Novell Doc: Novell ZENworks 7 Server Management Administration Guide - Management and Monitoring Services for Linux

30.6 Management and Monitoring Services for Linux

The Management and Monitoring Services component of Novell ZENworks Server Management for Linux now provides you with the ability to centrally manage and administer the Linux servers on your network.

You can view all the real time statistical information and the historical information as views from Novell ConsoleOne®. You can manage traps generated for important events, obtain historical information about the Linux servers and view all the information as views from Novell ConsoleOne and generate reports about the overall health of your Linux server.

The Linux Management Agent of Management and Monitoring Services allows you to manage and monitor all the information about your Linux servers.

30.6.1 Providing Real Time Statistical Information

The Linux Management Agent is an SNMP agent that gathers and provides real time statistical information on some of the critical resources of the server.

The Linux Management Agent provides the following statistical information:

Processor statistics
System level memory usage
Disk usage and statistics
Partition usage statistics
Init.d services statistics
Process information
User login statistics
Kernel cache information
Disk partition statistics
System paging and swapping
Interrupt Statistics on various processors

Customizing the Configuration File

Using the zfs-mms-servinst.conf file, you can customize the Linux Management Agent to monitor the real-time statistics. You can change the list of services that are automatically monitored in the zfs-mms-servinst.conf file.

Open the zfs-mms-servinst.conf file in the /etc/opt/novell/novell zenworks directory.
In the Monitored Services section, add or remove the service name from list of services.
Save the zfs-mms-servinst.conf file.
Restart the snmpd.

30.6.2 Generating Traps for System Events

The Linux Management Agent gathers important and critical events about the running server processes. Based on the criticality of the events, traps are generated and forwarded to the site server. The Linux Management Agent includes the novell-trapd service that monitor various categories of system logs for these events. Some of the categories of events gathered from the system logs include:

User login
Root login failures
Service start/stop/restart
Important kernel events logged

Customizing the Configuration File

Using the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file, you can customize the Linux Management Agent to monitor the events for which the traps are generated.

You can do the following methods:

Changing the list of hosts where the traps are forwarded

Open the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file in the /etc/opt/novell/novell zenworks directory.
In the TrapTargets section, add the IP addresses of the hosts where you would like the traps to be sent. In the same line, add the SNMP community string that is used to send the traps.
Save the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file.
Restart the novell-trapd service.

Preventing the trap generation for certain system log messages

Using the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file you can prevent the traps from being generated for certain system log messages. You must create sections within the configuration file and include the keys in Table 30-10:

Table 30-10 List of keys and its possible values to be used in the system log messages

Key Name	Description	Possible Values
Severity	The severity of the log message to be ignored.	CRITICAL MAJOR MINOR INFORMATIONAL MISCELLANEOUS ALL
Constraints	Defines how a log message should be searched for a substring. If the substring satisfies the conditions specified, this log message is ignored.	The possible values are an optional CASE_COMPARE and one of CONTAINS or ENDS_WITH or BEGINS_WITH. The optional CASE_COMPARE specifies if a case-sensitive search is required on the string. The other values specify whether the string must be contained in the log, or the end of the log or the beginning of the log respectively.
string number	Defines a string that is searched should be searched. You can define any number of such keys, by incrementing the value of number. A message that matches any one of these values is ignored.	Any string.

Key Name

Description

Possible Values

Severity

The severity of the log message to be ignored.

CRITICAL
MAJOR
MINOR
INFORMATIONAL
MISCELLANEOUS
ALL

Constraints

Defines how a log message should be searched for a substring. If the substring satisfies the conditions specified, this log message is ignored.

The possible values are an optional CASE_COMPARE and one of CONTAINS or ENDS_WITH or BEGINS_WITH.

The optional CASE_COMPARE specifies if a case-sensitive search is required on the string. The other values specify whether the string must be contained in the log, or the end of the log or the beginning of the log respectively.

string number

Defines a string that is searched should be searched. You can define any number of such keys, by incrementing the value of number. A message that matches any one of these values is ignored.

Any string.

Example: Rejecting all log messages containing the string telnet

Open the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file in the /etc/opt/novell/Novell ZENworks directory.
Create a section in the configuration file. For example [Telnet Reject].
Add the following keys and values:
- severity = ALL
- constraints = CASE_COMPARE
- string1 = telnet
Search for the section _Reject Setting Names_ , and add the section name. For example, Telnet Reject.
Save the configuration file.
Restart the novell-trapd service.

Example: Rejecting all messages with severity value as Info containing the string 127.0.0.1 or localhost

Open the zfs-mms-log2trap.conf file in the /etc/opt/novell/Novell ZENworks directory.
Create a section in the configuration file. For example [Localhost].
Add the following keys and values:
- severity = INFO
- constraints = CASE_COMPARE
- string1 = 127.0.0.1
- string2 = localhost
Search for the section _Reject Setting Names_, and add the section name. For example, Localhost.
Save the configuration file.
Restart the novell-trapd service.

30.6.3 Providing History Collection Information

The Linux Management Agent implements the SNMP instrumentation for the Linux Operating System for additional information. Using the SNMP interface information the following attributes of the Linux Operating System can be obtained:

CPU Utilization
Used Memory and Used Swap Size
Disk Free Space
Network Interface Statistics (incoming and outgoing packet count)
Disk Reads and Writes
Logged in User Count

Using Advanced Trending agent you can configure and control periodic statistical sampling for any of the above parameters. Using the Advanced Trending Agent you can also set thresholds to generate traps for the above attributes.

For more information on the Advanced Trending Agent, see Section 30.5, Advanced Trending Agent.

30.6.4 Linux Management Views

Using the Unified View for Devices, you can list all the Linux devices on your network.

The following views are created in Linux to enable you to access more information about a Linux server:

Node Summary
Processor Statistics and Trend
Storage Devices Summary and Trend
Running Software
Interrupt Summary Node
Memory Statistics and Trend
Network Interface Statistics and Trend
Currently Logged-in Users and Trend
Services Started by the Node

The Linux Management views are similar to the views on NetWare and Windows servers.

30.6.5 Linux Server Health Reports

A new profile called the Linux Server Profile is added to the list of profiles to enable you to generate reports. This reports enables you to obtain information about the overall health of your Linux server. You can use the Linux Server Health Report to generate reports daily, weekly, monthly.