Big Brother Information

Finally added a table of information relating to what ports big brother uses to work thru a firewall.

The big news here is a new script to allow the disk monitor column to finally work properly on HP-UX. In HP-UX 10.20, and 11.0, the bdf and df output is two lines if you use long names for volume groups. This wreaks havoc on the dis monitor column because the field where the percentage and disk free column should be is vacant and instead shown on a different line. To correct this, there is a new script which I install into the $BBHOME/ext area, called hpux_df.sh.

See below for some new updates to the extension scripts, which are not yet available at deadcat. The oracle, network, and prtdiag scripts have been updated.

Added a new page detailing my recent Sun Big Brother server installation.

See below for MANY new updates to the extension scripts, which are also available at deadcat. There is a nice new table showing current versions and dates released. updated 02-05-2002 and table now includes links to scripts

Looking for my Big Brother page? Yes I am still on the "old" version, since a new version with a FRESH new look came out, but I did steal the backgrounds from the new version. I think the new backgrounds make the pages so much easier to read. I am testing the entire new version now, and may deploy soon .... (A version of my extensions can be seen in a "stale" version that I just made a copy of.)

Actually, as of July 25, 2000, I finally got my AIX box running again, and am beginning the port of all my Big Brother information to that server. Tonite was the first test, and I suspect by the weekend, it will be complete. The new version is 1.4h2 and is also viewable.

I had to move the BigBrother display server, from the machines "help" facility's web server, to the Netscape Internet FastTrack server. I began having problems with all kinds of things on that "help" web server. Truth is that it should have been on the FastTrack server all along, but I had many problems configuring the cgi directory. The scripts wouldnt run correctly, but now I had real reason to push a bit harder. The server kept crashing, and it was frustrating me to no end.

Well, for starters, I have been working with Big Brother, since the early days, with revision 1.0. It has served me well, thru my posts at Edu-Met, AT&T, and my own personal network. I am using it for my own local servers at Pershing now as well. As my network grew, to the point that it is now bigger than companies I have worked for in the past, the "guaranteed" uptime, became more critical. It is also a tremendous asset, for pro-actively monitoring clients I support, so that I can be paged and notified, so I can resolve problems, all before the client ever needs to call me.

Extension Latest Version Date Posted
cpu2 2.5 10-24-2002
dmp 1.7 10-24-2002
ha 2.3 11-07-2000
hpux_df.sh 1.3 10-24-2002
iostat 2.6 02-05-2002
ipcs 1.4 11-07-2000
logins 1.2 10-24-2002
logs 1.10 11-07-2000
mail 1.8 10-24-2002
mailq 1.1 10-24-2002
memory 1.3 10-24-2002
network 1.14 10-24-2002
oracle 3.6 10-24-2002
printers 1.5 02-05-2002
prtdiag 2.13 10-24-2002
queue 1.4 02-05-2002
top 2.5 10-24-2002
vx_check 1.5 10-24-2002
vx_group 1.5 10-24-2002
vx_list 1.6 10-24-2002

I have implemented many of my own extension scripts, which I will offer here. The oracle script is shown in the next "paragraph" below. Here I will concentrate on the enterpise Sun servers I am using in my current position, with all their database and EMC configurations, and offer what I have done to monitor all of this.

These are all VERY Sun specific right now, but will very likely be ported to HP-UX within the next few months. It seems inevitable. In fact, as of 08-31-2001, I have finally got some HP-UX specific stuff into these agents. The network script for one is now HP-UX aware.

I wanted to, at a glance (and with paging notification), be able to know if my failover software has gone down, or if there are any network collisions, or if Veritas is reporting any issues, or if dynamic multipathing was down, or many other issues you will see below. Since it is so easy to do, I wrote this into Big Brother, it is very extensible. (For the links below in this section, you can either left click them, to see the code, or right click, and download - they are all shell scripts)

Here is what I setup and what you need to do to use it :

I have implemented my own oracle extension scripts, which I will offer here. I wanted to, at a glance, be able to know if my database is up, and which processes are running, which instances are installed, and which are running, whether the network listener is up, and how many users are connected. This can tend to be a time consuming issue for a remote client, so I wrote this into Big Brother, since it is very extensible. (For the links below in this section, you can either left click them, to see the code, or right click, and download - they are all shell scripts). This is also aware of VCS clusters now. Instead of being red on the backup nodes, it will run clear, knowing that there is a primary node hosting the service. It now works in standalone and clustered environments.

Here is what you need to do :

I had a great deal of trouble to get the paging to work for me, using the 1.2b version. I had never used the paging feature before, so I cant say if it worked well in older versions or not, but I will offer to you, my modified scripts for the paging. I am currently using only email, no paging, but it is really no change to the scripts to make that work, just the config file (because I plan to implement the Internet paging features of sites like Sprint PCS, Nextel, and AT&T).

I had to modify the "bb-page.sh" and the "bb-page1.sh" to get the paging to work. Now, for what it is worth, I am using this on an SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 machine, as my $BBDISPLAY, $BBPAGE server. I also had to modify the "bb-doack.sh" script, to get the web "ack" to work properly. I am very happy with it now, that it all works properly.

To make the paging work properly, I needed to assign a value to each extension script. Otherwise when I send an ack for any one of the new services, it will stop the paging for all the others, since it will be the "unidentified 999". To get around this, you need to edit the "svcerrlist" and "SVCERRLIST" variables in bb-page.sh and bbwarnsetup.cfg. I tried to maintain the "classes" as provided by Sean, and then grouped the new extensions together with the existing classes. The list I use goes like this :

svcerrlist: disk:100 cpu:200 procs:300 msgs:400 conn:500 http:600 dns:800 ERR:999 vx_check:120 vx_group:125 vx_list:130 dmp:150 iostat:175 cpu2:250 prtdiag:275 ipcs:325 top:350 logs:450 ha:550 network:850 oracle:900 printers:950

I have "slightly" customized some of the page look and feel. Certainly not as much as some of the other demo sites that are shown, but just little subtle changes. Some show more information, like my bb-hosts file "box header" line : 

    group-compress <H3><I>Windows 95/98 Clients<BR>-Often Sleeping-</I></H3>"
and some just give a footer (I link the $BBHOME/footer script to the $BBHOME/www/notes/footer script, so they are the same throughout all the pages). Others just seem a little bit more readable. For example, I had changed the default type face color to white (in the mkbb.sh script), so that I could read it easier across all the background colors, after looking at the links. In other words, if you look at the comments (www/notes directory), that say what the machines are, who supports them, what is installed on them, etc, upon returning to the original page, the color changes to reflect that the link was visited, and I could not read it clearly anymore, so I changed that behaviour.

I have it deployed across many machines, from NT workstations and servers, to different *NIX variants. I use a simple method to create the tar file, so that I can setup the other clients, so this is how I do that.

Alot of people have emailed me concerning the NT agent, and how to get it to work. I have used it for both the server and workstation versions of NT. The only real difference for me, between the two, as far as the agent is concerned, is that my workstation has no processes defined, that must be up and running all the time, whereas my server agents do. For example, my server must have my Oracle Web Application Server, and Backup Exec processes running, or I want to be notified. My workstation simply needs to be up and running.

So, as an example, for the NT workstation, I have done the following :

For the Big Brother Unix Server, in the bb-hosts file, just setup a line for the workstation. I used a new group called "NT Workstation Clients", and the IP and name are shown below :

group-compress <H2><I><FONT COLOR="white">NT Workstation Clients</FONT></I></H2>
207.86.37.18 ntws That is all I do to get them working.

I implemented a counter on the site, because I noticed I was getting tremendous activity, compared to my regular websites. Of course, this was back in the day when I was Sean's premier demo site, but since I am still lagging behind on the version 1.2b, it seems that I have been "demoted" to a lower numbered demo site, and the hits arent as great. (Dont worry, I wont stop writing the extensions or help sections ....) Regardless, I wanted to see just how many of you are actually looking into this product, so I got the counter from SiteMeter, and you too can do the same.

And lastly, as you know if you have read any of my code changes, I fully document everything I do (you can always tell my comments by my trademark "five pound" lines "#####"). That is why you see comment fields in all the scripts, and also see that my machine names, and header variables (in bb-help.html) at the top, are all commented. This is truly of temendous value. Think about a larger organization, where you are a consultant. By all rights, a very good consultant, is only around for a little while. If the job is done correctly, you finish early, transition the knowledge and move on. So for any new admins, you want to leave enough information for them to be able to figure things out for themselves. That is what the comments are all about.

If I have missed anything or if you need additional help, try :

This page last updated 10-24-2002