[Xymon] TS - Problem ignoring 'mem' from Quest Windows Client 4.00

[Henrik Størner]

> I am running Xymon 4.3.0-0.beta2 on a Dell R-610 running CentOS 5.x. I
> have a pair of them.
>
> We have multiple virtual Exchange servers on Win2003 server.
>
> All are reporting ‘mem’ problems up to 104%.
>
> We currently use the Quest BB 4.00 Windows client as I converted the
> main server from BB to Xymon over 2 years ago.

Haven't used a Quest/BB client in years, and certainly not this one, so 
I am guessing - albeit a rather qualified guess.

> Currently we want to stop the client from monitoring the ‘mem’.[...]
> Quest says to add this parameter to the bb-host file of ‘nomem’ – this
> does not seem to do anything.

My guess is that this - on a Big Brother server - would work somewhat 
like "noping" does, i.e. it causes the server to ignore a red status and 
instead it shows a "clear" status.

Xymon doesn't have an exact equivalent. There is a "NOCOLUMNS" setting, 
but it will currently not work for clients that generate the status 
message themselves, only for Xymon clients where data is analyzed on the 
Xymon server.

> Disabling the test, is not the answer as it bounces up and down all day
> long.

Why can't you just disable it for 5 years ? A time-based disable is not 
affected by the status bouncing red/green, it stays in effect until the 
time expires.

> I also tried to add an entry for each host in the
> /home/xymon/client/etc/localclient.cfg
> and to hobbitclient.cfg at the bottom of the file:

These files only have effect on systems running a Xymon client; it 
requires the client to send "raw" data into the Xymon server, which the 
xymond_client running on the Xymon server will then analyze and change 
into status messages.


It seems to me that you are not getting the support you pay for. A 
client reporting "104 % memory used" is obviously broken - a system 
cannot use more memory than it has. So trying to "fix" it by removing 
the memory-column from your display and/or disabling alerts is a 
non-solution; it hides the underlying problem instead of solving it. I 
mean - if they get the memory-utilisation wrong, how do you know the 
other data is correct ? Can you trust the other data it is reporting ? 
Can you trust the memory-numbers it reports from your other systems ?


I haven't written the code for it, but I guess it would be fairly easy 
to implement something similar to "nomem", if all this does is to ignore 
the memory status coming from a host. An extension of the current 
"NOCOLUMNS" setting, so it works on all statuses - whether generated by 
a Xymon client or sent directly to the Xymon server. But I honestly 
don't think that is the correct solution.

Any chance of putting a BBWin client on those systems ? You could set it 
up for "central" mode and manage the configuration on the Xymon server, 
as you do with the Xymon unix clients - so your Windows admins wouldn't 
have to learn how to edit the BBWin XML config file.


Regards,
Henrik