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[Windows] Stop enabling sysmon per default to avoid unhealthy agent status #13893

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SimonKoetting
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Currently, Sysmon collection is enabled by default when you add the Windows integration.
Since Version 9 this can cause the Agent to be in an unhealthy state in fleet when the Channel does not exist.
See: elastic/elastic-agent#7448

As sysmon isn't installed on Windows per default, it also shouldn't be enabled in the integration as default to improve user experience when they just add the Windows integration without changing the default values.

@SimonKoetting SimonKoetting requested review from a team as code owners May 13, 2025 06:57
@SimonKoetting SimonKoetting requested review from belimawr and rdner May 13, 2025 06:57
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@andrewkroh andrewkroh added Integration:windows Windows Team:Security-Windows Platform Security Windows Platform team [elastic/sec-windows-platform] labels May 13, 2025
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Pinging @elastic/sec-windows-platform (Team:Security-Windows Platform)

@pierrehilbert pierrehilbert added the Team:Elastic-Agent-Data-Plane Agent Data Plane team [elastic/elastic-agent-data-plane] label May 14, 2025
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@cmacknz
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cmacknz commented May 20, 2025

This feels like it is a breaking change for users who actually do use sysmon. It is less disruptive for people without sysmon to turn it off, then to turn it off unconditionally and break anyone who relies on it.

I think ideally we'd be able to detect that sysmon isn't installed and just not run the input at all, but that would require a change in agent.

An even easier way to fix this that isn't a breaking change is to stop marking the winlog input as degraded/failed when it can't find the sysmon channel.

@SimonKoetting
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@cmacknz but this change would only apply for all new policies, right?
So all current installations won't notice any change, meaning also all users who already have a policy in place will get the error.
So the change is only, new users who installed sysmon would have to turn it on. All other users with a basic windows installation can just use the defaults and won't get any errors.

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6 participants