NerdTools

The NerdTools server agent installs in under a minute on any Linux server with bash and curl.

Prerequisites

• A Linux server (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, etc.)
• Root or sudo access
• curl installed
• Outbound HTTPS access to api.nerdtools.co.uk

Installation steps

1. Go to your Account page in NerdTools
2. Scroll to the Server Monitoring section and click Add server
3. Enter a unique host identifier (e.g. web-server-1 or db-prod)
4. Optionally add a label for display purposes
5. Copy the install command shown — it includes your token and host

The installer process

• Creates a config file at /etc/nerdtools-agent.conf
• Downloads the agent script to /usr/local/bin/nerdtools-agent
• Sets up a cron job to run the agent every minute
• Optionally creates a dedicated nt-agent user

Running as a dedicated user

By default, the installer prompts you to choose between:

1. nt-agent (recommended) — Creates a system user with no login shell
2. root — Runs as root

You can also specify the user non-interactively with the following flag:

--user nt-agent

Verifying installation

After installation, you should see metrics appear in your dashboard within a couple of minutes. You can also check:

# View recent log entries
tail /var/log/nerdtools-agent.log

# Check the cron job
cat /etc/cron.d/nerdtools-agent

# Run the agent manually
sudo /usr/local/bin/nerdtools-agent