tech.gate.io blog

Server installation

Why xymon?

 
now it's time to run a system management software to monitor our resources

an excellent tool that we've been using for three years now is xymon

 
xymon start screen(hostnames greyed out)

why xymon?
hmm because I'm used to it
it's simply a great program
easy to write custom scripts, small client, rrd-graphics out of the box, comes with the most common monitors for almost every os, triggers sms, email or script-notification on error, non-green view, simple but powerful admin-panel

so that should be enough, lets start:

Software download

download the server program:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hobbitmon/

decided to download the latest stable release:

4.2.2

http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=128058&filename=xymon-4.2.2.tar.gz&a=25962719

copy to your desired linux/unix server, fedora10 64bit, in my case

extract the tar.gz file

cd xymon-4.2.2

Configuration script

./configure.server

 
first problem running the script:

Hobbit has a built-in ping utility (hobbitping)
However, it is not yet fully stable and therefore it
may be best to use the external fping utility instead.
I could not find fping on your system
Do you want to use hobbitping [Y/n] ?

 
decided to install fping, don't like beta software on production servers

yum install fping

what is fping? fping works like normal ping, but has the advantage, that any number of hosts can be pinged in one call as command-line arguments

rerun config script:

./configure.server

 
second errormessage

Checking for RRDtool ...
RRDtool include- or library-files not found. These are REQUIRED for hobbitd
RRDtool can be found at http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/rrdtool/
If you have RRDtool installed, use the "--rrdinclude DIR" and "--rrdlib DIR"
options to configure to specify where they are.

 


thats right, no rrd-tool installed

so, abort, and

yum install rrdtool

rerun script again:

./configure.server

 
hm same error message again, but now it's installed:

rrdtool-1.3.4-2.fc10.x86_64

 
installed the rrdtool-devel package:

yum install rrdtool-devel.x86_64

 
Note: for debian, install
apt-get install librrd-dev

as last option the i386 packages could be installed, but lets see...

works without them, great..

but third error-message:

Checking for PCRE ...
PCRE include- or library-files not found. These are REQUIRED for hobbitd
PCRE can be found at http://www.pcre.org/
If you have PCRE installed, use the "--pcreinclude DIR" and "--pcrelib DIR"
options to configure to specify where they are.

 

so let's install it ^^

if pcre is already installed, install the devel packages:

yum install pcre-devel.x86_64

 
Note: for debian, use: apt-get install libpcre3-dev

installed successfully, give it a third try

..
..

works now", but I have to abort it again, to create a user

decided for id 1984, since that's the port xymon is listening to

useradd -d /home/xymon -m --uid 1984 xymon

 
rerun configure script

installation dir: /home/xymon

thats it, makefile is created!

so..

make!

but wait... no success

checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... /lib/cpp
configure: error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails sanity check
See `config.log' for more details.
make[1]: *** [c-ares/Makefile] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/share/xymon-4.2.2/bbnet'
make: *** [bbnet-build] Error 2

 
I tried :

yum install gcc-c++.x86_64

 
thought it was already installed

so lets see what happens:

make again

huch it works, now make install!

added the hobbit apache.conf to our webserver configuration

service httpd restart

 
startet all services:

su - xymon

/home/xymon/server/hobbit.sh start

/home/xymon/client/runclient.sh start

 
everything working perfectly

so client-server on the fedora host is running

now I took the /home/xymon/client directory and copied it to another host, first I had to create the xymon user there

on the server, append the client ip and hostname to

/home/xymon/server/etc/bb-hosts

sample bb-hosts File

group-compress <H3><I>Webpages</I></H3>
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx.gate.io # http://xxx.gate.io noconn noping noinfo notrends
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx1.gate.io # http://xxx1.gate.io noconn noping noinfo notrends
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xxx2.gate.io # http://xxx noconn noping noinfo notrends

title <H3><I>Systems</I></H3>
group-compress xymon server
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx   xxx.gate.local # bbd http://usfed01/ CLIENT:usfed01

group-compress linux
192.168.1.1     root.gate.local # CLIENT:xxx
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx    xxx.gate.local # CLIENT:xxx

group-compress windows
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx    xxx.gate.local # CLIENT:xxx

 

configure iptables if installed, for port 1984 tcp, thats the default port

start the client

done!

since server/client was compiled on 64bit fedora, for a 32 bit client, you need to recompile the client on a 32bit system

Security issues

 
you need to set a adminuser for the adminpanel, and better lock the page for external access, iptables or htaccess is quite ok

htpasswd -c /home/xymon/server/etc/hobbitpasswd USERNAME

 
and add

AuthUserFile /home/xymon/server/etc/hobbitpasswd
AuthGroupFile /home/xymon/server/etc/hobbitgroups
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Xymon Administration"

 
to the xymon directory in httpd.conf

so you use the same username to enter the page and use the admin panel

Server Autostart

• redhat/fed/centos

{CODE{}}cp xymon-4.2.2/rpm/hobbit-init.d /etc/init.d/xymon

chkconfig --levels 3 xymon on
{CODE}

set the DAEMON variable in the script, and if it's not working, try to replace "su -c" with "su - xymon -c"

Client installation

 
Windows Client:

project page:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bbwin

DL-Link for latest release 0.12:

http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?group_id=136450&filename=BBWin_0.12.msi&a=38152567

install, default directory is

C:\Program Files\BBWin\etc

 
enter bb-server to config file:

start the service

"Big Brother Hobbit Client"

that's it

cheers funksen

 
xymon trend analysis