June, 2007

by kishi on June 29, 2007 03:44pm

Level-Set - Patch Management: Patch Management and Maintenance focuses on those solutions available to deploy and install software update on Linux systems, with a primary focus on Novell based Linux systems. This is going to be a very short blog because the only open source tool that I could find, which is used in a widespread manner, is YaST. I know there are tons of solutions out there, some proprietary like RHN and some custom built. YaST was the only common thread we could recognize. A deeper look at YaST and its online update abilities follows:

YAST Online Update Utility

Probably the most common and important modules in YaST are those related to software management (adding and removing software) and patch management.  Software and updates for a typical SUSE system are obtained from software repositories, which can be local or remote software inventories from which new software or updates may be obtained. At a deeper level, the SLES9 package management system utilizes the common rpm utility to install, remove, and update packages and manage the package and dependency database.  Although this subsystem is similar to RedHat’s, Novell has chosen a very different approach to distributing its patches, choosing to utilize what are called patch RPMs. With many RPM-based distributions, when a package needs to be updated for one reason or another the distributor will modify or patch the original source tree and recompile/repackage the software to produce a new RPM for that particular package.  Therefore in these cases the new RPM will simply be an updated version of the original RPM.

Novell has taken a slightly different approach with patching via RPMs.  Instead of updating and repacking the entire package, Novell updates the original source tree, recompiles, and then produces a delta (or a diff) between the original binaries in the package and the newly patched/recompiled binaries.  The delta is a binary file that contains information about the differences between two binary files.  The deltas will then be packaged within an RPM and distributed to clients.  The patch RPM can then be manually or automatically installed in the same way a standard RPM would be installed. An advantage to this technique is that patches are often smaller in size – typically anywhere between 5KB and 8MB depending on the size of the package and the changes being applied.  This often allows the update process to progress far faster than it would otherwise when using full RPMs – especially for large applications.

Major updates to the stable SLES9 branch are released as an installable “service pack”.  Novell typically recommends installing the service pack files via YaST2, from either a CDROM or network location that contains the service pack files.  One may also simply utilize the Online Update module of YaST2 to update the system manually or automatically.  In this case, the service pack will be distributed as a large number of individual packages, similar to how RedHat distributes major updates (i.e. RHEL4 U4). Aside from a log file, SLES9 does not currently have an email mechanism to inform the administrator when a patch is automatically downloaded and installed (as RedHat does).  However, a log file that contains information about each automatic update is maintained in /var/lib/YaST2/you/youlog.  This log is generally very easy for an administrator to read and discover when, or if, a patch RPM was downloaded and installed.

There are other ways to find information about installed patches, however.  By default, SLES9 archives each patch RPM that is downloaded and installed.  Full RPMs will also be archived if they were installed via YaST2 after the original system installation.  This functionality can be disabled with YaST2, of course, although it can sometimes be useful to maintain the archive if a patch ever needs to be reinstalled.

    1.  YaST Software/Update Repositories

Software repositories are typically added manually via the Installation Source module in YaST or can be scanned using SLP (Service Location Protocol).  From this module, one may add references to locations from which to receive updates.  These references typically take the form of a URI or a directory path.  YaST supports the following software repository references:

• FTPHTTP(S)
• SMB/CIFS
• NFS
• CD or DVD
• Local Directory

Using this methodology it is also quite common for an administrator to install a centralized repository for software and updates.  Updates may then be obtained from Novell by a single server, and other servers on the LAN may then pull patches from the central patch server using one of the above protocols.

    2.  YaST Security

Although software repositories for SLES and SLED distributions are typically operated by Novell, it is quite possible to add third-party repositories to obtain software not offered by Novell, or even different versions of the same software packages.  Novell warns against this, however, since adding repositories not controlled by Novell can result in the installation of untested or possibly malicious software, which ultimately could compromise security, but more likely may result in software instability and RPM package conflicts.

All official software and patches obtained by Novell are cryptographically signed, which can be verified with Novell’s public key.  The public keys used to verify these signatures are typically obtained via the official SLES/SLED CDs or DVDs, but may also be obtained via Novell’s website.  Once these public keys are accepted and imported, any software package or update obtained with an invalid signature will produce a warning and may not install without user intervention.

    3.  YaST Automatic Updates

Automatic updates can be configured via YaST’s Online Update Setup module, which allows a user to schedule updates to occur at a particular time either daily or weekly.  On the backend, this module simply installs a new cron entry, a task scheduling application, which periodically runs another program to check for and install updates pushed out by Novell.

In earlier SUSE-based systems, YOU (YaST Online Update) had been used to automate the installation of updates packages.  The cron utility would execute a shell script called /usr/bin/online_update which would automate the patch installation process.  Newer versions of SUSE, including SLED10, utilize a similar process but instead of a shell script a utility called rug is used.  The rug utility is the command-line interface to the ZENworks management agent that is present on new SUSE systems.

If you are running any open source based tools or applications in your environment to push patches and manage online update scenarios, we would REALLY like to hear what you have to say. As always THANK YOU for tuning into Port25

by billhilf on June 25, 2007 05:14pm

Things I’ve been collecting, with no rhyme or reason connecting them…

• I stumbled upon this very interesting project from Microsoft Research India – SMS Toolkit.  This project, and the work being done here with mobile phones and SMS servers as a PC replacement in rural areas is fascinating – here is a deeper look.
  • This matters because SMS is an amazingly simple but radically growing technology
     
• The growth and usage of SMS on mobiles worldwide is phenomenal; over 40% of the world’s people have an SMS capable phone. Almost a trillion SMS messages were sent in 2006 and the expected revenue from SMS in 2012 is $67 billion.  Interestingly, even among the 85% of Indian users who are prepaid – with average monthly mobile bills of only $3 (151R) – users on average sent 21 SMSs per month.  (source: Portio Research, TRAI Report through Sept 2006).
  
• If you travel internationally and think “We sure don’t SMS text in the U.S. as much as they do in <insert country name>” take a good look at the business and pricing models in the U.S. cellular industry versus <insert country name>.
  
• Speaking of travel and long flights, I refuse to live by airplane time.  I recommend that you ‘live’ on the plane based on the time of your destination.  Don’t eat at their scheduled food-serve time.  Sleep when everyone else is awake.  Then go swimming wherever you can when you arrive.  This is my jetlag remedy.
  
• One more travel bit: every country I have ever visited has donuts.  Every single one.
  
• Holy cow look at this 80 core beast from Intel.  The teraflop research chip.  Watching the video and the power consumption (watch the wattage when theydouble the frequency) makes me wonder about the future of power in data centers.  Related, I’ve used 80plus power units before, they’re worth checking out – I also like the research they are doing in this area.
  
• I’m seeing more and more small companies who are OSS integrators: taking various OSS projects and doing often significant customization for specific customers.  Most of them also work heavily with Microsoft technologies and OSS together.  This is happening globally.
  
• If you are a World of Warcraft or MMORPG player, this NYT article on gold farming is an interesting read.  Trading virtual goods, such as virtual gold, in online games is a $1.8 billion market.  Amazing.
  
• Speaking of, there is an interesting Virtual Goods Summit this month focusing on the market opportunity for virtual goods and economies.  I experienced an interesting virtual economy in the Philippines recently where I learned about mobile phone ‘loading’: buying, and often trading, pre-paid cell phone service.  Many people send prepaid credit from overseas to their family and friends mobile accounts in the Philippines.  You can also load your phone at any corner market, even a ‘micro load’, a peso or two of load to send a single SMS message. 
  
• I dig what our Visual Studio marketing team did with Defy All Challenges.  Nice work.  If you can watch the machinima videos and not laugh then you have no sense of humor.
  
• Related to developers, my friend Miguel has been busy with moonlight.  If you have ever had the opportunity to talk to Miguel or hear him speak (and I recommend it), you know he talks pretty fast.  His moonlight work shows that he can code fairly quickly too.
  
• Photosynth is one of the coolest and impactful community-oriented technologies I’ve seen in a long time – I’ve mentioned Photosynth before but it’s worth watching this video to see it in action.
  
• Great idea.  U.K. firm Jade Integration has unveiled a computer so small, it fits into a wall socket and is powered via Ethernet. The Jack PC, a rival to the smallest PC in the world, can hook up to a standard monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and it runs Windows CE. It comes with up to 64 MB of flash memory and 128 MB of RAM. 

All for now.

-Bill

by Garrett Serack on June 21, 2007 06:50pm

I'm pleased to announce ... er, myself, as the Open Source Community Lead here at Microsoft.

I'd have left this to Sam, but hey--why should he get all the fun.

I'm responsible for building communities of Open Source developers around Microsoft's platforms, both externally, and internally--yes, this means the product groups.  I'm really interested in what kinds of things we can start building as Open Source software, and illuminating what we've already done.

I said a few things the other day on My blog that I think I bears repeating:

This is a pretty wide reaching role, meaning that I touch a lot of ground. Some of the highlights:

• Seeking out Open Source projects we can assist (either by contributing code, MSDN licenses or whatever :D )
• Speaking/Presenting with companies, conferences, groups and people
• Building an Open Source MVP Program
• Enlightening Microsoft Product Groups about Open Source, and finding opportunities for them
• Facilitating communication between open source developers and Product Groups
• Building transparency into Microsoft and Open Source (believe it or not!)

There have been a lot of changes in Microsoft in the last few years, that folks can't yet see, and I'm hoping to expose that type of thing to the world, and bring the world of Open Source to Microsoft.

I'm not going to espouse the great plans I have in too much detail... I've found that actions speak louder than words, and have far more lasting impact than the words do. I'm focusing on what Microsoft is doing, and less on what has been said. I mentioned that too in my blog:

I don't get it... Microsoft and Open Source? Are you sure?

I know... I know. Y'all got some reservations about Microsoft with regards to open source.  Well, I'm not going to try convince you of anything. What I am going to do is to shine the light on the things Microsoft is doing to create communities in the Open Source world.

Add to that, I'm doin' some rustlin' inside of the company itself--as expected, there are a few tenderfoots 'round here who would just soon reckon' we didn't bother. Well, I got a cattle brand heatin' up just for the conversation.... We'll just see about that.

Somethin' about me:

I joined Microsoft in the fall of 2005 as the Community Program Manager of the CardSpace team, and I've been working with companies and the open source community to build digital identity frameworks, tools and standards to shape the future of internet commerce and. I'm also co-writing a book titled Understanding CardSpace, which should be available in the fall of 2007. Prior to moving to the Puget Sound area, I've had a lengthy career as a Software Development Consultant, moving from Developer, to Architect, to Mentor over the course of the last 16 years. As life-long code-monkey, I've pounded out code on more than 20 platforms and 35 different languages, and I see no reason to stop there. I've put code into many open source projects, and I'd like to think that I share a very strong part of the Open Source vision that permeates information technology everywhere. You can catch all my posts on my blog at http://fearthecowboy.com .

What's Next:

In my next blog post I'll detail the promise--that is my commitment to the community.  I think it's important to know what you can expect, as well as my boundaries.  I'll also have communication channels setup so that you can talk to me; either publicly, or via confidential email.

Garrett Serack

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by kishi on June 21, 2007 12:16pm

Background: This is Part 5, continuation of the series of 8 blogs I’m doing on Systems Manageability. In this specific blog, I will focus on and explain the third part of the “ontology” which is “Monitoring”

Level-Set – Monitoring: Monitoring and other data collection tools are an essential component of any management strategy.  The proper collection and organization of host data allows for manual and sometimes automated reactive corrective measures.  This section outlines many of the open source and free software monitoring tools available on the Linux platform.  Much of the analysis in this section is focused on the inner workings of these tools as data collection systems, rather than feature comparisons between the various monitoring applications. The WBEM/CIM overview has been placed in this section due to its basis as a data collection and management system, even though its use is not limited the confines of this category.

I.WBEM/CIM: The following section includes an overview of the WBEM initiative and the open-source CIM implementations that exist today. The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) classifies WBEM (Web Based Enterprise Management) as the following:

“[WBEM is] a set of management and Internet standard technologies developed to unify the management of distributed computing environments. WBEM provides the ability for the industry to deliver a well-integrated set of standard-based management tools, facilitating the exchange of data across otherwise disparate technologies and platforms.”

Core components and industry standards used in WBEM include CIM, CIM-XML, CIM Query Language, SLP (Service LocationProtocol, for WBEM Discovery) and WBEM URI (Universal Resource Identifier) mapping.  The DMTF has also developed a WBEM Management profile template for the purpose of systems manageability.  WBEM has been designed to be compatible with all the major existing management protocols, including SNMP, DMI, and CMIP. There are several open source implementations of WBEM including OpenWBEM, WBEM Services, OpenPegasus and SBLIM.  These are discussed in more detail below.  Additionally, there are both client and server implementations available for the WBEM standard:

•  
  • WBEM clients include PyWBEM, an open-source WBEM library written in Python, and the Purgos open-source management client for Windows written in C++.
  • WBEM server implementations include OpenPegasus and OpenWBEM, an open-source client and server written in C++ (Novell has adopted this and added it to SLES9/10).
    The following is an explanation of CIM, or Common Information Model, from the DMTF documentation:

“provides a common definition of management information for systems, networks, applications and services, and allows for vendor extensions. CIM’s common definitions enable vendors to exchange semantically rich management information between systems throughout the network. It is a conceptual information model for describing management that is not bound to a particular implementation. This allows for the interchange of management information between management systems and applications. This can be either "agent to manager" or "manager to manager" communications that provides for Distributed System Management.”

CIM includes two components; a specification and a Schema.

1. CIM Specification: This describes the language, naming, Meta Schema and mapping techniques to other management models such as SNMP MIBs, and DMTF MIFs etc. The Meta Schema is a formal definition of the model. It defines the terms used to express the model and their usage and semantics. The elements of the Meta Schema are Classes, Properties, and Methods. The Meta Schema also supports Indications and Associations as types of Classes and References as types of Properties. Essentially, the CIM specification
2. CIM Schema: This provides the actual model descriptions. The CIM Schema supplies a set of classes with properties and associations that provide a well-understood conceptual framework within which it is possible to organize the available information about the managed environment.  The CIM Schema itself is structured into three distinct layers:

•  
  • The Core Schema is an information model that captures notions that are applicable to all areas of management.
  • Common Schemas are information models that capture notions that are common to particular management areas, but independent of a particular technology or implementation. The common areas are systems, devices, networks, applications, metrics, databases, the physical environment, event definition and handling, management of a CIM infrastructure (the Interoperability Model), users and security, policy and trouble ticketing/ knowledge exchange (the Support Model). These models define classes addressing each of the management areas in a vendor-neutral manner.
  • Extension Schemas represent organizational or vendor-specific extensions of the Common Schema. These schemas can be specific to environments, such as operating systems (for example, UNIX® or Microsoft Windows®). Extension Schema fall into two categories, Technology-Specific areas such UNIX98 or Product-Specific areas that are unique to a particular product such as Windows.

WBEM (CIM) Architecture Diagram

OpenPegasus:

OpenPegasus is an open-source implementation of the DMTF CIM and WBEM standards being driven under the auspices of The Open Group.  OpenPegasus is open source and is licensed under the MIT open-source license. The distribution is available via CVS, and as snapshot images in tar, zip, and (self-extracting) exe file formats on the OpenPegasus web site. Based on documentation posted on the site, simply put, Pegasus is an open-source CIM Server for DMTF CIM objects. It is written in C++ and includes the Object manager (CIMOM), a set of defined interfaces, an implementation of the CIM Operations over HTTP operations and their cimxml HTTP encodings, and Interface libraries for both clients and providers.  It is maintained to be compliant with the DMTF CIM and WBEM specifications with exceptions noted in the documentation. It is designed to be portable and modular. It is coded in C++ and translates the object concepts of the CIM objects into a programming model. Pegasus is designed to be inherently portable and builds and runs today on most versions of UNIX(R), Linux, and Windows. OpenPegasus includes the following components:

•  
  • A DMTF compliant CIM Server that processes CIM operations, CIM Indications, and includes class and instance repositories and interfaces for creating CIM Providers and CIM Clients.
  • Provider interfaces so that providers may be build in multiple languages (i.e. C++, C, Java).
  • A number of CIM Providers.
  • A MOF compiler.
  • A number of CIM Clients to provide usage examples, CIM Server test functions, and administrative functions

OpenWBEM On SLES10:

OpenWBEM is included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and 10, allowing any WBEM enabled management console to access configuration information on the system.  A CIM schema and a MOF compiler are also included as packages in SLES9 and 10, which can be used to create and import the schema.

## Create the namespace called /root/cimv2

SLES10:/etc/openwbem # owcreatenamespace -n /root/cimv2

Creating namespace (/root/cimv2)

## Import the CIM schema.

SLES10:/etc/openwbem # owmofc /usr/share/mof/cimv2.12/cimv212.mof

[ ... Lots of Output ... ]

Compilation finished.  0 errors occurred.

Compiling and Importing the CIM Schema

## Start the OpenWBEM Daemon.

SLES10:~ # /etc/init.d/owcimomd start

Using common server certificate /etc/ssl/servercerts/servercert.pem

Starting the OpenWBEM CIMOM Daemon                    done

## Check the status of the OpenWBEM service.

SLES10:~ # /etc/init.d/owcimomd status

Checking for service OpenWBEM CIMOM Daemon            running

Starting the OpenWBEM Service on SLES10

II. NAGIOS: Nagios is a system monitoring application designed to monitor remote hosts and applications over a network.  The application provides a web-based graphical display that allows one to view the status of nodes and particular applications running on the nodes.  The following is an excerpt from the Nagios documentation listing some of Nagios’ feature set: Some of the many features of Nagios include:

•  
  • Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
  • Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
  • Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks
  • Parallelized service checks
  • Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
  • Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager, or user-defined method)
  • Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
  • Automatic log file rotation
  • Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
  • Optional web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc.

Nagios can poll servers and obtain data in a number of different ways.  The most straight-forward method is to connect to a remote system directly and test to see if the host is available or if a particular service is running.  Data internal to the host, such as free memory or processor usage, however, must be gathered using the Nagios agent, SNMP, another custom script or program or a Nagios plug-in called check_by_ssh - which is a standard plug-in designed to run a command on a remote machine and collect the output. The configuration of Nagios is done entirely via text-based configuration files.  Hosts and other resources are defined inblocks, which can also inherit information from other pre-defined blocks, making complex configurations possible and more manageable.  There are several third-party applications available that provide a web or other GUI interface to assist one with configuring Nagios, but these were not tested for this project. The following configuration block defines a generic host template called “linux-server”.  Many of the configuration values such as “24x7” and “workhours” are actually defined in other configuration blocks within the Nagios configuration.  This allows administrators to define custom names to a specific time period, such as “workhours”, and use that definition in other parts of the configuration.

define host {

   name                       linux-server

   use                        generic-host

   check_period               24x7

   max_check_attempts         10

   check_command              check-host-alive

   notification_period        workhours

   notification_interval      120

   notification_options       d,u,r

   contact_groups             admins

   register                   0

}

Nagios Host Definition Template

Individual hosts are defined in configuration blocks.  Below is a sample configuration for an individual host called management.  Notice the use statement is inheriting other definitions from the previously defined generic template mentioned above called “linux-server”.

define host  {

   use            linux-server ;Name of host template to use.

   host_name      management

   alias          Management Server

   address        10.197.173.100

}

Finally, hosts may be organized into logical groups for easier management.  The following is a hostgroup that defines a group that includes five hosts.

define hostgroup  {

   hostgroup_name test

   alias          Test Servers

   members        localhost,management,www,rhel4-production2,network

}

Nagios is distributed with a wide assortment of plug-ins that can be used to obtain data or check a particular service.  Plug-ins are distributed as a separate package which must be installed with both the server and the agent if an agent is to be used.  The Nagios plug-ins are simply stand-alone executable programs, each of which can perform a particular task and return a result code for each service or subsystem being tested. Since plug-ins are individual scripts or binary programs, they often will accept different arguments to change their behavior and what information they return.  The command usage of each plug-in must be defined individually within the configuration files using the define command syntax.  Some plug-ins can accept multiple options which can be customized when writing the configuration for a particular system.  The define command definition provides a sort of usage template so that Nagios will know how to run the command later.  Luckily for new users, the default sample configuration files already provide accurate definitions for the default plug-ins.  Once one is familiar with how commands are defined, however, new commands or custom scripts can also be defined here as well.

NRPE: is the Nagios Remote Plugin Executor that is installed on a remote host.  It is designed simply to execute Nagios plugins on behalf of the Nagios server and return the results.  The same plugins that are installed on the server must then be installed on the remote host for NRPE to utilize.  A new plug-in called check_nrpe is also distributed with the NRPE agent and is used to query the NRPE daemon from the Nagios server. NRPE utilizes a rudimentary access control system to assure that only particular Nagios hosts will be allowed to contact the NRPE client.  A configuration directive such as the following within NRPE’s configuration file will only allow communication with a particular host:

allows_hosts=10.197.173.100

It is possible to configure NRPE run nearly any command with any arguments, although one is warned against doing this in the documentation.  By default, NRPE will only run specific commands and their arguments as specified in its own configuration file (located on the host itself).  Meaning that the Nagios server can tell NRPE to execute only specific commands specified in the remote host’s /etc/nrpe.cfg file, but the server may not pass arbitrary commands or plug-in arguments for the agent to execute. Below is a sample NRPE configuration.  The specific commands (plug-ins) and arguments must be specified here.  The Nagios server can then request NRPE to execute one or more of these commands and return the results:

command[check_users]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_users –w 5 –c 10
command[check_load]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_load –w 15,10,5 –c 30,25,20
command[check_disk_root]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_disk –w 20 –c 10 –p /dev/sda1
command[check_zombie_procs]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_procs –w 5 –c 10 –s Z
command[check_total_procs]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_procs –w 150 –c 200

By default NRPE utilizes SSL communications between itself and the Nagios server.  The SSL parameters are generated at compile time and stored in the C header file called dh.h within the NRPE source tree.  This header file is then used to compile the NRPE daemon and the check_nrpe plugin.  This means that both the NRPE daemon and the check_nrpe plugin must be compiled using the same parameters (typically from the same source tree) if one wishes to utilize SSL communications.

III. Hyperic: Hyperic HQ is a Java-based monitoring application consisting of a central monitoring server and one or more remote agents to report node status information to the server.  Hyperic HQ is supported on a wide array of platforms, including Linux, Solaris, Windows, HP-UX, AIX, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. Hyperic distributes two versions of its software; 

1. An open source version licensed under the GNU GPL
2. and a commercial version called HQ Enterprise which includes additional components and functionality.

HQ Open Source and HQ Enterprise Feature Set Comparison
Note: As of HQ 3.0 thefeature-set distribution between the Open-Source and Enterprise versions has changed.  Please see https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=hyperic&lp=1 for more details.

Hyperic Installation and Configuration: Hyperic HQ aims to be quick to install and relatively easy to configure.  The installation is performed via the command-line, and will prompt the administrator for all the information (administrator password, database information, etc) it will need to successfully run.  Upgrading can also be done relatively easily by simply running the installer with the –upgrade option. Hyperic HQ provides a web interface to deliver monitoring alerts and status information to the end-user.  However, unlike other monitoring applications the web-interface is also used as the primary configuration interface for the application.  All node and agent details, metric options and alerts may be configured directly over the web interface. The monitoring agent is installed in a similar manner as the server.  Because all agent configuration is done via the web interface on the server, the only information the agent installation script needs is login information for the server, the preferred path on the node to which it should install the agent files and various other pieces of information such as the port numbers on which the server and agent will be running.  Once the agent successfully registers itself with the server, the administrator can then log in to the web interface and import the new system into its list of monitored hosts. The Hyperic HQ server utilizes the open-source PostgreSQL database application to store configuration and monitoring data.  PostgreSQL comes prepackaged with the Hyperic HQ software, and can be installed and configured automatically by the installation system.  One may also choose to use an existing PostgreSQL or Oracle database server if one exists.  The installation system would then prompt the administrator for information about the database so that Hyperic HQ may log in and store its data.  By default, Hyperic HQ stores its authentication information within this database as well, but may also be configured to utilize and external LDAP server if one is available.

Auto-Discovery: A unique feature of the Hyperic HQ monitoring solution is its ability to automatically locate and monitor services and daemons running on the remote node.  Once the agent is installed on the remote node it can then scan for a variety of known services and add it to the hosts inventory.  Once added to the inventory, metrics and alerts can be configured to monitor that particular service. Hyperic HQ supports two scanning options, auto-scan and file-scan.  Agents run an auto-scan periodically by default which scans the process list for known server types.  A more comprehensive scan called a file-scan can actually search through the file system on the remote node and locate known applications.  Because it requires more time to run and is more resource intensive, this type of scan must be scheduled and configured manually by the administrator.

Alerts and Notifications: Hyperic HQ supports the configuration of alerts based on any metric for any particular resource (such as the host itself) or service running on the host.  For example, an alert can be triggered when the Availability metric for a host falls changes at all, or falls below a predefined value.  When an alert is triggered an email can be sent to a predefined email address.  Depending on the priority of the alert, a message will also be posted to the Dashboard, the Hyperic HQ administration front page. The HQ Open Source version lacks many of the more advanced notification options that are available in the Enterprise version.  HQ Enterprise also supports the concept of Recovery Alerts, which are alerts that can be configured to cancel and reset triggered alerts.  When an alert is triggered in the Open Source version, the alert will continue to be triggered until the problem is fixed or the alert is disabled.  Recovery Alerts allow an administrator to automate the process of disabling an active alert, and then re-enabling the alert when the problem is corrected.  HQ Enterprise also supports the option of sending SNMP traps as a notification option.

Hyperic HQ Plugins: Hyperic HQ plugins are distributed as .jar or .xml files that are deployed on the server and the agent.  Plugins can be developed to enhance the collection of metrics from certain applications or services, locate and inventory new services and control actions to control specific resources. The Hyperic website provides comprehensive documentation on plugin development.  Developing and adding a new plugin tends to be a more complex process compared to Nagios or other monitoring applications.  The framework provided by Hyperic HQ, however, provides advanced APIs from which the plugins can query information on multiple platforms.  On Windows, for example, Hyperic HQ includes classes which a plugin may use to access Windows specific data and functions.  These functions can provide access to performance information, registry data, event log information and the Service Control Manager (SCM). Hyperic HQ also provides support for simple script-based plugins to gather particular metrics.  Even individual scripts or Nagios plugins may be imported and configured for use by the Hyperic HQ server and agents.

SIGAR – System Information Gatherer And Reporter: SIGAR is the primary data collection component of the Hyperic HQ agent.  The software is designed to collect system and process information from a number of platforms - including Linux, Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD and Mac OSX.  SIGAR is written in C, but Hyperic provides C, C#, Java and Perl APIs which one may use to to integrate SIGAR into their applications.  The SIGAR component is licensed under the GNU GPL, and is distributed separately from the Hyperic monitoring agent for potential use in third-party applications. The Sigar API provides a portable interface for gathering system information such as:

•  
  • System memory, swap, cpu, load average, uptime, logins
  • Per-process memory, cpu, credential info, state, arguments, environment, open files
  • File system detection and metrics
  • Network interface detection, configuration info and metrics
  • Network route and connection tables

user@linux:~/hyperic-sigar-1.3.0.0> java -jar sigar-bin/lib/sigar.jar

Loaded rc file: /home/user/hyperic-sigar-1.3.0.0/sigar-bin/lib/.sigar_shellrc

sigar> help

Available commands:

        alias          - Create alias command

        cpuinfo        - Display cpu information

        df             - Report filesystem disk space usage

        du             - Display usage for a directory recursively

        free           - Display information about free and used memory

        get            - Get system properties

        help           - Gives help on shell commands

        ifconfig       - Network interface information

        iostat         - Report filesystem disk i/o

        kill           - Send signal to a process

        mps            - Show multi process status

        netinfo        - Display network info

        netstat        - Display network connections

        pargs          - Show process command line arguments

        penv           - Show process environment

        pfile          - Display process file info

        pinfo          - Display all process info

        pmodules       - Display process module info

        ps             - Show process status

        ptql           - Run process table query

        quit           - Terminate the shell

        route          - Kernel IP routing table

        set            - Set system properties

        sleep          - Delay execution for the a number of seconds

        source         - Read a file, executing the contents

        sysinfo        - Display system information

        test           - Run sigar tests

        time           - Time command

        ulimit         - Display system resource limits

        uptime         - Display how long the system has been running

        version        - Display sigar and system version info

        who            - Show who is logged on

sigar>

Example SIGAR usage from the command-line.

And that does it for the “Monitoring” section. There are so many other tools we got a chance to play with like Monit, Argus, OProfile etc. but am running out of space …… As always, please let us know if you found the above mentioned useful and any comments/feedback you may have. Thank you for tuning into Port25.

by Sam Ramji on June 15, 2007 04:38pm

I had the opportunity to sit down with Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic last month in San Francisco at the OSBC.  We had a great discussion, which I opened bluntly by saying, “You don’t need to tell me about your software; I’ve seen it, my lab team thinks it’s cool, and we’re impressed.”  He was happy to hear it but probably not surprised.

One of the obvious pros of the open source model (like the freeware model of the 90’s) is that you can get what you want without calling anyone or firing off a “please contact me” request to the company’s sales department.  Another equally obvious pro is that prospective customers can really walk through the product’s architecture and actual implementation to make sure that the marketing promises (“marketechture”) actually line up with the product being described.

Kishi Malhotra and Stephen Zarkos – the OSSL’s experts on manageability – did a comprehensive teardown of Hyperic and a range of other open source management technologies (such as Nagios and OpenPegasus), which they’ll be posting in the next few days.  What they found about Hyperic is that it does a great job of making a low-footprint, easily adaptable management technology and is commercializing it in an open source model.  We thought that SIGAR, their agent API, was particularly clever.

Javier and Doug MacEachern (their CTO, and a maintainer for mod_perl among other achievements) spent some time on a podcast with me last week – if you’re interested in hearing their reasons for building Hyperic, how it compares to Nagios, and what they learned in taking their product open source, listen in.  They’ll be available to answer questions on this post as well – leave a comment if you’re curious about something they’re doing.

Also, drop us a note and let us know if you interested in more interviews with open source and interoperability technology leaders on Port 25.

by Paula Bach on June 12, 2007 07:46pm

Bryan has previously blogged about the project partnership between the Penn State University (PSU) College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) and the Open Source Software Lab (OSSL). I am at the OSSL here at Microsoft this summer and next as a research intern. The project, which started in May 2007 and will last two years, is my dissertation research. I work with Jack Carroll in the Center for HCI at Penn State. I am a third year PhD candidate and I study HCI in open source software development.

In this blog I want to talk about interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity. Broadly speaking, the information society is like the Wild West and many challenges as well as opportunities, especially with information technologies, have arisen. So for example, the Internet is like the Wild West of the information society. Challenges and opportunities in a new frontier are exciting for business and academia at once. Understanding the challenges and opportunities, however, needs new ways of investigating. A single discipline can address some of the challenges and opportunities, but complex problems, especially ones involving the intersection of information, people, and technology can benefit from expertise from multiple approaches. This is where a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach can be helpful. Rogers et al (http://rizzo.media.unisi.it/page2/assets/Rogers_Scaife_Rizzo.pdf) make the distinction between interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary:

Interdisciplinary usually means “the emergence of insight and understanding of a problem domain through the integration or derivation of different concepts, methods, and epistemologies from different disciplines in a novel way.” Multidisciplinary can be characterized as “a group of researchers from different disciplines cooperate by working together on the same problem towards a common goal, but continue to do so using theories, tools, and methods from their own discipline, and occasionally using the output from each other’s work.” The characterizations differ in whether elements of a discipline are coupled or decoupled.

Although both terms have been used interchangeably, the subtle differences in problem solving depend both on the kind of problem a team of collaborators is solving and on the investigatory skills of the team members. The OSSL takes both approaches to both the challenges and opportunities inherent in understanding the open source and where Microsoft fits in. This broad approach is inherent when comparing Microsoft’s past and current missions: A computer on every desktop and in every home running Microsoft software compared to To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. The missions shifted from technology-centric to people and organization-centric. This new approach includes a global perspective on key aspects of the information society: people, information, and technology. This new approach is also exemplified by a new type of academic unit called information schools, or iSchools. The joint project, looking at HCI in open source software development, is interesting from a number of perspectives in the space of information, technology, and people. My approach is interdisciplinary, taking a number of concepts and methodologies and combining them in using different epistemological perspectives. Please contact me if you would like details on the interdisciplinary nature of the study of HCI expertise in open source software development—it would be too long to expound on here.

Bryan and I recently went to the iSchool at University of Washington to talk to graduate students and faculty about the project. The research conversation, as it is called, was well attended especially for a sunny Friday afternoon at the end of the spring semester. (The iSchool dean even showed up!) We talked about the challenges of studying the open source community and about doing interdisciplinary research in an iSchool.

The most interesting aspect of my experience so far as part of this joint partnership is that I am doing interdisciplinary academic work in a business unit studying open source software development at Microsoft – all of which are normally ”separate worlds” (academic/business and Microsoft/open source software). My summer here will entail collecting data and analyzing results of HCI expertise in open source software development as well as looking at HCI expertise in software development internally at Microsoft as a basis for comparison. In this summer series, look for my blog entries as I ponder results from the studies.

by Sam Ramji on June 08, 2007 05:34pm

Most of Port 25’s readers are aware of my commitment to interoperability between Microsoft and Linux, as exemplified in the OSSL’s work on IPsec and now the three-sided virtualization, identity, and systems management work with Novell.

I’m proud to announce a leader at Microsoft who has the sole purpose of bringing Windows and Linux technologies together: Tom Hanrahan.

Tom will join as the Director of Linux Interoperability, and will head our Linux/Windows interoperability work, including leadership of the Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Lab.  This development lab will undertake much of the engineering work involved in the multi-year technical partnership.  Among other things, Tom has much to teach us on “developing in the open” – how to work in a transparent way with a broad engineering community.
Tom brings 30 years of engineering, management and community development experience to this effort – and the larger Microsoft community. Prior to joining Microsoft, Tom was the Director of Engineering at the Linux Foundation where he was responsible for managing a variety of technical initiatives.  Earlier in his career, Tom led IBM’s Linux Technology Center in Portland, and spent 11 years at Sequent Computer Systems in the early days of SMP (symmetric multiprocessing).

It is excellent to have Tom on board, and he is already making an impact.  His outstanding history of Linux engineering will greatly contribute to our focus on interoperability. You can also expect to see some of Tom’s work (and thoughts) show up on Port 25.

Please join me in welcoming Tom Hanrahan.

by billhilf on June 07, 2007 04:24pm

We recently announced the addition of IIS7 to the Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 (formerly known as Longhorn Server).  Server Core is an important evolution of our server product and will include a variety of roles, such as print server, media services, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and now IIS7 for Web serving.  All of these will be able to run in a lightweight, low footprint modes – a server core installation requires about 1GB of physical disk space to install and approximately 2 GB for operations post-install.  This means it’s Windows Server but with just the bits you need to run a specific type of server role – which means less disk, less memory, lower attack surface, less stuff to manage, patch, etc.  There are also a variety of optional features you can add to server core, such as the subsystem for Unix applications, Bitlocker drive encryption, failover cluster, and others.  Of course, Windows Server 2008 can still run as a full featured general purpose server operating system as well. Sam and Hank did an interview with Iain McDonald about Server Core last September, you can see that interview here. 

I’ve built and run many Web server farms over that past years and having the ability to roll out small footprint, role-based server configurations is something I found to be an important architectural advantage.  In the past, I used Apache on Linux/BSDs to build customized servers.  Certainly you can still do this today.  What I think is exciting about this announcement of IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 Server Core is that it shows the full spectrum of the Windows Server 2008 capabilities, from very modular, low footprint Web serving to the all-singing all-dancing full featured server.

Additionally, as you may have read here before, we’ve been working hard with the Zend on making PHP run great on Windows Server.  With the new FastCGI support (which is now integrated with IIS7 in beta 3), PHP runs extremely well on Server Core.  So if you need a tier of streamlined front-end PHP Web servers that require minimal system resources and just the needed bits for doing the job?  Now you will be able do this with Windows Server 2008.  And those systems can be managed, secured, updated, authenticated, etc. just like any other Windows server machine. 

I think this all brings more choice to developers and system administrators.  And you can expect this will be something we continue to evolve, adding more customization scenarios and support of other technologies, including .NET.  Check out Bill Staple’s blog on this as well – his team is doing all the IIS work.  You test drive Windows Server 2008 here or download the latest beta here.  The FastCGI Technology Preview can be found here.

Unrelated and Personal (non-work related) tidbit: 

Talking about server core and IIS7 reminded me of this quote: “The future you have tomorrow won’t be the same future you had yesterday” from Chuck Palahniuk’s latest book Rant.  I think it’s his best so far -I just finished this on my last trip.  If you like Chuck, watch this lecture – the ‘little software story’ advice at the end is priceless and motivational for aspiring writers.

by Bryan Kirschner on June 04, 2007 03:28pm

OSBC made me think. There were some simple highlights (like introducing myself and being recognzied as “a Port 25 blogger”…my 1.5 minutes of fame).  And certainly a lowlight was the concern many people expressed around whether Microsoft’s open source strategy has changed (no, it hasn’t, another reason why going to OSBC and having those conversations is important).

But what really started me thinking was the experience of being at the Microsoft Open Source ISV Forum held the day before.  Simply and accurately described as an event specifically tailored to open source companies on “How to be profitable on the Microsoft platform,” it was attended by—I don’t have the exact count handy—folks from give or take 50 companies.  They represented an incredibly diverse set of approaches to building a business (and cultivating a community) around open source.  Fast forward later during OSBC to a long presentation Eben Moglen gave called “Copyleft Business Models: Why it’s Good Not to Be Your Competitor’s Free Lunch.” 

These two things drew a broad connection:   many different parties, each, in their own ways, “trying to balance being a good community citizen with getting paid” (appropriately enough, a quote from OSBC’s founder Matt Asay)—whether your pay is a financial transaction or non-financial contribution.

The companies who came to the Forum literally did get a free lunch—but there’s a more important point.  Microsoft’s business strategy, overall, not specific to open source, is to be generative:  with 750,000 partners (including ISVs, OEMs, systems integrators and consultants and so on), 96% of Microsoft’s revenue is indirect (meaning somebody among those 750,000 partners gets paid before Microsoft does). 

Harvard’s Jonathan Zittrain described the concept I am borrowing-- Zittrain describes “generative” this way (emphasis added):

The much-touted differences between free and proprietary PC Oss may not capture what is most important to the Internet’s future. Proprietary systems can remain “open,” as many do, by permitting unaffiliated third parties to write superseding programs and permitting PC owners to install these programs without requiring any gatekeeping by the OS provider. In this sense, debates about the future of our PC experience should focus less on such common battles as Linux versus Microsoft Windows, as both are “open” under this definition, and more on generative versus nongenerative: understanding which platforms will remain open to third-party innovation and which will not.

Sometimes this means what you can see (free as in open code - simple example WIX), sometimes what you can do (free as in beer SDKs).  But this commitment (or, you could even say, dependency on) generativity means there is a risk of serving a competitor more than a literal free lunch: partner programs like the one offered at the Forum are set up so any ISV who meets the requirements can get business and technical assistance from Microsoft.  Whether or not your business is built around software that competes with Microsoft products isn’t a criterion: from Oracle to SugarCRM ISVs that partner with Microsoft to build applications on Windows also compete with other Microsoft products.   Nor is what type of development, business model, or licensing approach you have chosen.  You really can’t have the benefits of being “generative” without accepting these conditions. Conversely, you obviously can be generative while competing to some degree with those same partners, whether with SQL Server or Dynamics.

This is really a point I wish I could go back to every person from an open-source based company I talked to about “Microsoft’s open source strategy” and re-reemphasize.  From an ISV or partner you’re an “equal citizen” as a potential partner.  That commitment (or dependency on) generativity is one that predates the popularity of open source in the broad market and remains a core component of Microsoft’s business success.

That’s “business as usual” as well.

(I would be remiss if I did not mention the Forum without thanking our speakers:  Stephen O’Grady from Redmonk; Andrew Aitken from  Olliance;  John Roberts from  Sugar CRM; and Marc Lind from  Aras.  In addition, the awesome VC Panel members were informative & thought provoking : Larry Augustin, Peter Sonsini, Philippe Cases, Nicolas Kardas, Kim Polese. Thanks all for a great day.)