Title: cmk-update-agent: New binary format of Agent Updater executable on Linux
Level: 2
Component: agents
Compatible: compat
Edition: cee
Version: 1.5.0i2
Date: 1513344138
Class: feature

The cmk-update-agent executable is now implemented as a packaged binary executable.
This werk consists of many changes that have partly already been applied to Check_MK 1.5.0i1.

The new agent updater addresses several problems and yields some improvements:

* Better compatibility: All requirements regarding the installed Python
  Interpreter or other packages/programs were eliminated; the only requirements
  left are a x86_64 processor architecture and a glibc 2.5 or above.

* Notably, there will be no more problems with curl and because all
  communication is now done via python-requests, which is included within the
  cmk-update-agent executable as mentioned above.

* The reduction of the requirements will also reduce compatibility problems on some systems
  related to the encrypted SSL communication with the Check_MK server.

* More convenient communication with Check_MK Server: All HTTP-Requests have been
  changed to POST-Requests. This improves confidentiality of the information transfered
  to the Check_MK server. The data is no longer written to the apache log of
  the Check_MK servers apache (system and site apache).

* cmk-update-agent installed only once: The copy of cmk-update-agent previously
  placed under <tt>/usr/bin/cmk-update-agent</tt> has been replaced by a shell script
  that executes the actual cmk-update-agent executable situated at the Check_MK
  Agent plugin directory. This eliminates the need to maintain two places when
  manually replacing cmk-update-agent for debugging reasons.
  However, it is still possible to execute a copy of the cmk-update-agent
  executable directly.
