xymon as a drop-in bb replacement
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
-- Do things because you should, not just because you can.
John Thurston 907-465-8591 John.Thurston at alaska.gov Enterprise Technology Services Department of Administration State of Alaska
John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
If anyone on here is old enough - they might recognize me as the original author of BB. And, yes Quest End-of-Lifed it earlier this month and I'm taking care of all the support until the EoL.
That having been said, I recommend moving to Xymon, and would be happy to help any BBPE users in any way I can.
Sean MacGuire sean at maclawran.ca
Key West +1 305 390 0888 The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
On 3/18/2013 11:04 AM, Sean MacGuire wrote:
John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
If anyone on here is old enough - they might recognize me as the original author of BB.
Yes, Sean. Thank you! We've been running bb since 1998 or 99. Does that make me old?
That having been said, I recommend moving to Xymon, and would be happy to help any BBPE users in any way I can.
Well, it was a little bit of a battle, but I got Xymon built and running on a Solaris zone. This is a thing of beauty.
I grabbed my bb-hosts file, pulled my BBDISPLAY lines out, and threw it at the Xymon server. We're rocking and rolling :) A few things I notice are:
Our BB configuration pre-dates FQDN support, so my bb-hosts file has only hostnames in it. I'll either need to disable FQDN on Xymon or insert "testip" all over my hosts.cfg. I'll probably do the latter because I think it is finally time to embrace fqdn.
I didn't import any of my ext-scripts or customizations and I see Xymon now natively supports a few things I had rolled on my own.
I've thrown a BBRELAY line in one of my production BB servers, and it works like a champ.
One thing I'm missing, though, is the equivalent of the searchable web-help we have with BBPE. I see all of the help files and I can grep them, but is there a slicker way to find things in them from the web interface?
-- Do things because you should, not just because you can.
John Thurston 907-465-8591 John.Thurston at alaska.gov Enterprise Technology Services Department of Administration State of Alaska
On 20 March 2013 10:49, John Thurston <john.thurston at alaska.gov> wrote:
One thing I'm missing, though, is the equivalent of the searchable web-help we have with BBPE. I see all of the help files and I can grep them, but is there a slicker way to find things in them from the web interface?
Use the Googles: site:xymon.com inurl:xymon/help "xymonproxy"
You can make this a search engine in your browser, by manual configuration. Or, just install the OpenSearch provider here: http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=xymon. Set a useful keyword (Firefox and Chrome) such as "xymondocs" and you can search directly from the URL bar.
Cheers Jeremy
On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:49:03 -0800, John Thurston <john.thurston at alaska.gov> wrote:
Our BB configuration pre-dates FQDN support, so my bb-hosts file has only hostnames in it. I'll either need to disable FQDN on Xymon or insert "testip" all over my hosts.cfg. I'll probably do the latter because I think it is finally time to embrace fqdn.
You can set FQDN="FALSE" in xymonserver.cfg, and it should work just like your old BB server.
A quick way of setting "testip" for all hosts is to add a ".default." at the top of hosts.cfg:
0.0.0.0 .default. # testip
If you need to turn it off again somewhere, just define it again, but blank:
0.0.0.0 .default. #
But of course, using fqdn's really is the best solution.
Regards, Henrik
On Mon, 2013-03-18 at 10:55 -0800, John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
Hello,
Not too recently, around autumn 2011. I use Xymon to monitor around 20 servers, so obviously not on your scale of things! :-) However, I would suggest installing Xymon on a test server initially, see how it works and what needs configuring, and likewise install it onto a client (and have the server monitor the client). We found that once we had a test server and client running, the actual move to a live Xymon server and clients was very easy. With this setup you should be able to see if Xymon is going to work with your BB configuration files (which for generic BB files, I think Xymon will work out of the box).
John.
-- John Horne, Plymouth University, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 587287 Fax: +44 (0)1752 587001
I migrated from bb1.9btf to xymon when it first came out (2005?2006?)
Transition is seamless
You'll want to get to migrating the clients when you find how much more useful the xymon client in than the bb native one was (Sorry Sean)
On 3/18/13 2:55 PM, "John Thurston" <john.thurston at alaska.gov> wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
-- Do things because you should, not just because you can.
John Thurston 907-465-8591 John.Thurston at alaska.gov Enterprise Technology Services Department of Administration State of Alaska
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
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On 18-03-2013 19:55, John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
I heard about this from Sean MacGuire. I expect there will be others like yourself in the same situation coming to have a closer look at Xymon now.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
Xymon is designed to be compatible with BB clients, so there is no need to replace the clients - you can swap out the BB server with a Xymon server, and your clients won't know the difference. This is quite intentional - I had 1000+ BB clients when Xymon was designed, and replacing all of them overnight was not possible.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are benefits to changing the client - especially for Unix-based clients. But you are free to do it whenever it fits into your overall maintenance, or when there is a specific need for a client replacement. (The actual replacement is fairly simple, since you do all of the configuration on the Xymon server. The client can be rolled out as a pre-packaged file that you just unpack somewhere with a standard config pointing it to your Xymon server - so you can use the same client package on all systems running the same operating system).
Regards, Henrik
Nuts - guess that means the Quest/former Deadcat repository of all the BB-based user contributions will be vaporized at some point per BBPE EOL. Maybe Mr. Croteau/Quest can " transfer" the content back under the wings of Mr. MacGuire/somebody? This code base should be all GPL and not hamstrung by any Quest licensing restrictions.
Hmm, maybe Mr. Croteau and Mr. MacGuire will get back together again with something like "Big Second-Cousin-Once-Removed's Second-Coming"
-----Original Message----- From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Henrik Størner Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 5:20 AM To: xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] xymon as a drop-in bb replacement
On 18-03-2013 19:55, John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
I heard about this from Sean MacGuire. I expect there will be others like yourself in the same situation coming to have a closer look at Xymon now.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
Xymon is designed to be compatible with BB clients, so there is no need to replace the clients - you can swap out the BB server with a Xymon server, and your clients won't know the difference. This is quite intentional - I had 1000+ BB clients when Xymon was designed, and replacing all of them overnight was not possible.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are benefits to changing the client - especially for Unix-based clients. But you are free to do it whenever it fits into your overall maintenance, or when there is a specific need for a client replacement. (The actual replacement is fairly simple, since you do all of the configuration on the Xymon server. The client can be rolled out as a pre-packaged file that you just unpack somewhere with a standard config pointing it to your Xymon server - so you can use the same client package on all systems running the same operating system).
Regards, Henrik
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
As long as we're laying out wish lists.... I really wish someone would take over development of BBWin again. That is a serious concern for us. Windows will never be totally out of the environment and not having a strong client to monitor both Windows and Linux is a big problem.
Scot Kreienkamp | Senior Systems Engineer | La-Z-Boy Incorporated 1284 N. Telegraph Rd. | Monroe, MI 48162 | scot.kreienkamp at la-z-boy.com | www.la-z-boy.com
-----Original Message----- From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Deiss, Mark Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 8:59 AM To: xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] xymon as a drop-in bb replacement
Nuts - guess that means the Quest/former Deadcat repository of all the BB- based user contributions will be vaporized at some point per BBPE EOL. Maybe Mr. Croteau/Quest can " transfer" the content back under the wings of Mr. MacGuire/somebody? This code base should be all GPL and not hamstrung by any Quest licensing restrictions.
Hmm, maybe Mr. Croteau and Mr. MacGuire will get back together again with something like "Big Second-Cousin-Once-Removed's Second-Coming"
-----Original Message----- From: xymon-bounces at xymon.com [mailto:xymon-bounces at xymon.com] On Behalf Of Henrik Størner Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 5:20 AM To: xymon at xymon.com Subject: Re: [Xymon] xymon as a drop-in bb replacement
On 18-03-2013 19:55, John Thurston wrote:
We ran BB 1.9 for years, then switched to BBPE about three years ago. Earlier this month, Quest announced end-of-life for BBPE so we're looking at our options.
I heard about this from Sean MacGuire. I expect there will be others like yourself in the same situation coming to have a closer look at Xymon now.
We have fewer than 500 clients reporting into Big Brother. But swapping them out for something else is going to painful and take time. If a xymon server will happily accept bb-client messages, then I could stand up a xymon server and replace clients through attrition.
Has anyone else recently gone down this path?
Xymon is designed to be compatible with BB clients, so there is no need to replace the clients - you can swap out the BB server with a Xymon server, and your clients won't know the difference. This is quite intentional - I had 1000+ BB clients when Xymon was designed, and replacing all of them overnight was not possible.
As pointed out elsewhere, there are benefits to changing the client - especially for Unix-based clients. But you are free to do it whenever it fits into your overall maintenance, or when there is a specific need for a client replacement. (The actual replacement is fairly simple, since you do all of the configuration on the Xymon server. The client can be rolled out as a pre-packaged file that you just unpack somewhere with a standard config pointing it to your Xymon server - so you can use the same client package on all systems running the same operating system).
Regards, Henrik
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
This message is intended only for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. It may contain privileged, confidential information which is exempt from disclosure under applicable laws. If you are not the intended recipient, please note that you are strictly prohibited from disseminating or distributing this information (other than to the intended recipient) or copying this information. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail or by telephone at the above number. Thank you.
Hi
I have generated some scripts which they should send some information back to the Xymon Server. The jobs seem working fairly well, but they failed to give me a full output but a partial one?
Is there any limit for the amount of information being sent across? For example ,checking the ports there is a full output, but in my case remotely I am running a "cat <file>" and the Xymon Server does not reflect the whole output but a fragment of it.
any idea?
Many thanks
Gonzalo,
Check your logs, and see if there are any mentions of reports being to large.
Then, look at your xymonserver.cfg file and modify the appropriate "MAX...." variables to account for the additional size.
I've increased "MAXMSG_CLIENT", "MAXMSG_STATUS" and "MAXMSG_DATA" to account for a number of my busier servers.
Mike Burger http://www.bubbanfriends.org
"It's always suicide-mission this, save-the-planet that. No one ever just stops by to say 'hi' anymore." --Colonel Jack O'Neill, SG1
Hi
I have generated some scripts which they should send some information back to the Xymon Server. The jobs seem working fairly well, but they failed to give me a full output but a partial one?
Is there any limit for the amount of information being sent across? For example ,checking the ports there is a full output, but in my case remotely I am running a "cat <file>" and the Xymon Server does not reflect the whole output but a fragment of it.
any idea?
Many thanks
Xymon mailing list Xymon at xymon.com http://lists.xymon.com/mailman/listinfo/xymon
On 20/03/13 23:58, Deiss, Mark wrote:
Nuts - guess that means the Quest/former Deadcat repository of all the BB-based user contributions will be vaporized at some point per BBPE EOL. Maybe Mr. Croteau/Quest can " transfer" the content back under the wings of Mr. MacGuire/somebody? This code base should be all GPL and not hamstrung by any Quest licensing restrictions.
Hmm, maybe Mr. Croteau and Mr. MacGuire will get back together again with something like "Big Second-Cousin-Once-Removed's Second-Coming" As the original person responsible for the deadcat repository, I'll put my hand up, again... though perhaps this is already handled by xymonton? Will likely require some work from some enterprising individual(s) to simply copy the various scripts from the current location and upload to xymonton.
If people think it would actually be more useful to have a separate repository, let me know and I'll dig something up....
Regards, Adam
-- Adam Goryachev Website Managers Ph: +61 2 8304 0000 adam at websitemanagers.com.au Fax: +61 2 8304 0001 www.websitemanagers.com.au
Adam Goryachev wrote:
On 20/03/13 23:58, Deiss, Mark wrote:
Nuts - guess that means the Quest/former Deadcat repository of all the BB-based user contributions will be vaporized at some point per BBPE EOL. Maybe Mr. Croteau/Quest can " transfer" the content back under the wings of Mr. MacGuire/somebody? This code base should be all GPL and not hamstrung by any Quest licensing restrictions.
Hmm, maybe Mr. Croteau and Mr. MacGuire will get back together again with something like "Big Second-Cousin-Once-Removed's Second-Coming" As the original person responsible for the deadcat repository, I'll put my hand up, again... though perhaps this is already handled by xymonton? Will likely require some work from some enterprising individual(s) to simply copy the various scripts from the current location and upload to xymonton.
If people think it would actually be more useful to have a separate repository, let me know and I'll dig something up....
Guys, I've spoken with the nice people at Quest... the plugins will live on and will not be vaporized.
Stay tuned.
Sean MacGuire sean at maclawran.ca
Key West +1 305 390 0888 The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
participants (11)
-
adam＠websitemanagers.com.au
-
g.fer.ordas＠unicyber.co.uk
-
henrik＠hswn.dk
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jlaidman＠rebel-it.com.au
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john.horne＠plymouth.ac.uk
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john.thurston＠alaska.gov
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Mark.Deiss＠xerox.com
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mburger＠bubbanfriends.org
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sean.clark＠twcable.com
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sean＠maclawran.ca
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SKreien＠la-z-boy.com