Hello,
After more than a year without new release, I publish today BBWin 0.10. This is the new stuffs I put in it:
BBWin 0.10 Preview version - December 30th 2007
+New Features
** Centralized mode for agents cpu, disk, memory, msgs, netstat, ports, procs, timediff, uptime ** Centralized mode graphing network traffic ** See the bbWin webpage for instructions http://bbwin.sourceforge.net/
- Msgs agent reports parts of description events when the message file contening the static string can't be found. It will reports as the Windows Event Viewer, just like this : "The description for Event ID ( XXX ) in Source ( XXX ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: XXXXX, XXXXX."
- You can use environment variables in the bbwinupdate agent. Example : <setting name="filename" value="bbwin\%COMPUTERNAME%.cfg" />
- svcs services rules can be used with comments
- disk agent can monitor free space from XX-rom drive and not only if a media is inserted. (feature requested to monitor dvd-ram burning state)
- disk agent can monitor volume mount points
- Proxy access : BBWin can access to your hobbit server through a proxy (http proxy) You can specify a user/password if you use http proxy basic authentication.
- disk agent will alert you if a disk monitored with a custum rule disappear from the Server. (Example : external usb harddrive turned off)
- uptime agent : add max delay option to get alerts when servers are up for a too long time
- who agent : report current connected users on the servers
Here the link for the download :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bbwin
About the centralized mode, to handle it with bbwin, you have to use a patch for hobbit 4.2 or for the future 4.3, it is available on http://bbwin.sourceforge.net/ The centralized mode for BBWin in hobbit sources has been developed by François Lacroix, one of the new developper of devmon. Big thanks to him. Even if we tested on our servers, it may contains bugs so you should test it not on productions servers for the moment. You can report bugs on the bbwin or hobbit mailing list so we can improve the solution. We hope to have something enough good to be included in hobbit 4.3 and will continue to update the patch for hobbit 4.2. The client-local.cfg is not supported for the moment. It is the next step (files, dir, logs, clientupdate).
I have also some general questions about bbwin :
Actually, svcs only works as a local agent because there is no option for it in hobbit-clients.cfg, it is very specific to Windows world. What do you prefer ?
- we keep svcs agent with local configuration. BBWin can handle centralized mode with agents which will run with local configuration
- we create a new option for the hobbit-clients.cfg which will be only used for Windows client
- May be you have other good ideas about that problem. At this time, it is only about svcs agent but for advanced features in the future, we will have other choices to make.
With the centralized mode, you will see that you get graphs for each of your networks connections. However, for Windows, the names are too long compared to the unix name (eth0, eri0..). So, at this time, I use the mac address of the network card for the graph name. Would you prefer to use the name by making a very short name ? the ip address ? or is the mac address fine ?
There is a new agent 'who' used to report current connected users on the windows servers. There is no alert for it at this time. Which relevant type of alerts could be useful ? there is no alert options on Unix side. I was thinking of a rule like PROC but called USER with a minimum logged number and a maximum logged number for a username.
For 2008, I will do my best to create more releases. 2007 was not a good year :-) The first goal will be to finalize the centralized mode with all the unix options. I now use the sourceforge subversion repository so you will always get the lastest sources of BBWin.
As usual, let me know if you get troubles with this new version.
Happy new year for all the hobbit community :-)
Etienne.
On Dec 30, 2007 12:42 AM, Etienne Grignon <etienne.grignon at gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
After more than a year without new release, I publish today BBWin 0.10. This is the new stuffs I put in it:
Neat, thanks.
BBWin 0.10 Preview version - December 30th 2007
<---SNIP--->
- who agent : report current connected users on the servers <---SNIP---> There is a new agent 'who' used to report current connected users on the windows servers. There is no alert for it at this time. Which relevant type of alerts could be useful ? there is no alert options on Unix side. I was thinking of a rule like PROC but called USER with a minimum logged number and a maximum logged number for a username.
I could see it being useful to alert on things like:
- Any user is logged in more than once
- Specific users are logged in (such as where nobody should use the Administrator account)
- Users are logged in outside/during certain hours
For each I can see it being handy to define the groups either by inclusion (any member of "Domain Users") or exclusion (anybody except members of "Domain Administrators"), and sometimes both (any member of "Domain Users", except for members of "Management" or the user "Smith").
-- Please keep list traffic on the list.
Rob MacGregor Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster. Friedrich Nietzsche
Those are some impressive improvements! Great job!
Now if I had any Windows servers... :)
On 12/30/07, Rob MacGregor <rob.macgregor at gmail.com> wrote:
On Dec 30, 2007 12:42 AM, Etienne Grignon <etienne.grignon at gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
After more than a year without new release, I publish today BBWin 0.10. This is the new stuffs I put in it:
Neat, thanks.
BBWin 0.10 Preview version - December 30th 2007
<---SNIP--->
- who agent : report current connected users on the servers <---SNIP---> There is a new agent 'who' used to report current connected users on the windows servers. There is no alert for it at this time. Which relevant type of alerts could be useful ? there is no alert options on Unix side. I was thinking of a rule like PROC but called USER with a minimum logged number and a maximum logged number for a username.
I could see it being useful to alert on things like:
- Any user is logged in more than once
- Specific users are logged in (such as where nobody should use the Administrator account)
- Users are logged in outside/during certain hours
For each I can see it being handy to define the groups either by inclusion (any member of "Domain Users") or exclusion (anybody except members of "Domain Administrators"), and sometimes both (any member of "Domain Users", except for members of "Management" or the user "Smith").
-- Please keep list traffic on the list.
Rob MacGregor Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster. Friedrich Nietzsche
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-- Josh Luthman Office: 937-552-2340 Direct: 937-552-2343 1100 Wayne St Suite 1337 Troy, OH 45373
Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. --- Henry Spencer
I am very happy to hear this, and even more so that BBWin now supports a centralized configuration.
Etienne writes:
I have also some general questions about bbwin :
Actually, svcs only works as a local agent because there is no option for it in hobbit-clients.cfg, it is very specific to Windows world. What do you prefer ?
- we keep svcs agent with local configuration. BBWin can handle centralized mode with agents which will run with local configuration
- we create a new option for the hobbit-clients.cfg which will be only used for Windows client
- May be you have other good ideas about that problem. At this time, it is only about svcs agent but for advanced features in the future, we will have other choices to make.
My preferred solution would be to have it in the hobbit-clients.cfg file, so there is a specific configuration statement for the Windows services check. There are a lot of Windows boxes being monitored with Hobbit, and I very much consider BBWin an essential companion to Hobbit. So the configuration should be as Hobbit-like as possible, even if it means implementing bits of code in Hobbit that are specific to BBWin.
With the centralized mode, you will see that you get graphs for each of your networks connections. However, for Windows, the names are too long compared to the unix name (eth0, eri0..). So, at this time, I use the mac address of the network card for the graph name. Would you prefer to use the name by making a very short name ? the ip address ? or is the mac address fine ?
There's really two sides to this issue. One thing is to identify the network interface from one poll to the next, so we put the right data into the RRD files - for this we can use any identifier that is guaranteed to be a)unique and b)permanent. Another thing is to present the interface name in some sensible way on the graph.
I don't really like using the MAC address, because it is difficult to relate to anything meaningful - I wouldn't know that my primary interface is 00:0E:A6:CE:D6:85, but I do know it's called "eth0". I've had the same problem for the SNMP data collection, so I have come up with an "rrd.meta" file that can map the ID of the network interface into a text that appears on the graph. The code isn't pretty, and it is static data that must be maintained by hand - if anyone has a better suggestion, please speak up.
There is a new agent 'who' used to report current connected users on the windows servers. There is no alert for it at this time. Which relevant type of alerts could be useful ? there is no alert options on Unix side. I was thinking of a rule like PROC but called USER with a minimum logged number and a maximum logged number for a username.
Would make sense, also as a check on the unix systems.
For 2008, I will do my best to create more releases.
Me too :-)
Regards, Henrik
Henrik Stoerner <mailto:henrik at hswn.dk> wrote:
Etienne writes:
With the centralized mode, you will see that you get graphs for each of your networks connections. However, for Windows, the names are too long compared to the unix name (eth0, eri0..). So, at this time, I use the mac address of the network card for the graph name. Would you prefer to use the name by making a very short name ? the ip address ? or is the mac address fine ?
There's really two sides to this issue. One thing is to identify the network interface from one poll to the next, so we put the right data into the RRD files - for this we can use any identifier that is guaranteed to be a)unique and b)permanent. Another thing is to present the interface name in some sensible way on the graph.
I don't really like using the MAC address, because it is difficult to relate to anything meaningful - I wouldn't know that my primary interface is 00:0E:A6:CE:D6:85, but I do know it's called "eth0". I've had the same problem for the SNMP data collection, so I have come up with an "rrd.meta" file that can map the ID of the network interface into a text that appears on the graph. The code isn't pretty, and it is static data that must be maintained by hand - if anyone has a better suggestion, please speak up.
The default name of an ethernet network connection on Windows is 'Local Area Connection' with ' #1', etc. when there is more than one. Is that too long? If so, it is extremely easy to rename the network connection within Windows to something shorter e.g. LAN1, LAN2, etc. or whatever one wants. It seems to me that using this name would be most appropriate, since it would be guaranteed to correspond to what is visible in the machine 'Network Connections' GUI, or am I missing something? Obviously, as Henrik implies, the actual data will need to be associated with the MAC address, so that renaming the NIC wouldn't screw up historical data.
Kind regards,
Sebastian
Sebastian <mailto:spa at syntec.co.uk> wrote:
Henrik Stoerner <mailto:henrik at hswn.dk> wrote:
Etienne writes:
With the centralized mode, you will see that you get graphs for each of your networks connections. However, for Windows, the names are too long compared to the unix name (eth0, eri0..). So, at this time, I use the mac address of the network card for the graph name. Would you prefer to use the name by making a very short name ? the ip address ? or is the mac address fine ?
There's really two sides to this issue. One thing is to identify the network interface from one poll to the next, so we put the right data into the RRD files - for this we can use any identifier that is guaranteed to be a)unique and b)permanent. Another thing is to present the interface name in some sensible way on the graph.
I don't really like using the MAC address, because it is difficult to relate to anything meaningful - I wouldn't know that my primary interface is 00:0E:A6:CE:D6:85, but I do know it's called "eth0". I've had the same problem for the SNMP data collection, so I have come up with an "rrd.meta" file that can map the ID of the network interface into a text that appears on the graph. The code isn't pretty, and it is static data that must be maintained by hand - if anyone has a better suggestion, please speak up.
The default name of an ethernet network connection on Windows is 'Local Area Connection' with ' #1', etc. when there is more than one. Is that too long? If so, it is extremely easy to rename the network connection within Windows to something shorter e.g. LAN1, LAN2, etc. or whatever one wants. It seems to me that using this name would be most appropriate, since it would be guaranteed to correspond to what is visible in the machine 'Network Connections' GUI, or am I missing something? Obviously, as Henrik implies, the actual data will need to be associated with the MAC address, so that renaming the NIC wouldn't screw up historical data.
Actually, thinking more about this, one would probably not want to use the MAC address, since one might change a given NIC from being on one network to being on another network while remaining in the same machine. At the same time, one could easily rename the NIC in Windows to show the change, but obviously one can't change the MAC address. It would be better for the data before and after the change of network (i.e. change of name) to be separate since there is no real relation between the two, other than the fact that they used the same hardware. Network connection names are guaranteed to be unique in Windows (XP at least).
Kind regards,
Sebastian
On Sunday 30 December 2007, Etienne Grignon wrote:
Hello,
After more than a year without new release, I publish today BBWin 0.10. This is the new stuffs I put in it: I have a request for change. Is it possible to add an option to bbwincmd so you can specify a file with the message that needs to be send.
We use the hobbit client and server to send extra information. The message is too big to specify on the command line. We changed the source so -f can be used to specify a file. Setting up the the environment to compile is more work then changing the source ;)
Stef
participants (6)
-
etienne.grignon＠gmail.com
-
henrik＠hswn.dk
-
josh＠imaginenetworksllc.com
-
rob.macgregor＠gmail.com
-
spa＠syntec.co.uk
-
stef.coene＠docum.org