c4:7f:54:f1:aa:6f:ad
Valid from: 2017-04-19 10:02:01 -0400
Valid to: 2020-06-18 17:33:09 -0400Subject: CN=SSLInterception3
Issuer: CN=BillyBob's-CA, DC=slhn, DC=org
Type: X.509
SHA1: 6b:a8:1f:61:7b:5d:f0:e4:ee:7e:6a:1b:bb:18:de:67:be:5c:44:1d
MD5: d0:fc:64:da:6f:9b:1f:8d:1a:52:64:dc:41:da:e7:1c
Valid from: 2017-08-09 15:08:18 -0400
Valid to: 2021-10-03 08:53:12 -0400 */
[03-26 15:53:04.232 EDT] [MSG] [WARN] [main::controller:main] [Controller2._initConfiguration:322] SANTABA SERVER ceriticates not trusted, CONTEXT=Host=generic-customer.logicmonitor.com, port=443

Solution A (Preferred)

Have the local administrator add the SSL certificate to your allow list so that it comes into the network unmodified by a proxy/firewall. This is the preferred option because it preserves security.

Solution B

Change the Collector configuration setting from:

EnforceLogicMonitorSSL=true

to:

EnforceLogicMonitorSSL=false

Removing SSL enforcement lowers the security of the connection between your Collector and LogicMonitor and, for this reason, should be carefully considered before implementing.