BigSister

Configuring and installing BigSister

Thomas Aeby

Didier Bringer

Joerg Fritsch

Alexander Kerr

1.5.1

July 2003

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

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 Windows binary
Post-installation tasks
Configuring your webserver (Big Sister server only)
Installing Perl modules
Installing RRDTool
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
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
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
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
Todo
SNMP Agent
Big Sister as an SNMP trap source
MIB
I. Healthcheck Command Reference
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
II. 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 -
III. 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)
%Pager - provided for compatibility with Big Brother
%Groups - determine group memberships
%Page - describing the content of a webpage
%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
%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

List of Tables

1.1. paths to files
3.1. Accepted keywords and function
3.2. Files used for Availability management
3.3. Output of the default statistics file
3.4. Accepted keywords and function
3.5. Some available skins

List of Examples

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
8.
9. Usage of the %skin statement