BigSister

Configuring and installing BigSister

Thomas Aeby

Didier Bringer

Joerg Fritsch

Alexander Kerr

1.9

November 2005

Revision History
Revision 1.011 December 2000tom
Initial release.
Revision 1.01March 2002dda
Docbook format
Revision 1.01March 2002dda
When describing commands, I tried to write arguments like in any Programmation Book ie command { mandatory args } [ optional arguments ] Skins for CGI
Revision 1.5August 2003jf
Done further work on the Docbook format. Introduced Big Sister logo. Introduced html chunks. Rewritten some parts in order to get them taylored to Big Sister rev. 0.98b3 and give the reader a better understanding.
Revision 1.5.1August 2003ak
Corrected english wording, grammar and style
Revision 1.9November 2005ta
Did some major improvements to reflect the current status of the project

Abstract

This is the official manual for the Big Sister network monitor. This documentation is intended for guiding new users during their first steps setting up agent nodes, configuring health checks and getting the display server up and running.


Table of Contents

GNU General Public License
Preamble
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
1. Installation
Prerequisites
Big Sister Components
Installing Big Sister
Paths to files
Installation from sources
Installing Big Sister from the RPM-packages
Installing Big Sister on Debian
Installing Windows binary
Post-installation tasks
Configuring your webserver (Big Sister server only)
Installing Perl modules
Installing RRDTool
Install Big Sister plugins
2. Agent Configuration
First steps
How to start the daemons at boot time
Adding new hosts and services
The uxmon-net file
Network objects with simple names
Network objects with alias names
Health checks
Using self contained healthcheks: testers
3. Server Configuration
Server security
Server vulnerability and server access
Server access: /etc/bigsister/permissions
Data integrity and authenticity
Tunneling Big Sister tcp- connections through Secure Shell
Configure Alarming
Rules
Patterns - "when to do things"
Description - "what to do"
PAGER rules: influencing alarm delivery
Definitions and their meaning
Use and configure SLA/Availability management
Setting it up Availability management
Sending server commands
Using the telnet client
Using the bsadmin tool
Configuring the Server and customizing the Display
The main server configuration file: bb-display.cfg
The options section
The names and group section
The Webpages section
Using imagemaps
Deleting unused and stale network objects
Attaching the Big Sister server to a database
Enabling data logging in a database
Data logging in MySQL database
Data logging without a database server: the file database
Database Structure
4. Appendices
Question and Answers : Q+A
Trend graphs do not appear though I followed the instructions on setting them up
Can I have some graphics showing disk/memory/cpu/... usage during the last few days?
No links to my performance data trend graphics are appearing on the web pages
Links to trend graphics appear but when I click on it no graph is displayed
After installing Big Sister my display works but I do not see any status from my clients
Some of my web pages look quite poor (no background, no lamps) while others look fine
The History and Alarms menu entries do not work
CGIs are so slow
The .conn (ping) test does always report failure
My display.history file is growing larger and larger
SNMP Agent
Big Sister as an SNMP trap source
MIB
I. Command Reference
testers - query healthcheck for available features, produce XML and static manpage
bsadmin - send server commands to a Big Sister server
II. New-style Health Checks
accesstime - Monitors file access time
disk - Monitor a disks free space using the 'df' command
diskload - Monitor the disk load
etherport - Monitor interface operating status
ftp - Monitor FTP service. Shortcut for: service=ftp tcp
http - Monitors a http server
ica - Monitor Citrix ICA service. Shortcut for: service=ica tcp
icmp_ping - Monitors network connectivity via icmp echo requests
ident - Monitors ident server
imap - Monitor IMAP service. Shortcut for: service=imap tcp
ldap - Monitors a LDAP(S) server specified via an URL
load - Monitors CPU load
mailq - Monitors a mail queue
memory - Monitor virtual memory usage using Linux /proc/meminfo file
myexpedap - My External Performance Data Provider
mysql - Monitors a mysql server
network - Monitor per interface network load and error rates
nntp - Monitor NNTP Service. Shortcut for: service=nntp tcp
ntp - Monitors NTP server via ntptrace command
nutups - Monitors uninterruptible power supplies attached via the Network UPS Tool
oracle - Monitors an Oracle server using sqlplus
pop3 - Monitor POP3 service. Shortcut for: service=pop3 tcp
procs - Monitors running processes
procsname - Monitor remote processes using SNMP HOST-MIB - monitor running processes names
readbandwidth - Monitors data transfer bandwidth (reading mode)
realhttp - Monitors a service specified via an URL
service - Monitors running services
smtp - Monitor SMTP service. Shortcut for: service=smtp tcp
snmpvar - Monitor a given SNMP variable and create alerts if a given threshold is reached.
ssh - Monitor SSH service. Shortcut for: service=ssh tcp
tcp - Monitors a generic TCP based service
telnet - Monitor telnet service. Shortcut for: service=telnet tcp
users - Monitor the number of logged on users on a SNMP aware device (Host-MIB)
writebandwidth - Monitors data transfer bandwidth (writing mode)
III. Old-style Health Checks
cpuload - check the CPU load as reported by the 'uptime' command
statusfile - read status information from a file and report it to the Status Collector
bbscript - use BB style monitor script
http - check http response
tcp - check if the host does respond to tcp connection request
ping - does a ping
rpc - does an 'rpc ping
procs - checks for running processes or services (Win32)
diskfree - checks file systems for free space
diskload - check the average disk load (4 minutes) as reported by 'sar'
load - check for CPU idle time, I/O-wait, freeswap as reported by sar (4 minutes period)
dumpdates - check for last backup if using dump/ufsdump
syslog - check system log files
eventlog - check event log on Win32 systems
bbdisplay - heck the log file being generated by bstrapd (var/snmp_traplog)
snmp - remotely monitor hosts running SNMP agents
OV - monitor HP Openview trapd.log
metastat - monitor Solstice Disksuite metadevices
ntp - check if the machine is running an ntp server
mrtg - receive and visualize mrtg data
atmport or etherport - check operating status of specific ports
software - get firmware release via SNMP and check against an expected version
realhttp - execute an HTTP(S) request for a specified url
memory - report memory usage on NT and Linux systems
oracle - tests an oracle database server
tripwire - check system consistency via tripwire
ldap - query an ldap server and attempt to retriew a register
command - execute an arbitrary command
ups - query an uninterruptible power supply
qmqueue - monitor qmail's mail queue
IV. Server Command Reference
join - join a group of network ojects
leave - leave a group of network ojects
displayname - set text appearing on web pages
status - force status of a specified check
page - implemented for backward compatibility with big brother
savelogs - rotate big sister logfiles
sendlogs - send history logfile
perf - send history logfile
remove - discard all collected data of specified host.check
event -
V. Server configuration reference: bb-display.cfg
%Option - specify various not necessarily display related parameters
%Autoconn - Tell bbd to automatically set the status of host.conn to 'green' each time a connection is coming in from this host
%Autojoin - automatically put any newly appearing host into the specified group(s)
%Autojoin pattern - filter newly appearing hosts by host name and put them automatically into the specified group(s)
%Port - specify the port the Big Sister server should listen for agent connections
%Pager - provided for compatibility with Big Brother
%Groups - determine group memberships
%StatusTrap - send status change SNMP traps to a target host
%Page - describing the content of a webpage
%Section - add a section in the menu bar of the server display
%title - specify names for generated tables
%refto - set individual hypertext links for specific groups or hosts
%itemref - influence hypertextlinks of status lamps
%table - create a table woth the specified hosts and groups
%sort - sort order for hosts in subsequent tables
%select - filter rows that should be listed in subsequent tables
%select_names - filter rows that should be listed in subsequent tables by entry name
%select_items - filter columns that should be displayed in subsequent tables
%Itemgroup - define a group of table columns
%column_wrap - wrap a table after a specified number of columns
%image - insert an image or HTML image map
%ref - creeate an HTML label / anchor at the current position
%skin - use skinset to describe the look of the created pages
%Logskin - use skinset to describe the look of the created log pages
%rsync - report the stati to a remote Big Sister server
%frameset - creating a frameset around the Big Sister status pages
%include - include a file

List of Figures

1.1. Big Sister Components
2.1. Host Aliases
2.2. Agent to server
3.1. Status Changes result in Alarms
3.2. Group hierarchy example
3.3. Database Structure of Big Sister 1.01

List of Tables

1.1. paths to files
3.1. Accepted keywords and function
3.2. The alarm generator knows more definitions than just mail and pager settings
3.3. Files used for Availability management
3.4. Output of the default statistics file
3.5. Accepted keywords and function
3.6. Some available skins

List of Examples

2.1. A simple uxmon-net configuration file
3.1. Example of refusing a status from certain machines
3.2. Example default values
3.3. Getting rid of unwanted status lights ("purples")
3.4. Example without name argument
3.5. Example with name argument
3.6. Example with special argument : clear
3.7. Example on cgi's skins
9. disk healthcheck: local and via the network (remote)
10. Usage of the %skin statement