Folders to be Excluded from Virus Scans
For best performance, eG Innovations recommends that the following eG manager folders be excluded from virus scans:
• On the eG manager host, it is recommended that you exclude the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\bin and <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\lib folders from virus scans. This is because both these folders contain exe files that the eG external agent on the manager host uses to run correctly. If these folders are not excluded, then virus scans may block these exes.
• The <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager folder is where the eG manager’s configuration is stored. Moreover, logs of critical manager activities such as cleanup, trend computation, thresholding, etc., are maintained only in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager folder. Since a virus scan may slow read/write accesses to this folder and cause eG manager performance to suffer, you are advised to exclude this folder from virus scans.
On the eG agent host, make sure that the following folders are excluded from virus scans to ensure peak performance of the eG agent:
• The eG agent will create temporary files every time before it uploads any metrics to the eG manager – one file per test that is running, and also one file per test with detailed diagnosis (“_DD” suffix). These files are created in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\data folder. Virus scans of all reads and writes to this folder will slow down the agent significantly. So, it's best that you exclude all files in the data folder from scanning.
• The <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\threshold folder has files – one for each test run. These files will be downloaded once an hour from the manager and written to this folder. For best performance, the antivirus should not interfere with the read/write operations in this folder.
• The <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\config folder has configuration files that are downloaded from the manager. When configurations are changed on the manager, these files will be updated. It is good practice to exclude this folder from scanning.
• The <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\logs folder has agentout/err logs and other log files that may be used for storing metrics that need to persist beyond agent restarts. If logging is enabled and antivirus traps all reads and writes to the agent, this will also slow down the agent’s performance significantly. So, you are advised to block the logs folder from scanning.
• If configuration tracking is enabled, the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\configmgmt folder has the last known configuration values – there is one file for each configuration test that is configured. These files are updated only if config changes happen, but yet, it is recommended that you exclude this folder from scanning.
• The <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\bin and <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\lib folders on an eG agent host contain exe files that are required for the agent to run correctly. These exes should not be blocked from running. In some cases, we have seen files needed by the eG agent being removed by the antivirus software. This should be avoided.
• Whenever changes are made to an agent’s configuration, such changes are first written to the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\tmp folder before being processed. Sometimes, the antivirus software may deny the eG agent access to this folder. Configuration changes made at such times may not be affected. To avoid it, it is good practice to exclude the tmp folder from virus scanning.
If you have installed an eG VM Agent on Windows VMs/desktops for “inside view” monitoring, then make sure that the eGVmAgent folder is excluded from virus scanning.