May 2012 - Xymon - Xymon mailman web

Client script using BB variables?
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 15 May '12

15 May '12

Hello, Using Xymon 4.3.7, I am trying to install a BB client script onto a Xymon client. However, the script uses some variables which no longer seem to be available in Xymon. It uses the BBHOSTS and MACHINE variables. It also accesses the 'bbaliasname' file, which too no longer exists but seems to be able to be replicated in the hosts.cfg file. The problem is basically that the client needs to look up its name in the hosts.cfg file. But because that file doesn't exist on the client, the script is going to fail. Is there any way I can get this to work? One thought is for the client to use the 'config' command to get the hosts,cfg file, but I have just spent time trying to ensure that that sort of thing wasn't possible! (We don't want users accessing any of the server files.) Secondly, of course is how often do we download the file? In theory it should be at every run of the script (every 5 mins) in case it (hosts.cfg) has changed, but that seems excessive. Thanks, John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

3 3

Replace test with script?
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 15 May '12

15 May '12

Hello, Using Xymon 4.3.7 does anyone know if it is possible to replace a xymonnet test with a local test of the same name? I want to replace the 'dns' test with one run as a script on clients. Obviously I can disable the current 'dns' test, but I am a bit loathe to name a DNS test anything other than 'dns' :-) John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

5 5

oddness with protocols.cfg
by sean.clark＠twcable.com 14 May '12

14 May '12

I had this set in the protocols.cfg [bbd] send "ping" expect "xymond" port 1984 I tried this then [bbd] send "ping\r\n" expect "xymond" port 1984 Shows yellow Manually running [sclark at bastion?~]~bb/server/bin/XXX.com "ping" xymond 4.3.7 Works, but doing something like this doesn't -bash-3.2$ telnet localhost 1984 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1). Escape character is '^]'. ping (hit enter here) ^] (give up after waiting for a while) telnet> quit Debug gives me this 15451 2012-05-14 15:33:39 tcp_got_expected: No data in banner 15451 2012-05-14 15:33:39 Adding to combo msg: status+30 XXXX,com.bbd yellow  Mon May 14 15:33:34 2012 bbd NOT ok I also tried the 'banner' keyword in protocols.cfg, and didn't get anything What am I doing wrong here? -- Sean Clark Sr. Engineer, Software ATG Network Operations & Planning Integrated Regional OSS<http://www.twcable.com/DepartmentOverview/AdvancedTechnologyGroup/ATG/NOP/O…> sean.clark at twcable.com <mailto:sean.clark at twcable.com> devaudio<aim://devaudio> <mailto:sean.clark at twcable.com> Cell: (315) 415-2816 ________________________________ This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.

2 2

configuration of a secondary BBLOCATION in Xymon 4.2.3
by sholmes42＠mac.com 14 May '12

14 May '12

I have 2 Xymon servers (4.2.3). The primary (Solaris) one is the display server and does network testing for the 'public' network servers. The other (RHEL) is what BB would have called a BBNET server and only does network testing for hosts in the 'zone' network. The BBLOCATION variable is set for both, 'public' for the first and 'zone' for the second. And, yes, the appropriate client hosts are tagged with NET:zone. I'm really confused about the rest of the configuration requirements for the 'zone' server (hobbitserver.cfg, hobbitlaunch.cfg, etc.). Should it be configured like a normal server? How does it know where to send the messages to (the display server)? Does it need to run the xymon client, or does it get by with the server only like the display server? As a side note, on the zone server I'm getting the following in the hobbitlaunch.log file: 2012-05-14 13:12:22 xgetenv: Cannot find value for variable 2012-05-14 13:12:22 xgetenv: Cannot find value for variable I don't believe I was getting that before. Note: I had this working, but a mysterious 'glitch' blew away some of the zone server files and so far I've been unable to duplicate what I had before. Yes, there are backups, but so far they have not been terribly helpful. In particular, I haven't been able to get the .../etc/ directory restored from backups yet. Thanks! Steve -- If they give you ruled paper, write the other way. -Juan Ramon Jimenez, poet, Nobel Prize in literature (1881-1958) I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. -Frederick Douglass, Former slave, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)

1 0

"purple storm" example
by jdustin＠usm.maine.edu 14 May '12

14 May '12

Greetings - This evening I had the luck to experience a "purple storm" with Xymon v4.3.7, *and* I had enough time to try a few items to combat the problem. Here is what I tried: - applied patch from Henrik dated May 2 http://lists.xymon.com/pipermail/xymon/2012-May/034525.html patch -p0 <dns.patch ; make ; make install ; service xymon stop ; service xymon start - checked my /etc/hosts file I do have a few non-standard Xymon configuration settings: - am NOT using FQDN - tasks.cfg: CMD xymonnet --report --ping --ping-tasks=4 --dns-timeout=5 --checkresponse --source-ip=130.111.135.60 --dns=ip --shuffle - hosts.cfg: 130.111.135.60 shepherd # testip ssh bbd smtp https://shepherd.uct.usm.maine.edu/ The xymonnet column for shepherd remained purple until the DNS servers came back. It almost seemed like Xymon could not "find itself"? Any thoughts on ways to combat this issue? Thanks (as always) for a great product, and for any assistance you can provide. -- Jon Dustin - Network Specialist University of Southern Maine Portland, ME 207-780-4152

2 5

xymon newbie question
by Ejones＠egov.com 13 May '12

13 May '12

Hi - I have just finished building xymon and I'm trying to build out a page with separate subpages. The default layout seems to be listing my subpages side by side on the main xymon page - Prod databases * Dev databases * Is there a way that I can make them list vertically rather than horizontally? Each of these links to a page that has the listing of my database servers. It seems like it would be easier to read this if I could format it vertically but I can't seem to find how to do that. Thanks for any pointers. ---------- Elizabeth Jones

3 2

Patch - trivial doc patch
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 11 May '12

11 May '12

Hello, Attached are a couple of very trivial one-line doc changes for Xymon 4.3.7. John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

1 0

Xymond no-download causes purple status
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 11 May '12

11 May '12

Hello, Using Xymon 4.3.7 I added the '--no-download' option to the startup of 'xymond'. The man page says: Disable the "download" and "config" commands which can be used by clients to pull files from the Xymon server. The use of these may be seen as a security risk since they allow file downloads. However, when I use this option I get purple status reports for cpu, disk, files, memory and procs for all the hosts. If I remove the option, then it all goes back to green again. As far as I can tell it is not, therefore, possible to use this option to secure Xymon against the download and config commands. Any comments? John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

1 0

Security without FQDN?
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 11 May '12

11 May '12

Hello, Using Xymon 4.3.7 I have been trying to secure the xymon server, and have been looking at the various 'senders' options of xymond. Having set these options I then got several purple reports. The xymond logfile indicated that messages were being refused from hosts, despite the xymond man page saying that status messages would be accepted from the hosts to which they relate. Example: 2012-05-11 12:20:39 Refused message from 141.163.162.11: usermsg jhvm2.sec.1336735239123422 add id=1336735239 expire=1336737639 jhvm2.sec green Fri May 11 12:20:39 BST 2012 \n&green dummy 2012-05-11 12:20:39 Invalid user message - sender 141.163.162.11 not allowed for host jhvm2.sec.1336735239123422 The hosts.cfg file shows: 141.163.162.11 jhvm2 # testip conn files sec... The tasks.cfg file for xymond uses the option '--status-senders=$XYMONSERVERIP'. So according to the xymond man page, because '--status-senders' is set, status reports from 141.163.162.11 for host 'jhvm2' should be accepted (since they are the same host). My only though here is how xymond is doing the security check. Is it checking the IP address against the name, and/or the name against the IP address? Since we are not using FQDN names, the DNS is not going to be useful, but a host check of the name 'jhvm2' should return the IP address since it is listed in the /etc/hosts file. Any thoughts? John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

1 1

Status lifetime - where?
by john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk 10 May '12

10 May '12

Hello, Using Xymon 4.3.7, if I use the 'xymon' command and specify a status lifetime, as mentioned in the man page, is there anywhere on the server that I can see what the lifetime is? That is, the date/time when the status should expire. I'm assuming it must be held somewhere in order for Xymon to know when to expire it :-) Thanks, John. -- John Horne Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Plymouth University, UK Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001

3 4