RE: [hobbit] Feasibility of Windows Client

["Aiello, Steve \(GE, Corporate, consultant\)" <steve.aiello (at) ge.com>]

That looks great to me, now you have me all excited ;) Awesome that you
have put such effort into this, and I know everyone appreciates it.  If
there is anything I can do to assist, happy to help.

	-----Original Message-----
	From: Etienne Grignon [mailto:etienne.grignon (at) gmail.com] 
	Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:23 AM
	To: hobbit (at) hswn.dk
	Subject: Re: [hobbit] Feasibility of Windows Client
	
	

	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