[hobbit] Questions about centralised configuration of hobbit clients

[Henrik Stoerner]

In <AACF146A905C56469D90CCF0C68460780C1D7119BB at TNS-FBU-2E-016.corp.telenor.no> <oyvind.bjorge at telenor.com> writes:

>We are considering migrating from BigBrother to Hobbit. We have been very s=
>atisfied with BB, but after reading about hobbit, it seems like a big impro=
>vement.
>Also it looks like BB is a dead end, so I hope for Hobbit to be the future,=
> still being developed.
>I have some questions relating too the centralised configuration of the cli=
>ents.
>How is this performed? I have read about how it is configured, but was wond=
>ering about how this is transferred to the client. Is it the same port that=
> is used? Is this checked every time the test is running?

The configuration isn't transferred to the client. Instead, the client sends
raw output from various commands to the Hobbit server, which then performs the
analysis of the output and generates the relevant status messages.

The only exception is the configuration of what logfiles to monitor; this is
passed from the Hobbit server to the clients as part of the communication when
the client contacts the Hobbit server to report data.


>Is it possible to use this mechanism in ext-scripts, by adding more paramet=
>ers to the centralised config-file? If so, how is this addressed from the e=
>xt-scripts?

Sort of ... The relevant section of the client-local.cfg file is sent to 
the client every time there is a connection between the client and the
Hobbit server, and you *can* add custom configuration entries there.
The ext-script would have to grep these lines from the file 
$BBTMP/logfetch.HOSTNAME.tmp


>I also have read something about possibility of upgrading clients from remo=
>te.
>How is this performed? If this is pushed from the server, I guess it is nee=
>ded with some opening from the server towards the client (not only from the=
> client to the server as for BB). Or is the client checking for new updates=
> on a regular basis?
>Is this mechanism used also for distributing ext-scripts to clients?

The client checks for an update when contacting the Hobbit server. If an
update exists, it is downloaded directly from the Hobbit server over port
1984 - the download must be a tar file, which is then extracted to the
Hobbit client directory. So you can embed your custom scripts into the
tar-file, and they will be installed along with the client update.


>In my BB installation today I have created my own system for distributing c=
>onfig-files and ext-scripts to client, for having a centralised handling of=
> this. This is both the standard bb-config files and one separate file for =
>my ext-scripts, and I created a website for editing these files so it would=
> be easier for other users to edit this config and distributing the files.
>If hobbit have built-in (or add-on) functionality for this, so that my solu=
>tion for this would become obsolete, it would be great.

You can either distribute these as part of a client software upgrade, or you
can have a script pull the config file explicitly by running the command
   $BB $BBDISP "config custom.cfg" >$BBHOME/etc/custom.cfg
The transfer then happens over the standard Hobbit/BB port (tcp 1984).



> By the way, are there any good forums for discussing Hobbit? I have found a=
>  couple forums, but there has been very low activity on them (only a handfu=
>  l of questions, and now replies).

Well, this forum is what you want. It's listed in the docs and on the 
Sourceforge website, so it shouldn't be *that* hard to find :-)


Regards,
Henrik