Random hobbit newbie questions

[Linder, Doug (SABIC Innovative Plastics, consultant)]

Hi Everyone, I'm relatively new to Hobbit.  I like it a lot, but I do
have a few random questions.  I've been reading the documentation a lot
and haven't found the answers, so I hope the answers don't turn out to
be "see the man page". :)
 
I have to say I really like the documentation to Hobbit.  At first
glance it seems a bit short, but on reading it I find that it manages to
be packed with information which is written in a nice concise,
efficient, jargon-free, and human-readable way.  The comments in the
config files are also excellent, although sometimes the information in
there is slightly different from what's in the documentation page for
that file - sometimes there's info in one place that isn't in the other.
I wish more documentation in the IT field were written like this.  My
only suggestion is that it would be helpful for us new folks to have
some kind of general overview that describes (or better yet, shows in a
flowchart) how data flows between client, server, the various tests, the
web server, how the various config files fit in, and so on.  The
information is currently in there but it takes a good bit of reading and
experimenting before you really start to "get it".
 
Questions:
 
1) In the hobbit-clients.cfg file, I this is in the comments:
 
 
#             Defaults: MEMPHYS warnlevel=100 paniclevel=101 (i.e. it
will never go red)
#                       MEMSWAP warnlevel=50 paniclevel=80
#                       MEMACT  warnlevel=90 paniclevel=97
#  Note: The words "PHYS", "ACT" and "SWAP" are also recognized.

And then later on, there is this bit:
 
# These are the built-in defaults.
# SWAP    20 40
# MEMSWAP 50 80
 
Is there a difference between MEMSWAP and SWAP?  If not, why is it
listed twice in the defaults?  If so, what is the difference?
 
 
2) In the documentation page for hobbit-clients.cfg, there is this
statement:
 
"CLASS=classname  - Rule match by the client class-name. You specify the
class-name for a host when starting the client through the
"--class=NAME" option to the runclient.sh script. If no class is
specified, the host by default goes into a class named by the operating
system."
 
Unfortunately I can't find any details about what the default names of
the "classes named by the operating system" are, so I don't know which
strings to put after "CLASS=" in my hobbit-clients.cfg file.  Is there a
list somewhere?
 
 
3) There are a couple columns in the default configuration that I don't
want, like "files".  On the page in question, the status icon for every
system is "clear" (white).  I want to use the "drop" option to the bb
command to do this.  I issued this command for every host on the page in
question:
 
bb localhost "drop <hostname> files"
 
That works for a minute or two.  On the next page refresh, almost all of
the hosts have the column empty (just a dash), but a few of them are
back to "clear" already.  After one or two refreshes, all the systems
are back at clear status.  How can I get hobbit to drop the column
forever, permanently, completely, without leaving old history files
around and stuff?
 
Thanks for any tips!
 
 
---
Doug Linder
UNIX Systems Administrator
CompuCom Systems, Inc.
 
SABIC Innovative Plastics
T: 413 448 7563
D: *838 7563
E: doug.linder at sabic-ip.com
<mailto:doug.linderrdoug.linder at sabic-ip.com> 
 
 
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