February 2007 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

Run local custom script as root?
by matthias.zepf＠junidas.de 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Hi, I am new to Hobbit. I searched the Hobbit mailing list archive but did not find an answer to the following question: Is there a (save) way to run a local custom script as root? Some checks require root permissions, e.g. smartctl on Linux does not work even when you have group rights on the device (e.g. /dev/hda). Or is running a Hobbit script as root a bad idea at all? Thanks for your help! Matthias

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Hobbit versus Unicenter/TNG
by henrik＠hswn.dk 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

I'm currently arguing with some PHB's who insist that Unicenter/TNG is the "standard" monitoring tool and we're supposed to use that exclusively. Since I have the users on my side I do expect to win that struggle, but if any of you have compared Hobbit with Unicenter/TNG I would be interested to hear about it. Especially features you've found that Hobbit has, but TNG doesn't. I know of quite a few, but any ammunition is welcome. If you prefer, contact me directly instead of through the list. Regards, Henrik

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[hobbit] Hobbit versus Unicenter/TNG
by pwilliamson＠mandtbank.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

>>> ralphmitchell at gmail.com 02/07/07 9:50 AM >>> > On 2/7/07, Henrik Stoerner <henrik at hswn.dk> wrote: > > I'm currently arguing with some PHB's who insist that Unicenter/TNG > > is the "standard" monitoring tool and we're supposed to use that > > exclusively. > > > > Since I have the users on my side I do expect to win that struggle, > > but if any of you have compared Hobbit with Unicenter/TNG I > > would be interested to hear about it. Especially features you've > > found that Hobbit has, but TNG doesn't. I know of quite a few, > > but any ammunition is welcome. > > Last time I looked at TNG's Web Monitoring Option, it sucked big time. Still does, at least as recent as about 6 months ago. TNG's reporting capabilities are horrible. > Possibly the biggest point in Hobbit's favour around here is that > you can access it through a web browser - any web browser > on any OS. I don't think TNG has that option, unless it was > recently added. If I'm at home and get a call about it, I can > VPN to the company network, pop up a browser and take a > look. I don't have to have about 100Mb of TNG installed to > be able to view the pages. Yep!! Light on the server side and light on the client side. TNG/Unicernter is unbelievably gigantic, enourmous, and otherwise unecessarily complex. It takes a team of engineers and more than a few servers to get even close to some of the functionality and usefulness of Hobbit. > I don't know about the recent versions of TNG, but back in 1998 > TNG-2.1 (2.0 maybe?) took around 40 minutes to bring up the 2D > map. It only takes about 20 minutes now, and it defaults back to the view it wants to show you every time. > I only have Hobbit's client-side running on a few of my own servers, > because my own PHBs have decreed that TNG is the only monitoring > tool to use. Oh, and NetCool. Oh, and BMC Patrol Oh, and > HPOpenView. Oh, and Mercury. Oh, and OnCentauri... > > Ralph Mitchell Funny that should come up. We've gotten BB (and slowly introducing Hobbit) and Netcool very well integrated. It makes the PHBs happy, both because they don't have to spend tons of cash to replicate BB/Hobbit, and they get their golf outings and other unnamed perks paid for by the vendors. I know at a previous job, I was told the only reason we went with software from vendor X rather than vendor Y is because vendor X could get us tickets to every home Baltimore Orioles game. I couldn't believe someone was willing to actually say that. Paul

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Hobbit server hierarchy
by david＠stenhouseconsulting.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

I have a "local" hobbit server configured at a client. It is receiving status reports from all the client systems (including desktops, network devices, printers, etc). I also monitor the Servers only on our Hobbit box. How can I configure the local hobbit server to report only it's status to our hobbit server? David Gilmore Consultant 4 Traverse St Providence, RI 02906 401.453.6900 x12 401.454.7581 (fax)

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adding extra channel
by stef.coene＠docum.org 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Hi, We want to (mis)use the hobbit client-server communication to send oracle information to a hobbit server. Thx to Henrik for the perl demo, I know how to write a perl script that I can use on the hobbit server to receive the information by hooking it in the a channel. I can use the client channel for this, but I think it's better if I create an extra channel for this. I took a quick look at the code, but I can barely and understand the code :( So, has anyone changed the hobbit server code and added an extra channel and want to share his changes ? Stef

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[hobbit] Error - Failed to retrieve ghostlist from server
by dunne＠accuweather.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Greetings, Any ideas on this one? I am rather stumped. Thanks, Mike On 1/29/07 9:48 AM, "Michael Dunne" <dunne at accuweather.com> wrote: > Greetings, > > In follow up to my initial query. When I check my apache logs, I see what > follows below. I am a bit confused as to why a connection attempt to port > 1984 is being attempted. I modified the bbd setting in hobbitserver.cfg, and > also added "--listen=0.0.0.0:8080 --ghosts=log" to hobbitlaunch.cfg. I know > that I am missing something very simple, but I can not see what.... > > > Again, any ideas would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks, > > Mike > > > > > [Mon Jan 29 09:44:30 2007] [error] [client x.x.x.x] 2007-01-29 09:44:30 > Could not connect to bbd at x.x.x.x:1984 - Connection refused, referer: > http://climonx.accuweather.com/hobbit/ > [Mon Jan 29 09:44:30 2007] [error] [client x.x.x.x] 2007-01-29 09:44:30 > Whoops ! bb failed to send message - Connection failed, referer: > http://climonx.accuweather.com/hobbit/ > > > > On 1/25/07 5:07 PM, "Michael Dunne" <dunne at accuweather.com> wrote: > >> Greetings, >> >> I am receiving the following error on a recently configured hobbit server. >> When I attempt to view the Ghost List all I see on the page is: >> >> Failed to retrieve ghostlist from server >> >> The only difference between this server and others that I have setup is that >> the bbd port is set to 8080 instead of 1984. >> >> Any suggestions would be appreciated. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Mike >> >> >> >> To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to >> hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk >> >> >> >

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SLA column
by emarganne＠be.tiauto.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Hello everyone, A little question this time: what does the SLA column mean in the availability report? Is that the same column than the availability percentage on 24*7 one? Or is it one without the acknowledged events (critical level, alert) or so? Etienne Marganne TI Automotive The information contained in this transmission may contain privileged and confidential information. It is intended only for the use of the person(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

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bbtest-net issues
by great.dilla＠gmail.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

I have just migrated the hobbit server from an FC5 (32bit) host to a RHEL4 WS (64bit) in an attempt to consolidate stuff in one server. I'm using the 4.2 version with the all-in-one patch. Hobbit is the first application to migrate and reside on the new server. However, I have problems with bbtest-net. If it runs on the hobbitlaunch.cfg by default, every "conn" column fails. So I tried running "bbcmd bbtest-net --debug --report --dns=ip --concurrency=20" to check the hosts. After that command completes, the "conn" column goes back to green. So what I did was to create a shell script bbtest-net.sh in the "ext" directory and substituted that to the bbtest-net CMD line in hobbitlaunch.cfg. I'm not sure how to explain it since the bbtest-net command executes and does not hang, neither does fping. Although this solved the problem, it still did not explain why. It is strange to see this happening. I'm running iptables on the new host and in the old one as well. Iptables have the same ruleset on the new server and the old server. Only the "conn" test displayed this behavior. And the clients can pass data to the hobbit server just fine. Anyone from the list have the same experience? What was done to resolve it? Any thoughts?

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View excluding messages
by dave＠auctionhelper.com 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

I have approx 300 nodes being monitored and alot of them are Windows. I dont want to ignore the messages but its too noisy. Is there a way i can generate a view for the NOC that just excludes the msgs alerts? thanks, Dave

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VMS
by gjohnson＠trantor.org 07 Feb '07

07 Feb '07

Has anyone tried porting the client to VMS? Have they been successful? This is more of a curiousity from a conversation that come up at work today. =G=

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