DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux-based virtual machines (VMs) that run on top of virtualized hardware. Each Droplet you create is a new server you can use, either standalone or as part of a larger, cloud-based infrastructure.
The Droplet agent is an open-source daemon that runs on your Droplet to support additional features. For example, to use the Droplet Console, your Droplet must have the Droplet agent installed.
The Droplet agent is installed by default on new Droplets created with the control panel and the API after August 2021. You can manually install the agent on older Droplets.
The Droplet agent is supported on all DigitalOcean-provided Linux distributions. This also includes all Marketplace images built on top of these distributions. The Droplet agent does not support FreeBSD.
For officially supported operating systems, log in to the Droplet as the root user or a user with sudo access, then download and execute the agent installation script.
On Debian-based operating systems (like Ubuntu), use wget:
wget -qO- https://repos-droplet.digitalocean.com/install.sh | sudo bash
On RHEL-based operating systems (like CentOS and Fedora), use curl:
curl -q https://repos-droplet.digitalocean.com/install.sh | sudo bash
For any other operating systems, check out the source code and build the agent binary using the instructions in the repository README.
Once the Droplet agent is installed, you can connect using the Droplet Console.
When using the API to create a Droplet, you can opt out of installing the agent at creation time by passing the "with_droplet_agent":false parameter.
You cannot currently opt out of installing the Droplet agent when creating a Droplet using the control panel.
If you no longer wish to use the Droplet agent, you can remove the package using your native package manager.
On Debian-based operating systems (like Ubuntu), use apt-get:
sudo apt-get purge droplet-agent*
On RHEL-based operating systems (like CentOS and Fedora), use yum:
sudo yum remove droplet-agent*
The service is stopped and the package is removed from your system. You can manually reinstall the Droplet agent in the future.