Alternate view for Management 🔗 link

From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:17 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Our support staff likes having our monitoring system setup & organized by logical category/type. However, management is more interested in a view that is organized by business impact.

For example:

IT Top Level View-
  Hosted Services             Corporate Connectivity
  Corporate Servers         Corporate Desktops
  Remote Laptops       Facility Connectivity
  Facility Desktops

Management Top Level View-
  Email (Subpage containing all dependent hosts/services)
  HRMS (same as above)
 Sales CRM
 i.e. a listing for each "service" provided - possibly even maintained below subpages for each business unit

Management wants availability and impact by the specific service and business unit impacted (10,000 foot view showing all dependencies), while IT is interested in the detail of the cogs/gears that make it all work.

Do I just create a second listing for all of the hosts on a separate page structure? Would this generate twice as many network tests for the hosts that are listed duplicate times?

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

• Harold Ballinger
IT Coordinator
Heritage Healthcare, Inc.
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | helpdesk
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | office
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | fax

Visit our website: www.heritage-healthcare.com<http://www.heritage-healthcare.com/>;


From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 2:57 PM
To: 'user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid'
Subject: RE: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Ok, I've made it halfway to my goal and just need a little nudge.

I modified my bb-hosts to have includes for each page of hosts:

include bb-hosts-hosted
include bb-hosts-remote
include bb-hosts-connectivity
include bb-hosts-facilities
include bb-hosts-servers
include bb-hosts-test
include bb-hosts-corporate

I then also included:

dispinclude bb-hosts-services

and I then created the bb-hosts-services to look like:

page services Business Services
group-compress Website
111.222.33.44 www.mydomain.com # http://www.mydomain.com NAME:"Company Website" COMMENT:"Company Website" DESCR:"webserver:Company Website"
222.33.44.55  media.mydomain.com # http://media.mydomain.com ftp NAME:"Company Media Files" COMMENT:"Company Media Files" DESCR:"webserver:Company Media Files"
33.44.55.66   webstats.mydomain.com       # http://webstats.mydomain.com NAME:"Website Statistics" COMMENT:"Website Statistics" DESCR:"webserver:Website Statistics"

I was attempting to get the "Business Services" page to have "friendly names" only and not the actual hostnames. I am building this one page so that I can run an Availability Report and print this single page for a 10,000 ft view of business critical services. I would like for the headings and hostnames to be "friendly names" instead of actual hostnames since the target audience for this report will be non-technical. (The actual hostnames with all appropriate tests are already defined in their appropriate pages and those pages are the ones used by IT in their day-to-day jobs.)

It looks like the dispinclude does what I expected and does not duplicate the tests for these hosts, but I couldn't find a way to make the hostnames "friendly". The NAME, COMMENT, and DESCR don't seem to have any affect at all on this output. The comment doesn't even show up in parenthesis as it normally would.

I seem to have hit a roadblock... Any ideas?


• Harold Ballinger
IT Coordinator
Heritage Healthcare, Inc.
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | helpdesk
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | office
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | fax

Visit our website: www.heritage-healthcare.com<http://www.heritage-healthcare.com/>;


From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:17 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

Our support staff likes having our monitoring system setup & organized by logical category/type. However, management is more interested in a view that is organized by business impact.

For example:

IT Top Level View-
  Hosted Services             Corporate Connectivity
  Corporate Servers         Corporate Desktops
  Remote Laptops       Facility Connectivity
  Facility Desktops

Management Top Level View-
  Email (Subpage containing all dependent hosts/services)
  HRMS (same as above)
 Sales CRM
 i.e. a listing for each "service" provided - possibly even maintained below subpages for each business unit

Management wants availability and impact by the specific service and business unit impacted (10,000 foot view showing all dependencies), while IT is interested in the detail of the cogs/gears that make it all work.

Do I just create a second listing for all of the hosts on a separate page structure? Would this generate twice as many network tests for the hosts that are listed duplicate times?

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

On 7/23/09, Harold J. Ballinger <user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid> wrote:

 The only way that I could find to make this work was to use “include”
instead of “dispinclude”, then create a second “fake host” entry with a
different hostname and duplicate all of the tests using the “testip” tag,
then use the NAME tag on this second “fake host”.

* *

• *Harold Ballinger*

*IT Coordinator*

Heritage Healthcare, Inc.

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | helpdesk

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | office

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | fax

*From:* Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
*Sent:* Thursday, July 23, 2009 2:57 PM
*To:* 'user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid'
*Subject:* RE: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management


Ok, I’ve made it halfway to my goal and just need a little nudge.


I modified my bb-hosts to have includes for each page of hosts:


include bb-hosts-hosted

include bb-hosts-remote

include bb-hosts-connectivity

include bb-hosts-facilities

include bb-hosts-servers

include bb-hosts-test

include bb-hosts-corporate


I then also included:


dispinclude bb-hosts-services


and I then created the bb-hosts-services to look like:


page services Business Services

group-compress Website

111.222.33.44 www.mydomain.com # http://www.mydomain.com NAME:"Company
Website" COMMENT:"Company Website" DESCR:"webserver:Company Website"

222.33.44.55  media.mydomain.com # http://media.mydomain.com ftp
NAME:"Company Media Files" COMMENT:"Company Media Files"
DESCR:"webserver:Company Media Files"

DESCR:"webserver:Website Statistics"


I was attempting to get the “Business Services” page to have “friendly
names” only and not the actual hostnames. I am building this one page so
that I can run an Availability Report and print this single page for a
10,000 ft view of business critical services. I would like for the headings
and hostnames to be “friendly names” instead of actual hostnames since the
target audience for this report will be non-technical. (The actual hostnames
with all appropriate tests are already defined in their appropriate pages
and those pages are the ones used by IT in their day-to-day jobs.)


It looks like the dispinclude does what I expected and does not duplicate
the tests for these hosts, but I couldn’t find a way to make the hostnames
“friendly”. The NAME, COMMENT, and DESCR don’t seem to have any affect at
all on this output. The comment doesn’t even show up in parenthesis as it
normally would.


I seem to have hit a roadblock… Any ideas?


* *

• *Harold Ballinger*

*IT Coordinator*

Heritage Healthcare, Inc.

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | helpdesk

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | office

 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | fax

*From:* Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
*Sent:* Tuesday, July 14, 2009 12:17 PM
*To:* user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
*Subject:* [hobbit] Alternate view for Management


Our support staff likes having our monitoring system setup & organized by
logical category/type. However, management is more interested in a view that
is organized by business impact.


For example:


IT Top Level View-

  Hosted Services             Corporate Connectivity

  Corporate Servers         Corporate Desktops

  Remote Laptops       Facility Connectivity

  Facility Desktops


Management Top Level View-

  Email (Subpage containing all dependent hosts/services)

  HRMS (same as above)

 Sales CRM

 i.e. a listing for each “service” provided – possibly even maintained
below subpages for each business unit


Management wants availability and impact by the specific service and
business unit impacted (10,000 foot view showing all dependencies), while IT
is interested in the detail of the cogs/gears that make it all work.


Do I just create a second listing for all of the hosts on a separate page
structure? Would this generate twice as many network tests for the hosts
that are listed duplicate times?


Any suggestions?


Thanks!

Ballinger<user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid> wrote:

I know that there are a lot of you out there that are smarter than me and
that know Xymon inside and out. Am I trying to get Xymon to do something
that it just isn’t capable of performing? I hate to have to build and manage
a separate Xymon server that is just for the management view and reporting
so that I can have this “Friendly View” type of report, but would that be my
best option at this point?

On Thursday 23 July 2009 21:33:17 Harold J. Ballinger wrote:

It looks like the NAME and COMMENT tags only apply for the host entry that
is preferred with the "prefer" tag. This means that it will change the name
for both pages and that I can't have the host display a friendly name on
one page but an actual hostname on the other.

The only way that I could find to make this work was to use "include"
instead of "dispinclude", then create a second "fake host" entry with a
different hostname and duplicate all of the tests using the "testip" tag,
then use the NAME tag on this second "fake host". This means that all tests
are duplicated and that the tests reported on this page are against the IP
(and would not reflect host resolution issues.)

I know that there are a lot of you out there that are smarter than me and
that know Xymon inside and out. Am I trying to get Xymon to do something
that it just isn't capable of performing? I hate to have to build and
manage a separate Xymon server that is just for the management view and
reporting so that I can have this "Friendly View" type of report, but would
that be my best option at this point?

• Harold Ballinger
IT Coordinator
Heritage Healthcare, Inc. 
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | helpdesk
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | office
 (XXX) XXX-XXXX  | fax

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Finegold [mailto:user-6a016aac278a@xymon.invalid] 
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 11:59 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: Re: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 13:33, Harold J.
Ballinger<user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid> wrote:

I know that there are a lot of you out there that are smarter than me and
that know Xymon inside and out. Am I trying to get Xymon to do something
that it just isn't capable of performing? I hate to have to build and manage
a separate Xymon server that is just for the management view and reporting
so that I can have this "Friendly View" type of report, but would that be my
best option at this point?

Barring further advice, instead of building a separate server...

You could create a script that runs sed or perl or whatever to make
the "Friendly view" page. I do something like this (call bash/sed a
few times, admittedly only via bb-display.sh on BB for now) for some
supplemental reports (e.g. company-wide sortable list of backup
status/size). There are at least three options for deploying such a
script:
  A) Change [bbdisplay] in hobbitlaunch.cfg to run a script that calls
bbgen (as usual) then runs this script. Best if needed often and must
be synchronized with other pages.
  B) Add section in hobbitlaunch.cfg for it. Best if needed often but
no need for synchronization. My xymon site has two bbgen launches:
once for grouping by type, a second time for grouping by location
(bbgen --pageset).
  C) Add as a CGI (on-demand, like the rrdtool graphs, etc.) rather
than a static page. Best if rarely needed.

If it's only a few rows then hardcoded values will suffice. It could
become scalable and maintainable if the script uses values from
bbhostgrep or something similar.

-----Original Message-----
From: Harold J. Ballinger [mailto:user-fc4f93976dc8@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:07 AM
To: 'user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid'
Subject: RE: [hobbit] Alternate view for Management

layout for management (including using the NAME tag to provide friendly
hostnames), then have bbgen use the "bb-hosts-management" config to create
a BB3.html or something similar that is the management view.

Am I understanding you correctly?

-----Original Message-----
From: Francesco Duranti [mailto:user-7104dcecbfef@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 10:31 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] Bug in bbcombotest 4.3.0-beta2

Hi all,
I don't know if anyone use it or is interested but there's a bug in 4.3.0-beta2 (and 4.4.0 too)
related to the bbcombotest.

The bug is at line 216 in the if just after the sendmessage...

This is the code interested... the problem is that in 4.3.0 variable board is not passed to
sendmessage anymore (as in 4.2.3) so the if for the error is always true and the test are not checked.

                hobbitdresult = sendmessage("hobbitdboard fields=hostname,testname,color", NULL,
BBTALK_TIMEOUT, sres);
                if ((hobbitdresult != BB_OK) || (board == NULL)) {
                        board = "";
                        *errptr += sprintf(*errptr, "Could not access hobbitd board, error %d\n",
hobbitdresult);
                        return COL_CLEAR;
                }

Changing the "if" to "if (hobbitdresult != BB_OK) {" should solve the problem.

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:28:45 -0800, Cleaver, Japheth wrote:

I noticed the logic below seems to still be present in 4.3.0-RC1 (line
211 in xymond/combostatus.c). 

-----Original Message-----
From: Francesco Duranti [mailto:user-7104dcecbfef@xymon.invalid] Sent: Friday, July 24,
2009 10:31 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] Bug in bbcombotest 4.3.0-beta2

Hi all,
I don't know if anyone use it or is interested but there's a bug in
4.3.0-beta2 (and 4.4.0 too) related to the bbcombotest.

The bug is at line 216 in the if just after the sendmessage...

This is the code interested... the problem is that in 4.3.0 variable
board is not passed to sendmessage anymore (as in 4.2.3) so the if for
the error is always true and the test are not checked.

                hobbitdresult = sendmessage("hobbitdboard
                fields=hostname,testname,color", NULL,
BBTALK_TIMEOUT, sres);
                if ((hobbitdresult != BB_OK) || (board == NULL)) {
                        board = "";
                        *errptr += sprintf(*errptr, "Could not access
                        hobbitd board, error %d\n",
hobbitdresult);
                        return COL_CLEAR;
                }

Changing the "if" to "if (hobbitdresult != BB_OK) {" should solve the
problem.