September 2008 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

DNS setting
by bsd＠todoo.biz 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

Hello folks, I have configured hobbit to take care of the monitoring of my hosting services. So far I have had no problem… but with DNS service. 1. I was unable to figure out where and how dns is called by hobbit. 2. I have many false positive received from this server. I am managing DNS services where the classic request on "yahoo.com" or any other domain name from the net will not feet… These DNS services do not necessary act as resolver… at least not for the "yahoo.com or google.com" They are master server and need to be querried in a specific way. So my question is: where and how can I tune DNS services requests in Hobbit? Thanks. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Gregober ---> PGP ID --> 0x1BA3C2FD bsd @at@ todoo.biz ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ P "Please consider your environmental responsibility before printing this e-mail"

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hobbitd_rrd not starting an extra script
by graham.nayler＠hallmarq.net 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

Sébastien I think this one is pretty simple - ready to kick yourself? Try putting "=" (without quotes) instead of the blank after --extra-script and --extra-tests! Once that's done though you may hit another problem, over which I've been tearing my hair out for the last week. I got the graphs connected up OK, but values were only being written into it very intermittently. I've finally tracking it down to a bug in the external script handler do_external.c (at least in the version we're running - snapshot as of 9th Sept). This does not apply to 4.2.0 - but we had troubles getting that to work with BBWin (we're monitoring Windows boxes). The problem is that recent versions of hobbit caches writes to RRD, but the external script is handled by a forked process, which only operates on a copy of the cache controller, and not that of the main process. I'll submit my fix (albeit crude) when I've worked out haw to do so (I'm really new to this open source stuff)!, Graham Nayler Sébastien Munch wrote: Hello I'm trying to create an extra script for hobbit_rrd. I've followed tutorials found on the net, especially http://www.trantor.org/theshire/doku.php/tutorials:customgraph I'm getting the information in the status page. Data is correctly sent to the hobbit server. Everything seems to be configured correctly, but I'm not getting any rrd data. In the configurations, I've double-checked paths, execution rights, etc. To simplify the tests, I've changed my extra-script so that it writes everything in a temporary file. The script isn't started : it doesn't write in this temporary file. In the rrd-status log, I don't see anything about executing the extra script. hobbitlaunch.cfg : ---------------------------------------------------------- [rrdstatus] ENVFILE /usr/lib/hobbit/server/etc/hobbitserver.cfg NEEDS hobbitd CMD hobbitd_channel --channel=status --log=BBSERVERLOGS/rrd-status.log hobbitd_rrd --rrddir=$BBVAR/rrd --extra-script /usr/lib/hobbit/server/ext/rrd_openvz.sh --extra-tests openvz --debug [snip] Graham Nayler

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bb-notes install
by URMM＠VM.MARIST.EDU 28 Sep '08

28 Sep '08

I'm trying to get bb-notes working with Hobbit. I followed the README up until it mentioned updating two scripts mkbb2.sh and mkbb.sh. Neither exist on my Hobbit server, so I assume they are referring to scripts from Big Brother. Anyone know what to do next? I have updated hobbitserver.cfg to turn on BBGENOPTS option docurl. I just can't seem to get the Hobbit web page to recognize the add.php, change.php and notes.php scripts. Martha McConaghy Marist College

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Downtime Question
by pnixon＠gmail.com 27 Sep '08

27 Sep '08

Okay, I know this is going to be an easy answer, but I'm trying to setup a multiple downtime window for one of my services, but I can't seem to have it kick in. two questions: 1 If a service is already down, when you change bb-hosts for the downtime window, will it turn red->blue? 2 What, if anything, is wrong with this statement? DOWNTIME=cam:60:0000:2400,*:1930:0830 My goal is to ignore it from 730p to 830a daily and all day saturday and sunday The info page shows: cam:60:0000:2400, All days:1930:0830 under the planned downtime. Thanks! --Pat

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Suspected bug in External Script handling
by graham.nayler＠hallmarq.net 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Hi guys, (Bug report and fix submitted here as Sourceforge looks 'not particularly' active) I've just started setting up a Hobbit system to monitor a load of Windows boxes (using BBWin), and am implementing our custom tests using external script mechanism. Once I finally got my head around the Hobbit/BBWin interface and worked out that it's really simple to implement, just very confusing to find the right document to look at, the test columns and graphs were displayed fine, but with dodgy data in the graphs. The problem though is that RRD only intermittently gets its updates - maybe once every 15-20 minutes. I eventually realised that it's a problem with the update caching implemented in hobbitd_rrd. This is using the snapshot version as of 2008/Aug/02. The bug does not apply to version 4.2.0 from SourceForge. The majoirty of the internal tests cache RRD updates using static data held in do_rrd.c (v1.61 2008/04/02). External scripts though are handled by forking to a child of the hobbitd_rrd process in do_external.c (v1.22 2008/03/22) - I assume to avoid a midbehaving user script from snarling up the whole system. Once the data is collected from the script it then passes it on to RRD in the normal way. However, the forked process uses a copy of the static data, so this goes into a different cache to that in the main process. And once done the child process goes away - without forcing the cache to empty. Following this logic, the cache never fills up enough to flush itself, and so the data don't make it to RRD (which rather begs the question of how I got anything in the graph at all - but then that's a side issue). The obvious solutions appear to be: 1) don't fork to a child - but that would allow misbehaving scripts to hang the system 2) fork, but pass the data back to the parent process once it's done - possible, but not a trivial fix 3) fork as currently, but flush the cache before closing the child process - not particularly elegant, but simple to implement. I've implemented a fix of type 3. It's important to only flush what is handled by the external script handler, as the parent process will still have it's copy of the cache at the time of the fork, and will flush that itself in the normal course of events. There is a function in do_rrd.c that allows a partial flush of the cache - rrdcacheflushhost(). This flushes everything that matches the supplied "hostname", which can be the full path to the RRD archive, or a leading substring thereof. If it is only external scripts supplying the test data, then no keys matching that test name will ever be held in the parent process cache, so this path can be used as a key to flush the cache prior to exiting the child. The name of the repository (RRD file) is held within the do_rrd module context as the static string "rrdfn", which is accessible to the worker functions. This is used in the following fix to generate the match string - it's a bit ugly but it works. So, in do_external.c,v 1.22 2008/03/22 07:48:55 in function do_external_rrd() declare a char * variable called extkey then after line 106 (within the R_DATA case) : create_and_update_rrd(hostname, testname, classname, pagepaths, params, NULL); insert extkey = (char *)malloc(strlen(hostname) + strlen(rrdfn) + 3*sizeof(char)); if( extkey ) { sprintf(extkey, "/%s/%s", hostname, rrdfn); dbgprintf("%09d : Forcing flush of '%s'\n", extkey ); rrdcacheflushhost(extkey); xfree(extkey); } This is now working reliably for me. If the external script is used to feed additional data into one of the internal test repositories this fix will fail - with that internally generated data being written both by the parent and the child. A work-around for that would be to make a similar rrdcacheflushhost() call prior to the fork, so clearing out any such entries from the parent, and then the child can write out only the data it generated itself EXCEPT for the fact that we haven't worked out what rrdfn is by that time. Another alternative would be to put in a switch to temporarily prevent the caching mechanism inside create...rrd. The simplest though is...just don't do it! As an additional observation, the rrd-status.log shows that at or around the termination of the child process the message pipe receives an EINTR completion, then loops around and restarts the message wait. I've no idea whether this is to be expected - although it looks a bit odd. I've not done much *NIX IPC development though, so I'll leave that one to the experts. Graham Nayler www.hallmarq.net

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Hobbit and BBWin0.12 Windows Event logs
by khemrajk2003＠yahoo.com 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Greetings all, I need help setting up the hobbit-client.cfg file to monitor and ignore the windows event logs (application, system, security). Here is a sample of what I have in hobbit-client.cfg: LOG %.*application.* %error COLOR=red LOG %.*application.* error COLOR=red IGNORE='%VSS (8193) -*' LOG %.*application.* error COLOR=red IGNORE='%Application Error (1000) -*' I have played around with different syntax, but I cannot seem to get it right. Here is a sample output (I know the alert does not match what I have above, it is just an example): failure - 2008/08/20 07:39:23 - Security (578) - Privileged object operation: Object Server: &unknown failure - 2008/08/20 07:39:23 - Security (578) - Privileged object operation: &unknown failure - 2008/08/20 07:26:56 - Security (578) - Privileged object operation: Object Server: I get the security failure in this example with the blinking red dot, but then I get the same messages with the &unknown. If anyone that has set this up correctly can please advice, it would be great. Thanks in advance for the help, Dev Khemraj

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Another newbie needs help w/ custom graphs
by Brian-Bouchard＠idexx.com 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

I've been working with Hobbit for all of a couple of weeks now, although I have some limited exposure to Big Brother in a previous life... In order to learn the tool better, I wrote a simple custom monitor that watches Heap usage in an application server. This seems to be collecting data fine, but now I want to figure out how to graph this information in an rrd graph. Here's where I stand. - I have a column called "weblogic" in Hobbit. - When you click on that column for a given host, you see a field called "used_heap" - I edited hobbitserver.cfg and added a piece at the end of the TEST2RRD line: weblogic=ncv - I also added a line to the same file: NCV_weblogic="usedheap:Gauge" - I I'm generating a file called weblogic.rrd in ../data/rrd/<HOSTNAME> But, when I go to the weblogic column, at the bottom of the page there is a space where the graph should be that says "hobbit graph ncv:weblogic" No graph. I THINK everything is ok up to this point, but then comes the hobbitgraph.cfg file, and I have to be honest, I really don't understand this file at all and haven't come across a good explanation yet, so I'm open to someone telling me to go read some website before I post, if it's glaringly obvious. I used some other files and the examples I found online to come up with this... [weblogic] TITLE Heap Usage YAXIS Bytes DEF:heap=weblogic.rdd:usedheap:AVERAGE LINE2:heap#00CCCC:Heap Used COMMENT:\n GPRINT:heap:LAST:Heap Used \: %5.1lf%s (cur) GPRINT:heap:MAX: \: %5.11f%s (max) GPRINT:heap:MIN: \: %5.11f%s (min) GPRINT:heap:AVERAGE: \: %5.11f%s (avg)\n I could use some help getting this graph going, and even explaining the entries in the hobbitgraph.cfg file if anyone has the patience to help walk me through this. - Brian

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link existing htmlsites into hobbit
by robert＠schetterer.org 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Hi @ll, is there a chance to link existing html sites into hobbit, i allready run mrtg and configured mrtg on the hobbit machine and i am searching for a way to link mrtg html sites into i.e routers pages etc as well as perhaps some other infos from other sources -- Best Regards MfG Robert Schetterer Germany/Munich/Bavaria

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Changing BBDISP per test
by frank.gruellich＠navteq.com 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Hi, for some reason we have two external hobbit monitoring servers. Now we got a couple of machines in a firewalled subnet, bbtest-net on both external servers can not access them. So I set up an internal server, that forwards all test results to one of the external servers. Unfortunately I need some of the test results at the other external server. From my mind I can remember something like: 10.0.1.1 hostA # BBDISP=10.0.0.1 conn http://hostA/index.html 10.0.1.2 hostB # BBDISP=10.0.0.1 conn http://hostB/index.html 10.0.1.3 host # BBDISP=10.0.0.2 conn http://host/index.html (with 10.0.1.0/24 the firewalled network and 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2 as two external hobbit servers), but I can't find any references to this anymore. Can someone help me please? Is this possible at all or do I need to setup a second internal server? Thanks in advance and kind regards, -- Navteq (DE) GmbH Frank Gruellich Map24 Systems and Networks Duesseldorfer Strasse 40a 65760 Eschborn Germany Phone: +49 6196 77756-414 Fax: +49 6196 77756-100 USt-ID-No.: DE 197947163 Managing Directors: Thomas Golob, Alexander Wiegand, Hans Pieter Gieszen, Martin Robert Stockman

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[hobbit] Building server on OSX 10.5.5
by ljimber＠gmail.com 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Thanks for the replies. John got me going and provided some very valuable information for 10.5.x hobbit server installs. Also I ran into a chgrp error during the gmake install, you need to tweak hobbitd/Makefile. Hope this helps others, Cheers, Lee On Sep 25, 2008, at 3:12 PM, John Turner wrote: > Yes. With 10.5 the nireport command is replaced with dscl. You will > want to replace the lines 186 and 196 as shown below. > > old -> USERDATA="`nireport / /users name home | grep $BBUSER`" > new -> USERDATA="`dscl . -list /Users | grep $BBUSER`" > > > old-> HOMEDIR="`echo $USERDATA | awk '{print $2}'`" > new-> HOMEDIR="`dscl . -read /Users/$BBUSER | grep HomeDirectory | > awk '{print $2}'`" > > John > > On Sep 25, 2008, at 3:05 PM, Lee J. Imber wrote: > >> Thanks John, That get me further along but I then run into the next >> issue. >> >> sh-3.2$ id >> uid=1000(lee) gid=1000(lee) groups=1000(lee),1004(cvs), >> 101(com.apple.access_screensharing),80(admin) >> sh-3.2$ MAKE=gmake ./configure.server --rrdinclude /opt/local/ >> include --rrdlib /opt/local/lib --pcreinclude /opt/local/include -- >> pcrelib /opt/local/lib >> >> Configuration script for Hobbit >> >> This script asks a few questions and builds a Makefile to compile >> Hobbit >> >> Checking your make-utility >> Checking pre-requisites for building Hobbit >> >> Checking for fping ... >> Hobbit has a built-in ping utility (hobbitping) >> However, it is not yet fully stable and therefore it >> may be best to use the external fping utility instead. >> I could not find fping on your system >> Do you want to use hobbitping [Y/n] ? >> y >> OK, I will use hobbitping. >> >> >> Checking for RRDtool ... >> test-rrd.c: In function 'main': >> test-rrd.c:30: error: too few arguments to function 'rrd_graph' >> gmake: *** [test-compile] Error 1 >> Not RRDtool 1.0.x, checking for 1.2.x >> Found RRDtool include files in /opt/local/include >> Found RRDtool libraries in /opt/local/lib >> >> >> Checking for PCRE ... >> Found PCRE include files in /opt/local/include >> Found PCRE libraries in /opt/local/lib >> >> >> Checking for OpenSSL ... >> OpenSSL include- or library-files not found. >> Although you can use Hobbit and bbgen without OpenSSL, you will not >> be able to run network tests of SSL-enabled services, e.g. https. >> So installing OpenSSL is recommended. >> OpenSSL can be found at http://www.openssl.org/ >> >> If you have OpenSSL installed, use the "--sslinclude DIR" and "-- >> ssllib DIR" >> options to configure to specify where they are. >> >> Continuing with SSL support disabled. >> >> >> Checking for LDAP ... >> (Open)LDAP include- or library-files not found. >> If you want to perform detailed LDAP tests (queries), you need to >> install LDAP an LDAP client library that bbgen can use. >> OpenLDAP can be found at http://www.openldap.org/ >> >> If you have OpenLDAP installed, use the "--ldapinclude DIR" and "-- >> ldaplib DIR" >> options to configure to specify where they are. >> >> Continuing with LDAP support disabled. >> >> >> Checking for Large File Support ... >> Large File Support OK >> >> >> Setting up for a Hobbit server >> >> >> What userid will be running Hobbit [hobbit] ? >> lee >> ./configure.server: line 186: nireport: command not found >> FAILURE: The user lee does not exist. Create user and try again. >> sh-3.2$ >> >> >> Any ideas? >> >> Thanks, >> >> Lee >> >> On Sep 25, 2008, at 2:47 PM, John Turner wrote: >> >>> I just did this yesterday using this command... >>> >>> ./configure.server --rrdinclude /opt/local/include --rrdlib /opt/ >>> local/lib --pcreinclude /opt/local/include --pcrelib /opt/local/ >>> lib --sslinclude /opt/local/include --ssllib /opt/local/lib -- >>> ldapinclude /opt/local/include --ldaplib /opt/local/lib >>> >>> I checked and my rrdtool (installed via MacPorts yesterday) was >>> 1.3.3 >>> >>> configure output edited as follows.... >>> >>>> Checking for RRDtool ... >>>> test-rrd.c: In function 'main': >>>> test-rrd.c:30: error: too few arguments to function 'rrd_graph' >>>> make: *** [test-compile] Error 1 >>>> Not RRDtool 1.0.x, checking for 1.2.x >>>> Found RRDtool include files in /opt/local/include >>>> Found RRDtool libraries in /opt/local/lib >>> >>> >>> I see your mistake "--rrdinclude" needs to be /opt/local/include >>> not /opt/local/bin. >>> >>> >>> John Turner >>> >>> On Sep 25, 2008, at 2:35 PM, Lee J. Imber wrote: >>> >>>> I am trying to build 4.2.0 server on OSX 10.5.5. >>>> >>>> >>>> sh-3.2$ find /opt/local/ -name rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//bin/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//lib/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//share/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/distfiles/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/receipts/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/software/rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/software/rrdtool/1.3.2_0/opt/local/bin/ >>>> rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/software/rrdtool/1.3.2_0/opt/local/lib/ >>>> rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/software/rrdtool/1.3.2_0/opt/local/share/ >>>> rrdtool >>>> /opt/local//var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports/ >>>> net/rrdtool >>>> >>>> sh-3.2$ MAKE=gmake ./configure.server --rrdinclude /opt/local/bin >>>> --rrdlib /opt/local/lib >>>> >>>> Configuration script for Hobbit >>>> >>>> This script asks a few questions and builds a Makefile to compile >>>> Hobbit >>>> >>>> Checking your make-utility >>>> Checking pre-requisites for building Hobbit >>>> >>>> Checking for fping ... >>>> Hobbit has a built-in ping utility (hobbitping) >>>> However, it is not yet fully stable and therefore it >>>> may be best to use the external fping utility instead. >>>> I could not find fping on your system >>>> Do you want to use hobbitping [Y/n] ? >>>> y >>>> OK, I will use hobbitping. >>>> >>>> >>>> Checking for RRDtool ... >>>> test-rrd.c:3:17: error: rrd.h: No such file or directory >>>> test-rrd.c: In function 'main': >>>> test-rrd.c:26: warning: implicit declaration of function >>>> 'rrd_clear_error' >>>> test-rrd.c:30: warning: implicit declaration of function >>>> 'rrd_graph' >>>> gmake: *** [test-compile] Error 1 >>>> Not RRDtool 1.0.x, checking for 1.2.x >>>> test-rrd.c:3:17: error: rrd.h: No such file or directory >>>> test-rrd.c: In function 'main': >>>> test-rrd.c:26: warning: implicit declaration of function >>>> 'rrd_clear_error' >>>> test-rrd.c:28: warning: implicit declaration of function >>>> 'rrd_graph' >>>> gmake: *** [test-compile] Error 1 >>>> ERROR: RRDtool include files found in /opt/local/bin, but compile >>>> fails. >>>> sh-3.2$ >>>> >>>> >>>> AFAIK BSD tools are installed. >>>> >>>> Anyone have success? >>>> >>>> Thanks, >>>> >>>> Lee >>>> >>>> >>>> To unsubscribe from the hobbit list, send an e-mail to >>>> hobbit-unsubscribe at hswn.dk >>>> >>>> >>> >

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