Skip to content

Resilio Agent UI

Overview

Resilio Agent UI is a desktop application for Windows and macOS that enables monitoring of Jobs that the end user Agent participates in.

Enabling the Agent UI

Using configuration file

Enable Agent UI on already deployed Agents

To enable the Agent UI on already deployed Agents, locate and open the Agent configuration file, then add the "use_gui":true parameter.

Example: sync.conf Agent configuration file

{
  "management_server": {
    "host": "172.16.0.23:8444",
    "cert_authority_fingerprint": "d0...28",
    "bootstrap_token": "PX...7A",
    "disable_cert_check": false
  },
  "mc_restricted_access": false,
  "use_gui": true
}

Tip: Mass-update Agent configuration file

You can use a Distribution or a Run Script Job to mass-update Agent configuration file. For details, see Updating Agent configuration file.

Enable Agent UI on new installations

  1. Generate the configuration file, make sure to select the Enable Agent UI option.
  2. Download and place the Agent’s configuration file in the same folder as the MSI installer, then run the installer.

  3. When selecting options, make sure to select the UI shortcuts and autostart option.

    Agent Ui Add Shortcut

Windows Resilio Agent characteristics

  • Agent installs and runs as a Windows Service. It also creates a desktop shortcut that launches the user-interface. Agent icon also appears in tray.
  • On Windows, the user-interface is just an additional feature to the Windows Service, and spawns a separate process from the C:\Program Files\Resilio Connect Agent\Resilio Connect Agent.exe file, same as the service itself.
  • It runs only in current user's session and not available for others. Trying to launch another UI process in a different user session will give the corresponding error.
  • The Agent UI does not work if the Agent service is not running. Trying to open the Agent UI without the Agent service running will result with the following error message.
    Agent Ui Connection Lost
  • The Agent service is not dependent on user-interface module. Even if you quit the user-interface, the Agent service will continue working and syncing files.

Using simple mode

Applicable to new installations, connecting to the Management Console using its address.

To enable Agent UI:

  1. In installation wizard select option to enter Console's IP address manually, and the Agent UI will be enabled automatically.

    Agent Ui Install Simple Mode

  2. Proceed with installation. On Windows, keep the Open Resilio Connect Agent UI option enabled.

    Agent Ui Install Open Ui

About The User-Interface Design

Agent user-interface is html based. It has tabs: Folders, Transfers , History and Options. Folders tab lists the sync shares and shows their status. Transfers tab shows transfer job runs (distribution and Consolidation) and Script jobs. History is the list of events for this agent, it’s a good source to trace the syncing activity for the last 30 days (or last 20K of events). Options keep some of changeable settings: device name, connectivity to the Management Console, bandwidth scheduler, default folder location and permissions for the MC Admin.

Agent Ui Folders

Folders/Transfers tab have the following columns:

  • Name - Name of the folder selected for synchronization on this device. Clicking on the folder name opens the folder in file browser. Right-click on the folder name gives option to open its Archive (works only for sync jobs). Folders with Transparent Selective Sync (on Windows) or (on mac OS) enabled don’t have background filling.

  • Status - All these reflect status toward priority_peers if these are set in Agent profile (Synced, Progress, Paused, Error, No peers, Connecting to peers). Synchronization errors and file warning appear in this columns. The File warning are only kept for active job runs on tab transfers, and are removed from Agent UI once the job run is completed or aborted.

  • Size/Local Size - Total size of the share, and the size of files present on this agent. For shares with TSS enabled, it usually differs from total Size.
  • Sending/Receiving - The current upload and download speed respectively.
  • Path - Full path to the directory on the workstation.
  • Upload queue/Download queue - The number of files pending in upload/download queue. Clicking on it opens the list of file that are being uploaded or downloaded. Only 10 currently active files are shown in the queue.
  • Files/Local Files - The count of files in the share, total vs present on the agent. For Selective Sync shares the count may differ even if status is ‘Synced’.
  • Date added - Time when the job was created for this agent and appeared here.
  • Date synced - The date when agent verified and confirmed that it’s synced up. Agent does it periodically every 10 minutes and upon restart. If status is ‘Synced’, it’s also duplicated at the bottom of user-interface and in tray icon menu.
  • Last transferred - Date when file bits were actually transferred. Unlike “Date synced”, it only shows actual data transfer time. Thus it may be behind “Date Synced” if nothing has been actually transferred since then.

History tab shows synchronization events by event type for this Agent. By default the Agent keeps up to 20k of events but no more that for 30 days.

Options tab shows the following information
General: shows the Agent's name, version and status of connection to the MC. It's possible to change MC address only if the agent was initially connected without a configuration file. Show notifications, if enabled, let agent show system events notification to the user about the Agent's activity.

Agent Ui Options General

User controlled: allows to manage the behavior of the Agent independently of Resilio Admin. However, this is only if allowed from the Agent's Profile. For more information on bandwidth scheduler, see Bandwidth scheduler and pausing in the Resilio Agent UI. For more information on default folder location, see Limiting Admin Access To The Agent .

Agent Ui Options User Controlled

At the bottom of user-interface

There’s an option to pause agent and set speed limits through agent UI. To allow a user to pause agent, MC admin shall enable the Allow pause from Agent UI option in the Agent profile.

If user pauses agent in user-interface, pause tooltip says ‘Paused by user’. If agent is paused by Scheduled in MC, tooltip says “Paused by admin”. These two pauses interlap. For more information, see Bandwidth scheduler and pausing in the Resilio Agent UI.

Agent Ui Paused By Admin

Center field shows either Last Synced time or a core error:

  • Bind port busy
  • No connection to tracker server
  • No network connection
  • No connection to Management Console
  • Failed to connect to Management Console: invalid certificate fingerprint

Utilizing User-Interface

The agent has an icon in taskbar that represent the current synchronization status:

  • Empty if synced, if nothing to download/upload;
  • Up/down arrows, if there is an active download process (for selective sync too) or active upload to specific host
  • Red dot if there is error or agent disconnected from MC
  • Paused if agent paused

Right-click on icon opens menu with the following info

  • syncing: up/down speed and number of files up/down;
  • synced: last synced time and files synced.
  • pause/resulme: if pausing the agent from UI it allowed by the admin.
  • error: status may be syncing or failed, error indicator (can we link it to error in user-interface?). Cannot connect to MC

Agent also has taskbar system notifications:

  • Low disk space (agent is running out of space on the drive where sync share’s located)
  • Too large file detected (file size exceeds file system limitations, e.g. 4+GB on FAT32)
  • File is locked (agent does not have access to the file right now)
  • Excessive time difference (UTC time difference between agents is more than 600 seconds)
  • Not enough permissions to access "file/folder" (the agent does not have read-write permissions to the mentioned file/folders)
  • Service files are not correct or missed (the identifier file .sync/ID of the share was deleted or got corrupt)
  • Wrong location or folder was deleted (the folder itself was deleted from the drive)
  • Finished uploading files to "Server" (if priority peer is set in MC)
  • File editing conflict (if notify_file_edit_conflict_time_diffis set in MC)

Priority Server

The idea is that agent notifies user that the files are uploaded to a certain server so that the user is confident that files are there and thus can delete them off the workstation. Also, agent will tie all its other statuses to this server: synced, number of agents connected, etc.

To set up the server, put custom parameter priority_peers with Agent ID as value in Agent Profile. Agent ID can be learned from the agent details. If several agents need to be defined, use semicolon (;) as separator.

Mc Custom Param Priority Peers

File collisions (file edit conflicts)

To enable notification add custom parameter notify_file_edit_conflict_time_diff with value to Agent profile. Value is in seconds and it’s the maximum difference between “date modified” of files for them to be considered colliding. It works only if local file was updated and then on remote agent file was updated within that time. In other word: if userA updates local file, then userB updates file as well, file is moved to Archive on A’s computer and A is notified about this. Notification won’t appear if B just changes mtime of file (with ‘touch’ for example). For more information, see Detecting possible file Collisions.

Agent UI overview video

Windows

macOS