VMWare ESX
list Jon Dustin
Greetings - I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about 10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the community. I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk, memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc. It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box. Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look at the Hobbit CLIENT source? Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.
list Rich Smrcina
VMware ESX provides SNMP support, so it is likely that devmon can be used to query the data and report it to Hobbit. I dabbled with some shell scripts to capture the info, but didn't get too far... :(
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Jon Dustin wrote:Greetings - I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about 10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the community. I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk, memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc. It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box. Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look at the Hobbit CLIENT source? Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.
--
Rich Smrcina VM Assist, Inc. Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX Ans Service: XXX-XXX-XXXX user-61add9955ef9@xymon.invalid Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org WAVV 2007 - Green Bay, WI - May 18-22, 2007
list Xavier Pajona
VMware ESX is nothing but a slightly modified RedHat. Maybe you could try and use the RedHat hobbit client.
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On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 10:23 -0600, Rich Smrcina wrote:VMware ESX provides SNMP support, so it is likely that devmon can be used to query the data and report it to Hobbit. I dabbled with some shell scripts to capture the info, but didn't get too far... :( Jon Dustin wrote:Greetings -I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the community.I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk, memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc. It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box. > > Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look at the Hobbit CLIENT source? Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.
list Rich Smrcina
True, but if you start messing around with the underlying operating system you may run the risk of invalidating any support.
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xavier pajona wrote:VMware ESX is nothing but a slightly modified RedHat. Maybe you could try and use the RedHat hobbit client. On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 10:23 -0600, Rich Smrcina wrote:VMware ESX provides SNMP support, so it is likely that devmon can be used to query the data and report it to Hobbit. I dabbled with some shell scripts to capture the info, but didn't get too far... :(
-- Rich Smrcina VM Assist, Inc. Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX Ans Service: XXX-XXX-XXXX user-61add9955ef9@xymon.invalid Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org WAVV 2007 - Green Bay, WI - May 18-22, 2007
list Shifter
Note: this is regarding ESX 3.x
I was running into a similar issue with trying to get the usage data from
the ESX host. The problem I was seeing though was that a system I *knew* to
be extremely heavily utilized as evidenced by MUI/VC usage data, was
reporting back only ~5% utilization. The problem was that the console OS is
almost like a VM itself and the tools were only showing usage data as used
by the console OS.
Here's how I was able to get around it, with mad props to those who have
helped me in the past to get the custom graphing working:
On hobbit client:
- Ensure hobbit client is already installed first.
- visudo (or vi /etc/sudoers) (needs root access to run esxtop)
- hobbit ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/esxtop
- service firewall stop, chkconfig firewall off (for my environment a
FW was not necessary, YMMV)
- su hobbit
- In /apps/hobbit/client/ext/pcpu paste the script below, then chmod
+x
#!/bin/sh
# Dynamically detects the number of CPU's on the machine and grabs the
data from the appropriate field.
tmp=`cat /proc/vmware/cpuinfo | grep pcpu | wc -w | sed 's/^[
\t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'`
tmp=`expr $tmp - 1`
cpuCount=`expr $tmp / 2`
targetField=`expr 8 + $cpuCount`
targetField="\$$targetField"
strPre="sudo esxtop -bn 2 | awk 'BEGIN {FS=\",\"};"
strTemp="{print \"pcpuIdle : \"(100-(substr($targetField, 2,
length($targetField)-2)))}'"
strPost=" | tail -1 | sed 's/\\\"//g' > /tmp/pcpu.txt"
strCommand="$strPre $strTemp $strPost"
eval "$strCommand"
$BB $BBDISP "data $MACHINE.pcpuIdle
`cat /tmp/pcpu.txt`
"
exit 0
- In /apps/hobbit/client/etc/clientlaunch.cfg
[pcpu]
ENVFILE $HOBBITCLIENTHOME/etc/hobbitclient.cfg
CMD $HOBBITCLIENTHOME/ext/pcpu
INTERVAL 5m
- Restart client
On hobbit host:
- In hobbitgraph.cfg:
[pcpuIdle]
TITLE ESX CPU Utilitization
YAXIS % Used
-u 100
-r
DEF:cpu_idle=pcpuIdle.rrd:pcpuIdle:AVERAGE
CDEF:pbusy=100,cpu_idle,-
AREA:pbusy#FF0000:Busy
GPRINT:pbusy:LAST: \: %5.1lf (cur)
GPRINT:pbusy:MAX: \: %5.1lf (max)
GPRINT:pbusy:MIN: \: %5.1lf (min)
GPRINT:pbusy:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf (avg)\n
STACK:cpu_idle#00FF00:Idle
GPRINT:cpu_idle:LAST: \: %5.1lf (cur)
GPRINT:cpu_idle:MAX: \: %5.1lf (max)
GPRINT:cpu_idle:MIN: \: %5.1lf (min)
GPRINT:cpu_idle:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf (avg)\n
- In hobbitserver.cfg:
TEST2RRD="cpu=la,disk,inode,qtree,memory,$PINGCOLUMN=tcp,http=tcp,dns=tcp,dig=tcp,time=ntpstat,vmstat,iostat,netstat,temperature,apache,bind,sendmail,mailq,nmailq=mailq,socks,bea,iishealth,citrix,bbgen,bbtest,bbproxy,hobbitd,files,procs=processes,ports,clock,lines,pcpuIdle=ncv"
GRAPHS="la,disk,inode,qtree,files,processes,memory,users,vmstat,iostat,tcp.http,tcp,ncv,netstat,ifstat,mrtg::1,ports,temperature,ntpstat,apache,bind,sendmail,mailq,socks,bea,iishealth,citrix,bbgen,bbtest,bbproxy,hobbitd,clock,lines,pcpuIdle"
NCV_pcpuIdle="pcpuIdle:GAUGE"
Hope that helps.
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On 1/26/07, Rich Smrcina <user-cf452ff334e0@xymon.invalid> wrote:VMware ESX provides SNMP support, so it is likely that devmon can be used to query the data and report it to Hobbit. I dabbled with some shell scripts to capture the info, but didn't get too far... :( Jon Dustin wrote:Greetings - I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about 10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the community. I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk, memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc. It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box. Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look at the Hobbit CLIENT source? Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.-- Rich Smrcina VM Assist, Inc. Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX Ans Service: XXX-XXX-XXXX user-61add9955ef9@xymon.invalid Catch the WAVV! http://www.wavv.org WAVV 2007 - Green Bay, WI - May 18-22, 2007
list Trent Melcher
Compile a copy of hobbit on a RedHat ES3 or ES4 server and just copy it over to your ESX servers, VMWare is a RedHat Linux Kernel. I have it running on 12 of my ESX servers and it works great. You will just need to modify a few of the commands like the df command and there are a few other I cant remember off the top of my head. Trent
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Dustin [mailto:user-d8c63a8259c1@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:21 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] VMWare ESX
Greetings -
I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about
10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the
community.
I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I
would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk,
memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data
appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with
slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST
sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc.
It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report
to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box.
Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some
documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look
at the Hobbit CLIENT source?
Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.
list Trent Melcher
One thing I did forget to mention is you will need to run the esxcfg-firewall command to open up TCP port 1984 in and out on each of your ESX servers. Trent
▸
-----Original Message-----
From: Trent Melcher [mailto:user-a7d23e07dd5c@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2007 3:47 PM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: RE: [hobbit] VMWare ESX
Compile a copy of hobbit on a RedHat ES3 or ES4 server and just copy it
over to your ESX servers, VMWare is a RedHat Linux Kernel. I have it
running on 12 of my ESX servers and it works great. You will just need
to modify a few of the commands like the df command and there are a few
other I cant remember off the top of my head.
Trent
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Dustin [mailto:user-d8c63a8259c1@xymon.invalid]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:21 AM
To: user-ae9b8668bcde@xymon.invalid
Subject: [hobbit] VMWare ESX
Greetings -
I have been using Hobbit since summer 2006 (and Big Brother for about
10 years prior). GREAT system, my appreciation to Henrik and the
community.
I am evaluating how to monitor our VMWare ESX boxes with Hobbit. I
would like to have ESX report the "standard" set of data (cpu, disk,
memory, msgs, procs, trends) and have Hobbit graph the data
appropriately. As some of you may know, ESX is its "own" OS, with
slightly different management tools for reporting on the VM GUEST
sessions. There are appropriate analogies for top, ps, df, etc.
It seems this might best be handled by sending a "client data" report
to Hobbit, and masquerading ESX to "look" similar to a Linux box.
Is this feasible? Any potential problems? I have looked for some
documentation on the client report, to no avail. Or should I just look
at the Hobbit CLIENT source?
Thanks for any tips/tricks/traps.
list Jon Dustin
▸
On 1/26/2007 at 3:37 PM, Shifter <user-312408c55c39@xymon.invalid> wrote:Note: this is regarding ESX 3.x I was running into a similar issue with trying to get the usage data from the ESX host. The problem I was seeing though was that a system I
*knew* to
be extremely heavily utilized as evidenced by MUI/VC usage data, was reporting back only ~5% utilization. The problem was that the console OS is almost like a VM itself and the tools were only showing usage data as used by the console OS. Here's how I was able to get around it, with mad props to those who have helped me in the past to get the custom graphing working:
<snip>
This looks VERY nice! Thanks for sharing...