Display of Host in Hosts Tab

[davlaw]

I was trying the Hosts monitoring feature. I added 2 host to be monitored. Display alternates between the 2 hosts. Only displays one host at a time..

Normal or did I incorrectly configure the host url in pulse? Think I was expecting a list of hosts..

[rcourtman]

Host rows flip when two host agents report with the same identifier. Pulse keys hosts on the agent-supplied ID (machine-id → agent-id → hostname), so the more recent heartbeat replaces the earlier one and the UI alternates. Reusing the same token/service config across machines often keeps that ID identical. Generate a fresh token or restart one agent with --agent-id set to a unique value so both hosts register separately. If it still alternates after that, share the two agent IDs you expect to see and I can check for a different collision.

[davlaw]

let see,

david@omnibk152:~$ sudo curl -fsSL http://pulse.upilab.com:7655/install-host-agent.sh | bash -s -- --url http://pulse.upilab.com:7655 --token 82d91c93de83af2f6ba6dd56070a7e3a9c3974fc7f12e8662e334853cd07fd3f --interval 30s

david@omnibk151:~$ sudo curl -fsSL http://pulse.upilab.com:7655/install-host-agent.sh | bash -s -- --url http://pulse.upilab.com:7655 --token 88531a00cbe32d986e8f1adbeb5d902df6fb57d0a6ec5695414dff173e717934 --interval 30s

These should show as 2 different machines, correct? But they still only show one line, flipping between the 2.

Or did I miss something?

[rcourtman]

Host rows flip when two host agents report the same identifier. Pulse keys a host on the agent ID it receives (machine-id by default), so if both hosts share the same machine-id each heartbeat replaces the previous one.

The host-agent binary already accepts --agent-id in current releases, but the installer flag for it lands in the next release. To avoid waiting, either regenerate one machine-id or restart one host with an explicit agent ID so each host keeps its own row.

sudo rm /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
sudo systemd-machine-id-setup
sudo systemctl restart pulse-host-agent

If it still alternates after unique IDs, share the two agent IDs you expect to see and I will trace the binding.

[davlaw]

root@omnibk151:/etc# cat machine-id
44fd053efd024ed3a4f48e19b7085242
root@omnibk151:/etc#

root@omnibk152:/etc# cat machine-id
8f75779dc1324cd4a18de85912f864e2
root@omnibk152:/etc#

This what your looking for?

I just did pull the current image, still there.. Or did I miss a step?

[rcourtman]

Both hosts are reporting the same agent identifier (machine-id), so each heartbeat overwrites the other and the row flips. Tokens do not disambiguate host identity. The installer version on your server does not expose --agent-id yet, so both runs reused the shared machine-id. Regenerate one machine-id then restart to separate the hosts.

sudo rm /etc/machine-id /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
sudo systemd-machine-id-setup
sudo systemctl restart pulse-host-agent

The next release will ship installer support for --agent-id; once available you can reinstall with explicit IDs like --agent-id omnibk152 and --agent-id omnibk151. If it still alternates after unique IDs are set, share the two agent IDs shown in Settings → Agents → Host agents and I will trace the binding.

[davlaw]

Gonna throw in another thought, these omnibk machines are also part of my pbs setup, datastores. The are connected via iscsi. Saying this because the names may be showing up twice under different tabs. Still waiting on data to update after last restart... I did add another server that is not part of the pbs setup and things seem to display correctly.

[rcourtman]

Both hosts are still being keyed on the same agent identifier, not on the token or PBS/iSCSI role, so each heartbeat overwrites the other and the row flips. The backend derives the host identity from the agent-supplied ID (machine-id by default) and the host agent sends that value, so matching IDs cause this exact symptom.

Open Settings → Agents → Host agents and compare the two agent IDs shown; if they match, that confirms the collision. To separate them immediately, add a unique ID to each service (for example, via systemctl edit pulse-host-agent with Environment=PULSE_AGENT_ID=omnibk151 on one machine and ...=omnibk152 on the other, then restart). Installer support for --agent-id shipped in commit 18b0323 and will appear in the next release so you can reinstall with explicit IDs. If the IDs already differ and the row still flips, share the two IDs shown in Settings and I will trace the binding.

[davlaw]

back to messing with this today
[Unit]
Description=Pulse Host Agent
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/pulse-host-agent --url http://pulse.upilab.com:7655 --token cb99069ef5dd810865e21510c336ed22d84526989c181436f8475070edef8c6e --interval 30s
Restart=always
RestartSec=5s
User=root
StandardOutput=append:/var/log/pulse/host-agent.log
StandardError=append:/var/log/pulse/host-agent.log
Environment=PULSE_AGENT_ID=omnibk151
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

But still showing

Host agent 2025-11-26 14-56 | cb9906…8c6e | Host agent reporting | omnibk151 (agent) | 1 min ago | 14s ago |  

its this part "Host agent 2025-11-26 14-56" that gets dupicated

[rcourtman]

The Usage column shows "omnibk151 (agent)" — PULSE_AGENT_ID is working correctly. "Host agent 2025-11-26 14-56" is the API token name (first column), not the host identifier.

To confirm hosts are now separate, check the Hosts tab. You should see two distinct rows if both machines have unique PULSE_AGENT_ID values. If omnibk152 still lacks a unique ID, add Environment=PULSE_AGENT_ID=omnibk152 to its service file and restart.

If you want to rename the token itself, you can delete it and create a new one with a clearer name — just update both agents to use the new token value.