Dependency Agent in Azure Monitor VM insights

Dependency Agent collects data about processes running on the virtual machine and their external process dependencies. This article describes Dependency Agent requirements and how to uninstall it.

Dependency Agent requirements

• Azure Monitor agent must be installed on the same machine.
• Requires a connection from the virtual machine to the address 169.254.169.254. This address identifies the Azure metadata service endpoint.

Supported operating systems

The Dependency agent currently supports the same Windows versions that Azure Monitor Agent supports up to Windows Server 2022 , except Azure Stack HCI and Windows IoT Enterprise. Windows Server Core isn't supported. The Dependency Agent only supports x64 architectures.

• Support matrix for Linux
• Support matrix for Windows

Dependency Agent installation restrictions on a Linux machine:

• Only default and SMP Linux kernel releases are supported.
• Nonstandard kernel releases, such as physical address extension (PAE) and Xen, aren't supported for any Linux distribution. For example, a system with the release string of 2.6.16.21-0.8-xen isn't supported.
• Custom kernels, including recompilations of standard kernels, aren't supported.
• For Debian distros other than version 9.4, the Map feature isn't supported. The Performance feature is available only from the Azure Monitor menu. It isn't available directly from the left pane of the Azure VM.
• The Dependency Agent taints the Linux kernel, and you might lose support from your Linux distribution until the machine resets.

The Linux kernel must be patched for the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities. For more information, consult with your Linux distribution vendor. Run the following command to check for availability if Spectre/Meltdown has been mitigated:

$ grep . /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*

Output for this command looks similar to the following and specify whether a machine is vulnerable to either issue. If these files are missing, the machine is unpatched.

/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown:Mitigation: PTI
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1:Vulnerable
/sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2:Vulnerable: Minimal generic ASM retpoline

Uninstall Dependency Agent

To find machines, including standalone installations that don't appear as an extension, that still have the Dependency Agent installed, see Finding VMs currently using VM Insights map.

1. From the Virtual Machines menu in the Azure portal, select your virtual machine.

2. Select Extensions + applications > DependencyAgentWindows or DependencyAgentLinux > Uninstall.

   

Manually uninstall Dependency Agent on Windows

Method 1: In Windows, go to Add and remove programs, find Microsoft Dependency Agent, click on the ellipsis to open the context menu, and select Uninstall.

Method 2: Use the uninstaller located in the installation directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dependency Agent. Use the command that matches the installed agent version.

Manually uninstall Dependency Agent on Linux

For version 9.10.2.9060 and later:

1. Sign in on the computer with a user account that has sudo privileges to execute commands as root.

2. Run the uninstaller script:

   sudo /opt/microsoft/dependency-agent/uninstall -s
   

For versions prior to 9.10.2.9060, which don't include an uninstaller script, use the package manager command that matches your distribution:

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo dpkg --purge dependency-agent dependency-agent-service microsoft-dependency-agent-dkms

RPM-based distributions (Red Hat, CentOS, SLES):

sudo rpm -e --allmatches dependency-agent

Dependency Agent Linux support

Since Dependency Agent works at the kernel level, support is also dependent on the kernel version. As of Dependency Agent version 9.10.* the agent supports * kernels. The following table lists the major and minor Linux OS release and supported kernel versions for Dependency Agent.

Next steps

If you want to stop monitoring your VMs for a while or remove VM Insights entirely, see Disable monitoring of your VMs in VM Insights.