The Local Agent

What it is

The Local Agent (CreaRackAgent.exe) is a small Windows program that runs on a PC inside your network. It acts as the bridge between CreaRack and your devices.

CreaRack is a cloud SaaS. Its servers live on the internet and cannot reach private IPs like 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x. The Agent solves this: it runs inside your network, where those IPs are reachable, and relays SSH sessions, SFTP transfers, device discovery, and monitoring on CreaRack’s behalf.

Internet                         Your local network
CreaRack SaaS  <-- WebSocket --> Local Agent (PC, 127.0.0.1:5050) <-- SSH/SNMP --> Devices

The Agent listens only on 127.0.0.1:5050 (IPv4 loopback). No other machine on your network can talk to it. Its local API requires a Bearer token that CreaRack hands to your browser session automatically — you never manage it. SSH credentials are never sent by your browser either: the Agent fetches them server-side, by device ID, over its own authenticated channel. This is also why the Agent’s network tools (ping, port check, discovery…) are used from inside CreaRack, not from the Agent’s own local page: CreaRack is the one that injects the credential.

Where to install it

Because your browser only talks to the Agent on the same computer it is running on, where you install it depends on what you need:

For 24/7 monitoring (Sentinel): install the Agent on a machine that is always on — a server, a mini-PC, or any computer that does not get shut down. The Agent that monitors your network (the Primary) only works while its machine is powered on and connected. If your only Agent is on a laptop and you switch it off, monitoring stops. For continuous monitoring, an always-on machine is not optional — it is the service.
For device discovery and terminal access: each person who runs Auto-Discovery or opens SSH/SFTP sessions needs the Agent on their own computer, because their browser reaches the devices through the Agent on that same machine.
If no Agent is set as Primary with Sentinel active, CreaRack tells you in three places: the Agent Fleet widget, the Fleet Manager window and the Sentinel Mode section of the Observatory side menu, which opens by itself with an orange “24/7 monitoring is off” notice (its header dot turns orange too, so you see it even when the section is collapsed).
Having several Agents is fine and expected. CreaRack manages them as a fleet: one is the Primary (runs 24/7 Sentinel monitoring), the rest stay connected as ready backups. See [[crearack—monitoring—fleet-manager]].

A healthy setup: one Agent on an always-on machine for monitoring, plus an Agent on each admin’s PC for discovery and terminal work.

CreaRack shows you this guidance in the app too: clicking Download Agent (in the Terminal sidebar, in the CONFIGURATION → Local Agent menu, or via the Install Guide button in the Agent Fleet Manager) opens a short Where to Install It panel with the download button inside — so the choice of machine is made before the installer lands.

When you enable 24/7 Sentinel monitoring, CreaRack checks the Agent that will run it and warns you in the confirmation dialog if the machine looks unsuitable — so you can move monitoring to an always-on machine first:

It is a laptop. The Agent detects whether its machine has a battery and reports it, so this warning works from day one, with no history needed.
Its machine keeps going offline. If the Agent’s machine has gone offline three or more times in the last week (long gaps — the typical pattern of a laptop that gets shut down), the dialog warns you with the exact count. Brief blips, such as CreaRack’s own maintenance restarts, do not count.

How to install and activate it

Open Terminal and click Download Agent in the Terminal Tools section of the sidebar.
Run CreaRackAgent-Setup.exe. It is a standard Windows installer: a short wizard confirms and installs to %APPDATA%\CreaRackAgent for your user only (no administrator rights needed), adds a Start Menu shortcut, registers the crearack:// protocol, sets the Agent to start automatically with Windows, and launches it.
The first time you open a session against a private IP without a running Agent, CreaRack shows the CreaRack Local Bridge modal. Click Activate Bridge: CreaRack tries to wake an installed Agent, and downloads the installer if none responds. Open the downloaded file and the modal confirms with Bridge Established!.

The Agent then links to your CreaRack account and keeps itself authenticated. Tokens renew automatically — no maintenance needed, even after weekends or vacations.

Your browser will ask for permission. Modern browsers (Chrome, Edge) protect access from websites to programs running on your device. The first time CreaRack talks to your Agent, the browser shows a prompt asking to “access other apps and services on this device” — that is CreaRack reaching the Agent you just installed, and it is safe. Click Allow. A blue notice from CreaRack explains the prompt right before it appears.

How to check its status

Go to Observatory and find the Agent Fleet widget. It shows every Agent in your organization with its hostname, role, version, local IP address, Sentinel state, and last-seen time.

Each Agent also reports its own footprint: the CPU and RAM the Agent process itself is using, the size of its local metrics database, and whether any metrics are still waiting to sync to CreaRack. You can see it in three places — the Footprint column of the Fleet Manager, the Agent card in Observatory, and a small status line at the bottom of the CreaRack home page (for example: Local Agent · OFFICE-PC: 0.3% CPU · 48 MB RAM · synced). Besides showing how light the Agent really is, this doubles as an early warning: metrics piling up unsynced usually mean the Agent is having trouble reaching CreaRack. Agents on older versions simply don’t show these figures — nothing breaks.

You can also open http://127.0.0.1:5050 in your browser. The Agent’s local dashboard has a Status tab (version, uptime, sessions, SNMP traps) and a Debug tab (live logs), plus footer links to the Metrics UI maintenance page and the bundled licenses. Network tools (ping, port check, discovery…) are used from inside CreaRack — see What it is above.

How Primary failover works

If you install Agents at several sites, CreaRack manages them as a fleet:

Primary — runs 24/7 monitoring (Sentinel). One per organization. Keep it on an always-on machine.
Secondary — handles SSH and tools only.

The first Agent to connect becomes Primary. If the Primary goes offline, a Secondary is promoted automatically and monitoring continues. If there are no Secondaries left, monitoring stops until an Agent comes back — which is why the Primary belongs on a machine that stays on. You can also force a change: in the Agent Fleet widget, click Promote on a Secondary or Demote on the Primary. Offline Agents show a Delete button to remove them from the fleet.

Deleting an Agent revokes it. From v1.95.0, removing an Agent from the fleet also invalidates its credentials immediately: that machine can no longer read your device passwords or send data, even if the program is still installed on it. This is the action to take if a machine is lost, stolen, or decommissioned — you do not need to change anything else. (Adding an Agent works the other way round: issuing new Agent credentials requires fleet administrator rights, so a read-only account cannot register one.)

Revoking without deleting. From v1.98.0 there is a middle ground: the Revoke button next to each Agent invalidates all its credentials on the spot but keeps the Agent in the fleet — configuration, role and history intact, just frozen. Its automatic re-pairing is blocked too, so a stolen credential cannot be used to sneak back in. When you want that machine back, click Re-authorize on the same row: the Agent’s own re-pairing works again and it reconnects with fresh credentials on its own. Use Revoke when a machine is temporarily out of your control (a repair shop, a machine you are not sure about); use Delete when it is gone for good.

How to uninstall it

Two ways, both complete:

From Windows: open Settings → Apps → Installed apps (or “Add or remove programs”), find CreaRack Local Agent, and click Uninstall.
From CreaRack: on the PC running the Agent, click CONFIGURATION in the top bar, open the Local Agent section, and choose Uninstall Local Agent.

Either way removes the program, the Start Menu shortcut, the startup task, and the stored tokens from that PC.

Troubleshooting

Agent shows offline in CreaRack. Check http://127.0.0.1:5050/health on the Agent PC. If it does not answer, start CreaRack Local Agent from the Start menu or re-run the installer.
Health check works but CreaRack still shows it offline. The Agent needs an outbound WebSocket to the SaaS. Check the PC’s internet access and your firewall.
localhost:5050 refuses to connect. Use http://127.0.0.1:5050. The Agent listens on IPv4 only, and Windows may resolve localhost to IPv6 first.
Agent disconnected after the PC slept. It recovers on its own within about 15 seconds of waking. If not, restart it. (A sleeping PC is exactly why monitoring belongs on an always-on machine — see Where to install it.)
The Agent is running but CreaRack never detects it. If you clicked Block on the browser’s “access other apps and services on this device” prompt, the browser silently blocks the connection. Click the padlock icon next to the address bar, open Site settings, allow Local network access, and reload the page.
The fleet shows “(clone?)” next to this Agent. Its credentials were paired on another machine — usually because the PC or VM was cloned with the Agent already installed. Uninstall the Agent on the copy, install it fresh and pair it again. Do not clone machines with a paired Agent: each machine needs its own identity.
The Agent says its access was revoked and cannot re-pair. An administrator clicked Revoke on it. Ask them to click Re-authorize in the Agent Fleet widget; the Agent reconnects by itself afterwards.

More cases in [[crearack—terminal—troubleshooting-terminal]].

[[crearack—terminal—que-es-terminal]] — the Terminal that depends on the Agent
[[crearack—terminal—sesiones-ssh]] — SSH sessions routed through the Agent
[[crearack—terminal—sftp]] — file transfers over the Agent
[[crearack—terminal—todos-los-dispositivos]] — the device sidebar
[[crearack—terminal—cluster-mode]] — broadcast commands to many devices
[[crearack—monitoring—fleet-manager]] — Primary/Secondary roles and failover
[[crearack—monitoring—que-es-observatory]] — where the Fleet Manager lives

Véase también

[[crearack—terminal—que-es-terminal]]
[[crearack—terminal—sesiones-ssh]]
[[crearack—terminal—sftp]]
[[crearack—terminal—todos-los-dispositivos]]
[[crearack—terminal—cluster-mode]]
[[crearack—monitoring—que-es-observatory]]