Knowledge Bases

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A Knowledge Base (KB) contains the agents, sentries, states, responses, graphs, and documentation, needed to monitor a particular system or application. It encapsulates the expert knowledge needed to determine when things are not right, and what to do in response.

This section describes several predefined knowledge bases that are available with Sentinel3G.

You can add your own custom knowledge bases to hold details of sentries you define yourself. Sentinel3G provides a number of standard agents that make it easy to configure your own sentries specific to your site. In many cases you will not need to write an agent.

Many KBs include pre-install and post-install scripts on each host to “discover” whether it is necessary to install the KB and if so to customize the configuration appropriately. For example the Oracle KB needs to find all the Oracle databases configured on the host and their versions (because monitoring commands can vary from one Oracle version to another). It will then create one or more sentries to implement this monitoring.

1 Standard Knowledge Bases
2 Managing a KB

Standard Knowledge Bases

This topic gives examples of some of the standard KBs available with Sentinel3G. These are constantly being enhanced and new KBs developed— check the Sentinel3G Web site for the latest information.

UNIX/Linux KB

The Unix/Linux Knowledge Base contains sentries to monitor the performance and correct operation of the operating system, network and devices, including:

Identifying performance problems and bottlenecks in areas such as CPU, Disks, Filesystems, Printers and print queues, and Memory.
Monitoring network connectivity to other hosts on the LAN or WAN and to selected Internet hosts.
Monitoring system processes.

Microsoft Windows KB

The Windows KB provides sentries for the following:

Support for Windows NT 4, Windows 2000 and Windows XP
General system information (CPU type and speed; RAM installed; version and build of Windows; uptime)
Identifying performance problems and bottlenecks in areas such as CPU, disks and memory
Monitoring of and management of services
Monitoring of printers and user selectable files
Monitoring of user selectable processes

Oracle KB

The Oracle Knowledge Base monitors key areas of the Oracle Relational Database System, such as:

Free space in tablespaces and extent usage.
Archive logs and the Oracle alert logfile.
Standard Oracle processes and key database performance statistics.

Note Oracle KB supports monitoring of multiple instances and multiple versions on the same host. For example, the KB can be used to monitor a host running two instances of Oracle 9i, one instance of Oracle 8i, and one instance of Oracle 8.

Informix KB

The Informix Knowledge Base monitors key areas of the Informix Relational Database System, such as:

Free space in DBspaces and extent usage.
Transactions statistics and details from online log files.
Informix virtual processors and key database performance statistics.

Network Services KB

The Network Services (Netservices) KB monitors the availability of all common network services without the need for any agents to be installed on remote machines. It dynamically monitors the availability of the hosts serving network applications as well as the underlying application services themselves. In addition, it tracks and graphs response times for servers, network devices, applications and databases and identifies services that are not supposed to be running.

Squid KB

A KB is available to monitor the Squid Web Proxy cache.

COSmanager™ KBs

Sentinel3G interfaces with the other COSmanager products and both complements and enhances their functionality.

COSmanager’s Duty module can use Sentinel3G to monitor and show the state of all duties, and to notify users of any outstanding scheduled duties. Conversely, the powerful scheduling facilities within COSmanager’s Duty module can be used by Sentinel3G to create “scheduled agents” - ones which run to a certain schedule rather than at a fixed polling rate. For example, you may want a sentry to go into warning if a report has not been created by 4:00pm on Fridays, and into alarm if it still has not been created by 5:00pm.

COSbackup™ has a sentry for each backup job, which only appear on the console when the job is active or scheduled. Sentry states are defined corresponding to the various states that a COSbackup job can be in (scheduled, running, waiting, etc).

Operators are alerted on certain events, such as a tape requires mounting, or an error etc.

COSmanager’s Task module has a sentry for each defined job. Sentry states are defined corresponding to the various states that a COSmanager task may be in (scheduled, queued, running, held, etc). User responses can be defined for each state (schedule, run, hold, release, cancel, etc).

Managing a KB

Sentinel3G has a repository of KBs that are available to be installed. There are facilities to install a new KB or a different version of an existing KB; to save changes to the repository; to export a KB to a file so that it can be installed at another site; and to deinstall a KB.

Once a KB is installed you can turn it off or on, or read the documentation associated with it.

To Turn a KB Off

Turning a KB off means that its agents won’t run and its sentries won’t appear on the console.

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected the host to update, Sentinel3G will ask you to choose one now. This is the host that the agent will run on.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs installed on this host.
Select a KB, then select Kb > Turn off.
You must restart the host monitor to read the new configuration details.

Any icons, sentries and agents belonging to this KB will be hidden.

To turn the KB back on again

Select the KB, then select Kb > Turn on.

To Read the Notes Associated With a KB

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected a host, Sentinel3G will ask you to choose one now.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs installed on this host.
Select a KB, then select Notes > Kb notes. If there is a notes file associated with this KB, it is displayed now.

To Install a KB

The full Sentinel3G distribution includes a repository of KBs. You can install from this repository selected KBs that are appropriate for your network.

You can download and install new KBs as they become available. Each KB is in the form of a single file with an extension of .kb. The KB installation option looks for these .kb files in your home directory and in /tmp.

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected the host to update, Sentinel3G will ask you to choose one now. This is the host that the agent will run on.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs defined on this host.
Select a knowledge base, then select Kb > Install.
To install a new KB from a file:
1. Select file then click next to the File name field. The Choose Install File window lists all the KB files in your home directory and in /tmp.
2. Select one of the KB files then click Accept to return to the Choose a KB to Install window.
To select a KB from the repository:
1. Select repository then click next to the Repository field.
  Sentinel3G lists the KBs that are in the repository but have not already been installed.
2. Select one or more KBs then click Accept to return to the Choose a KB to Install window.
Click Accept to perform some background checks on the selected KBs: Sentinel3G checks to see whether any dependencies need to be satisfied.

For example, the Apache KB will only be installed if the Apache executable is found on this host.

If a different version of the same knowledge base is already installed, you must confirm whether the existing knowledge base should be deinstalled.

Once all dependencies have been satisfied, the new knowledge bases are installed. You must restart the host monitor to read the new configuration details.

To Deinstall a KB

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected the host to update, Sentinel3G will ask you to choose one now.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs defined on this host.
Select a knowledge base, then select Kb > Deinstall. Details of the KB version are displayed.
Click Accept to deinstall the knowledge base from this host, or click Exit to leave the knowledge base installed.

To Save a KB

Saving a KB updates the version of the KB stored in the repository with the current settings associated with that KB, such as its associated sentries, agents and variables.

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected the host to update, Sentinel3G asks you to choose one now.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs defined on this host.
Select a knowledge base, then select Kb > Save. Details of the KB are displayed in the Save Knowledge Base form:
Enter the following fields:
Version
The version or release number of this KB, in the format n.n.n.n (example: 1.10.2). You can use this to identify official updates and test versions.
Date
The release date or date of effect. The default is today’s date.
Description
The application, product, platform or subsystem that is monitored by this KB. For example, the description for the Windows KB identifies that it covers the Windows NT/2000/XP family of operating systems.
Author
The person or organisation responsible for maintaining this KB. Dependencies An optional list of other KBs that must already be installed for this KB to run.
Min Sentinel version
The earliest version of Sentinel3G (as shown in the COSmanager Applications table) that must be installed for this KB to run. For example, if this KB requires a feature that was introduced in Sentinel3G V4.2, enter 4.2.
Save object info?
Select this field to save the objects associated with the KB. This is useful for saving a backup copy of the KB for disaster recovery purposes, so that in the event of a problem the KB objects don’t have to be recreated manually.
Click Accept to save the knowledge base to the repository.

To Export a KB

Exporting a KB saves a copy of the selected KB to a file so that it can be distributed to and installed on other hosts.

From the console, select Configure > Knowledge bases.
If you have not already selected the host to update, Sentinel3G asks you to choose one now.
The Knowledge Base window opens, showing details of all the KBs defined on this host.
Select a knowledge base, then select Kb > Export. The KB’s name, version and minimum Sentinel version are displayed.
To change any of the settings in the exported version of the KB, click Change. See To Save a KB for details of the settings.
To export the KB with the current settings unchanged, click Yes.
Follow the prompts in the Export KB wizard. When you have finished, the KB is saved to a file called /tmp/ <KB_name>- <version>.kb.

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