HTML overview to System and Network Information Center
by Bernd Pissny ( hotsanic@bernisys.prima.de / http://www.bernisys.prima.de )
HotSaNIC documentation
|
CONTENTS
DESCRIPTION HotSaNIC (the acronym stands for "html overview to system and network information center") consists of a set of perl-scripts built on Tobias Oetiker's "rrdtool" to generate graphical system-statistics, currently supported platforms are linux (main development) and *BSD. I started to build this tool in december 2000, because none of the existing stats-tools gave me the flexibility and resolution i expected. Most tools had a minimum query-time of one minute, while i use a 10sec. timebase, which shows a lot more dynamics in the graphs. The whole project is built in a modular way to make it quite easy to expand, unused modules may be switched off easily. Another advantage over most existing tools are the very complex graphs which show a lot more details. Most graphs are underlayed with an area that covers the min/max range of samples taken at each time. Quite all important system-stats are supported, more modules are to come on users' requests and ideas. The smallest time span that will be displayed covers the last hour, the longest span diagram covers the last year though all data will be kept for about two years (to have the chance to look further back in time and compare). Additionally there are some tools for debugging and to generate alarm-reports (for example if a given threshold is exceeded) which may be mailed to the system's admins. REQUIREMENTS Tobias Oetiker's "rrdtool" is needed to run this set of scripts. It is used to manage the databases and generate the graphics. Make sure that the "rrdtool" perl-libraries are installed on your system! At this point i would like to congratulate Tobi, he did a very good job writing this magnificent tool! Since I mainly use Perl5 to sample the data and update the databases, of course this has to be installed on your system, too. But this should not be an issue since most systems already come with full Perl5 support. "convert" from the "ImageMagick" package has to be installed to get full functionality. Some modules require further tools or kernel features to be present. Please refer to the module documentations for more information. CONFIGURATION All you should need to do for configuring is running setup.pl to generate the start/stop script (called rrdgraph) and the main "settings" file. The setup-script also calls each module's setup script to generate all module-specific settings within the module's subdirectory. After that you should check if the "settings" file in the main directory contains the correct configuration to fit your system. After that you should check the ""settings" files in each configured module's directory and edit it to fit your system. There are plenty of comments into the "settings" files, so they should be quite self-explaining. STARTING AND STOPPING THE DAEMON Since there are some datasources only the "root" user has access to, best would be to run it as "root". This is simply dome by getting yourself root-permissions and typing: ./rrdgraph start rrdgraph will then begin to initialize itself and to sample data vor each configured module every 10 seconds. To stop the daemon enter ./rrdgraph stop GENERATING WEB-STATISTICS The images on the statistics pages will be built automatically by HotSaNIC every 15 minutes. If you like to build the graphs more ore less often, you are welcome to decrease or increas the time-base as you like by editing the main settings file. But be careful with too low timespans, because it will use more CPU time (which may be needed for more important tasks ... ). Usually you should not have to worry about anything except the output-directory, which has to be configured correctly (you will have to enter the full path!) in the main settings file. If not yet done, run makeindex.pl to generate all html files. The script will gather every module and build the necessary index-files for your webpage. In case you install a new module, just let HotSaNIC run a couple of minutes to inititalize the plugin's databases. Then you just call makeindex.pl again and it will rebuild all html files. New plugins can be installed quite "on the fly". Just copy it to the "modules" directory and add it to the RUN and SHOW entries in the main settings. "rrdtimer" will call "convert.sh" about every 24h (timebase may be configured in main settings file). This script will generate pictograms on the main index page of your webstats from the actual weekly graphs. This will require "convert" from "ImageMagick" to be installed. TROUBLESHOOTING In case you encounter any trouble with HotSaNIC, you should check the logfiles for possible errors. Each "settings" file may contain an item "DEBUGLEVEL=<level>" which changes the logging behaviour. Increasing the value will usually increase verbosity, a value less than zero turns off all special information.
UPGRADING Generally the upgrade process involves the following actions:
Usually updates run quite smoothly without any further changes. You should do as described above: Stop the daemon first to make sure that no data will be fed into the databases which may lead to some annoying side-effects. Then copy the new files to the corrosponding directories. If some major changes occur, there will be an update script in the affected module which you will have to call. The script will take care the necessary and sometimes really nasty modifications for you. Anyway, if you copy a newer version over a previous one, it's always a good idea to call the main setup script once again. Maybe some new important configuration items have been added since you last upgraded or installed the tool! Oh, and don't forget to re-start the daemon afterwards ;). TOOLS The "tools" directory contains some useful scripts and add-ons for HotSaNIC. A brief description resides in this directory, some further descriptions may appear in this documentation later. CONTACT If you encounter further problems or have any questions or new ideas, please contact us via email to: "hotsanic at bernisys dot prima dot de" and we will try to take care of everything. Please put the keyword "hotsanic" and a brief description of your request into the subject! You may also use the project's tracker system on sourceforge.net to report errors, post bugfixes or to request feature enhancements and extensions. CREDITS At this point i'd like to thank and honor some people who support(ed) me and my project:
FUTURE PLANS Converting the whole shell-script crap to PERL. TODO: makerrd scripts |