New Relic Infrastructure Agent Error — Quick Fix

In this tutorial, you'll learn about New Relic Infrastructure Agent Error. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices.

The Problem

The New Relic infrastructure agent is not reporting data to New Relic. The host may not appear in the New Relic One dashboard, or it shows as "Not reporting." Integration plugins (MySQL, Nginx, etc.) may also fail.

Error example:

Infrastructure agent: Not connected (license key invalid)
Failed to connect to New Relic: 401 Unauthorized
Integration 'nginx' error: could not connect to nginx status page

The Fix

Step 1: Verify the license key

WRONG — using the wrong license key format:

# New Relic uses base64-encoded account license keys

RIGHT — check the license key in the agent configuration:

cat /etc/newrelic-infra.yml | grep license_key

Output:

license_key: NRRA-XXXXXXXXXX

Verify the key in the New Relic One interface (Settings -> API Keys -> Ingestion Keys). Update if necessary and restart the agent:

systemctl restart newrelic-infra

Step 2: Check agent connectivity

WRONG — assuming the agent always connects:

# The agent may fail to connect due to network issues

RIGHT — test the connection:

# Check if the agent is running
systemctl status newrelic-infra

# Check connectivity to New Relic
curl -v https://infra-api.newrelic.com/v2/agent

Output:

* Connected to infra-api.newrelic.com (162.247.240.10) port 443
< HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized

A 401 is normal (it means the endpoint is reachable but no auth header was sent). A timeout or DNS failure indicates a connectivity issue.

Use DodaTech's New Relic Agent Fleet Manager to monitor agent connectivity, version compliance, and integration health across all hosts.

Prevention Tips

• Store the license key securely and never hardcode it in scripts
• Use a proxy configuration (proxy: http://proxy:8080) if needed
• Keep the agent updated to the latest version
• Monitor agent connectivity metrics in New Relic One
• Use DodaTech's NR Agent Config Validator to check for misconfigurations

Common Mistakes with infra agent

1. Mixing let bindings with <- bindings in do notation, producing type errors
2. Overlapping type class instances that cause GHC to reject the program with ambiguous dispatch errors
3. Non-exhaustive pattern matches that compile with warnings then crash at runtime

These mistakes appear frequently in real-world NEWRELIC code. DodaTech's contributors have identified these patterns through analysis of open-source projects and production systems.

Practice Exercise

Write a pure function that safely divides two integers using Maybe, then test it with edge cases like division by zero and negative numbers.

This exercise reinforces the concepts covered in this guide. Try implementing it before checking online solutions.

FAQ

Related: DodaTech's New Relic Onboarding Guide provides automated installation scripts and configuration templates for the infrastructure agent across Linux, Windows, and container environments.