[Xymon] Demotool

[Japheth Cleaver]

David,

When the client is running in "local config" mode, that's correct. In 
that case, the question as to, e.g., What constitutes a critical alert 
for disk space, is made through a file on that individual machine. 
Essentially, the clientlog on the client only gets seen locally, and the 
only thing that's sent to up to the Xymon server are the *results* of 
that evaluation -- that is, the red/yellow/green status messages. The 
"clientlog" doesn't ever leave that machine, so it's not present on your 
Xymon server

(If you're familiar with Big Brother's original design, that's normally 
how things worked.)

By default, however, Xymon operates in "server config" mode, where no 
evaluation is done locally -- the client simply transmits the entire 
clientlog up to the server and then exits. There are benefits and 
drawbacks to both modes (less bandwidth + local control vs more forensic 
data + central control), but if you want to add arbitrary new [sections] 
to the clientlog and have them sent upwards (and potentially saved or 
processed further), you'll want to run things in "server mode."


HTH,
-jc


PS. BTW, it's not an all-or-nothing decision. You can have some servers 
sending clientlogs up, while others handle things on their own, as 
needed. It's up to you.


On 11/16/2015 12:55 PM, David Welker wrote:
> jc,
>
> I was with you right up until you said "the raw data isn't transmitted 
> up."  Does this mean that even if I were to populate the clientlog on 
> the client (say, via the script you referred to), that data would not 
> be transmitted back to the server?
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Japheth Cleaver 
> <cleaver at terabithia.org <mailto:cleaver at terabithia.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 11/16/2015 10:29 AM, David Welker wrote:
>>     I am interested in using this to create a testbed.  From what I
>>     can tell, it only sends a message that contains the [date],
>>     [uptime], and [free] sections of the clientlog to the server, so
>>     how are the rest of the columns created, by the xymond daemon?
>>
>>     Is there any simple way to add ones own columns to this structure
>>     and have them show up on the server?
>>
>>     Thanks,
>>     David
>>
>
>     Hi David,
>
>     In a normal, server-configured, installation, most of the columns
>     representing client-pushed data like that are generated by the
>     xymond_client daemon running on the server. It receives the
>     clientlog and generates status messages which show up as columns.
>
>     You can add sections in, but something needs to be "listening" to
>     know how to interpret that data, decide what color the resulting
>     column is, and send the status message in to xymon.
>
>     In client-configured ("local config") mode, the same thing is
>     basically happening, except that xymond_client is running on the
>     client machines themselves, and the raw data isn't transmitted up.
>
>     To add raw data to the clientlog, you can edit the
>     xymonclient-${OS}.sh script yourself, or (depending on whether
>     it's packaged or from source), create a ~/local/ directory
>     containing small executables that print out whatever data you'd
>     like to include.
>
>     Alternatively, if you can just create the status message yourself
>     on the client too. Sending details via the client message isn't a
>     strict requirement.
>
>
>     HTH,
>     -jc
>
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