Re: [hobbit] Feasibility of Windows Client

["Etienne Grignon" <etienne.grignon (at) gmail.com>]

Hi Steve,

Of course, that was one of the principal objective. Be able to keep the
scripts already developped as externals for quest bbnt.

You will just need to change the registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Quest Software\BigBrother\bbnt\ExternalPath to
point to the bbwin temporary path and add the script path to the bbwin
externals agents configuration which is in charge to execute the external,
get the results from temporary folder and send it to the hobbit server. You
will be able to develop easily native bbwin agents dll. As I said, cpu, disk
and memory are written as native agents as the externals agent. It will be
very powerful. People will be able to improve agents or create new one as
they were already doing with externals. So, if you launch bbwin with no
loading agent directive, it will do nothing :)

So for bbwin, this is the recipe :
- agents : native agent dll loaded and launched in a separate bbwin thread
- externals : scripts or executables launched in their own process. (need
the externals.dll agent loaded)

Here is the sample bbwin configuration file :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<bbwin>
    <setting name="hostname" value="myhost" />
    <setting name="bbdisplay" value="myhobbitserver.local:1984" />
    <setting name="timer" value="300" />
    <load name="externals" value="externals.dll" />
    <load name="uptime" value="uptime.dll" />
    <load name="cpu" value="cpu.dll" />
    <setting name="debuglevel" value="0" />
    <setting name="logpath" value="C:\BBWin.log"/>
</bbwin>
<externals>
    <setting name="timer" value="300" />
    <setting name="logstimer" value="60" />
    <load name="timer" timer="300" value="timer.vbs" />
    <load name="wlbs" value="wlbs.vbs" />
</externals>
<cpu>
    <setting name="alwaysgreen" value="false" />
    <setting name="warnlevel" value="90" />
    <setting name="paniclevel" value="95" />
    <setting name="delay" value="5" />
</cpu>
<uptime>
</uptime>
</configuration>


Tell me what do you think about it.

--
Etienne


2006/3/1, Aiello, Steve (GE, Corporate, consultant) <steve.aiello (at) ge.com>:
>
> With your BBWin, will there be the abbility to run customs external
> scripts ?  Alot of my existing scripts are written in VBS.
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> *From:* Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon (at) gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, March 01, 2006 9:24 AM
> *To:* hobbit (at) hswn.dk
> *Subject:* Re: [hobbit] Feasibility of Windows Client
>
> Hi Steve, Hi Peter,
>
>
> Well, with BBWin, you will be able to compile it without cygwin because I
> use all win32 possibilities :) And the source code of BBWin is under GPL, so
> no more problem :)
>
> About the hobbit protocol, the agent will be able to use data messages so,
> I some agents will be able to send status message used for the web page, and
> data message in an easier format to be able to parse it on hobbit server
> side. For the moment, I'm trying to get the same format than the original
> quest bbnt client to be able to use the existing rrd parsing scripts. Of
> course, in the future, we can imagine to report status and data in a similar
> format than the today hobbit unix client.
>
>
> About WMI, I will only use if I can't do it using native C++ api. For
> example, I have made a nice external vbs using WMI to monitor my windows
> wlbs (NLB) clusters because no C api was available. However, for the MSCS
> clusters, even if it's possible to make it with WMI, I had prefered make the
> external with the native C api. So, note that you will be soon be able to
> monitor easily the two sorts of Microsoft clusters :) These 2 probes will be
> integrated in the preview release. (If I have enough time, MSCS external
> will be released as a native bbwin agent :) )
>
> After posting the preview release, I think I will be able to implement a
> new probe each 2 weeks, so I will try to work as Henrik :
>
> 1) first post the idea with my implementation idea
> 2) recolt all your ideas and remarks
> 3) merge the all and implement it
>
>
> If anyone has ideas about the project, don't hesitate to post or to send
> me directly an email :)
>
>
> Peter : I did't get the attached file you posted, it doesn't seem to be
> present
>
> --
> Etienne
>
>


--
Etienne GRIGNON