Installing the Sensu Agent on Windows

24/09/2025

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A Step-by-Step Guide to Installing the Sensu Agent on Windows

Effectively monitoring your Windows infrastructure is crucial for maintaining system health, performance, and security. The Sensu agent is a powerful tool for observability, allowing you to collect metrics, run health checks, and stream data to a centralized Sensu backend. This guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough for installing and configuring the Sensu agent on your Windows systems.

Prerequisites

Before you begin the installation process, ensure you have the following:

Administrator access to the Windows machine where the agent will be installed.
The URL of your Sensu backend, which is required for the agent to connect and register.
Familiarity with either the Windows command line (PowerShell or Command Prompt) or the Services management console.

Installation Method 1: Using the MSI Installer (Recommended)

For most users, the MSI package provides the simplest and most direct installation method. It includes a wizard-driven setup that handles the necessary file placement and service creation.

Download the latest Sensu agent MSI package. Ensure you download the correct architecture (amd64) for your Windows version.
Run the installer. Double-click the downloaded .msi file to launch the installation wizard and follow the on-screen prompts. The agent will be installed by default in C:\Program Files\Sensu\sensu-agent.
The installer will automatically create the necessary configuration directories and set up the sensu-agent as a Windows service.

Installation Method 2: Using Chocolatey

If you prefer to manage software through the command line or automate your deployments, using the Chocolatey package manager is an excellent option.

First, ensure you have Chocolatey installed on your system.
Open a PowerShell or Command Prompt window as an Administrator.
Run the following command to install the Sensu agent:
powershell choco install sensu-agent
Chocolatey will handle the download, extraction, and setup of the agent service automatically.

Configuring the Sensu Agent

Once installed, the next critical step is to configure the agent to communicate with your Sensu backend.

The primary configuration file is located at C:\ProgramData\sensu\config\agent.yml. You will need to edit this file to set up the connection.

Here is a basic configuration example:

##
# agent configuration
##
backend-url:
  - "ws://127.0.0.1:8081"

name: "windows-server-01"
namespace: "default"
subscriptions:
  - "windows"
  - "webserver"

Key Configuration Parameters:

backend-url: This is the most important setting. Replace "ws://127.0.0.1:8081" with the WebSocket URL of your Sensu backend. For secure connections, you will use wss:// instead of ws://.
name: Provide a unique identifier for this agent. By default, it uses the machine’s hostname, but you can override it here. It is a best practice to assign a descriptive, unique name.
namespace: Specify the Sensu namespace this agent should belong to. The default is typically default.
subscriptions: This is a list of roles or groups the agent belongs to. Checks are targeted to agents based on these subscriptions. For example, all agents subscribed to "webserver" will run webserver-related checks.

Starting and Verifying the Agent

After saving your agent.yml configuration, you need to start the agent service.

You can start the service using the command line:

net start sensu-agent

Alternatively, you can open the Windows Services application, find the sensu-agent service in the list, right-click it, and select “Start”.

To verify that the agent is running correctly:

Check the service status: Ensure the sensu-agent service shows a “Running” status in the Services console.
Inspect the logs: The agent log file is located at C:\ProgramData\sensu\log\sensu-agent.log. Check this file for any error messages. A successful connection will show log entries indicating a connection to the backend websocket.
Confirm registration in the backend: On your Sensu backend, use the sensuctl command-line tool to see if the new agent has registered.
```
sensuctl entity list
```
You should see the agent’s name (e.g., windows-server-01) in the output list.

Security Best Practices

For production environments, securing the communication between the agent and backend is essential. By default, communication is unencrypted. To enable TLS encryption:

Use the wss:// protocol in your backend-url.
If your backend uses a self-signed certificate, you may need to configure the trusted-ca-file option in the agent.yml to point to your Certificate Authority (CA) file. This ensures the agent trusts the backend certificate, preventing man-in-the-middle attacks.

By following these steps, you can successfully deploy and configure the Sensu agent on your Windows systems, integrating them into your broader observability platform and gaining critical insights into their performance and health.

Source: https://kifarunix.com/install-sensu-agent-on-windows-systems/