Hi 👋 I'm currently trying to get prefect server running on my remote workstation (connected via VPN) - however, it seems that a local agent is not discovered by the gui (zero agents)... Would any of you kind souls have time for a little hand-holding to get me started? I upgraded to the newest version, switched the backend and started server and an agent I see the ui at ip-address:8080 but no agents... I also see this in the ui (which cannot be good):

Couldn't connect to Prefect Server at <http://localhost:4200/graphql>

Hi Christian! The Agent needs to connect to the Apollo service of Prefect Server. Can you see where that is exposed?

Hi. I think the problem is that my config setting is using localhost all over the place... This is my current config:

{'debug': False, 'home_dir': '/home/werner-ch/.prefect', 'backend': 'server', 'server': {'host': '<http://localhost>', 'port': 4200, 'host_port': 4200, 'endpoint': '<http://localhost:4200>', 'database': {'host': 'localhost', 'port': 5432, 'host_port': 5432, 'name': 'prefect_server', 'username': 'prefect', 'password': 'test-password', 'connection_url': '<postgresql://prefect:test-password@localhost:5432/prefect_server>', 'volume_path': '/home/werner-ch/.prefect/pg_data'}, 'graphql': {'host': '0.0.0.0', 'port': 4201, 'host_port': 4201, 'debug': False, 'path': '/graphql/'}, 'hasura': {'host': 'localhost', 'port': 3000, 'host_port': 3000, 'admin_secret': '', 'claims_namespace': 'hasura-claims', 'graphql_url': '<http://localhost:3000/v1alpha1/graphql>', 'ws_url': '<ws://localhost:3000/v1alpha1/graphql>', 'execute_retry_seconds': 10}, 'ui': {'host': '<http://localhost>', 'port': 8080, 'host_port': 8080, 'endpoint': '<http://localhost:8080>', 'apollo_url': '<http://localhost:4200/graphql>'}, 'telemetry': {'enabled': True}}, 'cloud': {'api': '<http://localhost:4200>', 'endpoint': '<https://api.prefect.io>', 'graphql': '<http://localhost:4200/graphql>', 'use_local_secrets': True, 'heartbeat_interval': 30.0, 'check_cancellation_interval': 15.0, 'diagnostics': False, 'logging_heartbeat': 5, 'queue_interval': 30.0, 'agent': {'name': 'agent', 'labels': [], 'level': 'INFO', 'auth_token': '', 'agent_address': '', 'resource_manager': {'loop_interval': 60}}}, 'logging': {'level': 'INFO', 'format': '[%(asctime)s] %(levelname)s - %(name)s | %(message)s', 'log_attributes': [], 'datefmt': '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', 'log_to_cloud': False, 'extra_loggers': []}, 'flows': {'eager_edge_validation': False, 'run_on_schedule': True, 'checkpointing': False, 'defaults': {'storage': {'add_default_labels': True, 'default_class': 'prefect.environments.storage.Local'}}}, 'tasks': {'defaults': {'max_retries': 0, 'retry_delay': None, 'timeout': None}}, 'engine': {'executor': {'default_class': 'prefect.engine.executors.LocalExecutor', 'dask': {'address': '', 'cluster_class': 'distributed.deploy.local.LocalCluster'}}, 'flow_runner': {'default_class': 'prefect.engine.flow_runner.FlowRunner'}, 'task_runner': {'default_class': 'prefect.engine.task_runner.TaskRunner'}}}

Hi @Christian - have you set the appropriate environment variables to point to your Server deployment? For the UI this means setting

apollo_url

as either an environment variable (

PREFECT__SERVER__UI__APOLLO_URL

) or in your machine's

~/.prefect/config.toml

:

# ~/.prefect/config.toml

[server]
  [server.ui]
  apollo_url="your endpoint:4200/graphql"

Hi @nicholas. I though I did, but it was not picked up by server?!? I now specify the GraphQL url in the UI itself and now it seems to connect... However, I still cannot register an agent. I want to start an agent on the same remote machine that the prefect server runs... How would I tell the agent o find the server instance?!? I tried to use the api flag but to no avail

You should be able to set

server.endpoint

to point your agent at your Server instance (or

PREFECT__SERVER__ENDPOINT

as an environment variable). There seems to be a visual bug with agents on the UI dashboard right now where agents aren't showing up correctly so you can confirm your agent has started by querying it from the Interactive API on the left sidebar with this query:

query {
  agent {
    id
  }
}

Ah ok - I do get something back if here...

{
  "agent": [
    {
      "id": "9b662e63-2bc5-4f83-b45c-1556bcf6d9e0",
      "__typename": "agent"
    },
    {
      "id": "f1c70546-ca94-4d10-93b8-bb75e7e8eba5",
      "__typename": "agent"
    },
    {
      "id": "3f50bbac-97c3-4778-9d6b-e9ba8885f3bb",
      "__typename": "agent"
    },
    {
      "id": "f80e19fc-225d-4ba9-9f3e-b227cc1c06b0",
      "__typename": "agent"
    }
  ]
}

Yup that looks like your agent is correct but you're experiencing the visual bug - can you confirm your agent is able to pull work from your Server?

I'm about to setup a dummy flow and report back in a minute

Thanks Christian 🙂

Success! Man, I was going round in circles... 🐕

Sorry about that! I'm taking a look at the visual bug now so hopefully should get a fix out soon 🙂

Cheers, and thanks for helping me out!

Following up - we've identified the issue (fixed here) and released the fix to Cloud; I expect the latest Server images will be retagged with the latest UI release shortly 🙂

Awesome!