Agent Overview

What Is an Agent?

The HSS agent is a piece of software installed on cloud servers to exchange data between the servers and HSS, implementing security detection and protection. If no agent is installed, the HSS is unavailable.

Scans all servers at 00:00 every day; monitors the security and monitors status of servers; and reports the collected server and monitors information (including non-compliant configurations, insecure configurations, intrusion traces, software list, port list, and process list) to the cloud protection center. In addition, the agent blocks attacks targeted at servers and containers based on the security policies you configured.

Supported OSs

Currently, some mainstream OSs are supported. For details, see Supported OSs. To obtain better HSS service experience, you are advised to install or upgrade to an OS version supported by the agent.

Processes When the Agent Is Running

Linux

The account of the agent is root. Table 1 lists the running processes on a Linux server.

**Table 1** Agent running process on a Linux server
Agent Process Name	Function	Path
hostguard	Detects security issues, protects the system, and monitors the agent.	/usr/local/hostguard/bin/hostguard
hostwatch	Monitors the agent process.	/usr/local/hostguard/bin/hostwatch
upgrade	Upgrades the agent.	/usr/local/hostguard/bin/upgrade

Windows

The account of the agent is system. Table 2 lists the running processes on a Windows server.

**Table 2** Agent running process on a Windows server
Agent Process Name	Function	Path
hostguard.exe	Detects security issues, protects the system, and monitors the agent.	C:\Program Files\HostGuard\HostGuard.exe
hostwatch.exe	Monitors the agent process.	C:\Program Files\HostGuard\HostWatch.exe
upgrade.exe	Upgrades the agent.	C:\Program Files\HostGuard\upgrade.exe