Sun Management Center - A Technical Overview
The Sun Management Center software is an advanced Systems Management Software solution from Sun Microsystems .
Sun Management Center (SunMC) is an open, extensible system monitoring and management solution that uses Java software and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to provide an integrated and comprehensive enterprise-wide management of Sun products and their subsystems, components and peripheral devices.
This article provides a technical overview for troubleshooting of the SunMC product
Installation, Upgrade and Removing SunMC
System Requirements
System | Ultra 1 (Ultra 2 recommended) |
---|---|
128mb memory (256 recommended) | |
128mb swap (200 recommended) | |
Storage | 100mb — /opt/SUNWsymon |
50mb — /var/opt/SUNWsymon | |
Operating Systems | Solaris 2.5.1 |
Solaris 2.6 | |
Solaris 2.7 | |
Patches | Solaris 2.6 105181-15 105210-19 105284-25 105490-07 105568-13 105633-21 105669-07 106040-12 |
Solaris 2.7 106980-05 107078-10 107607-01 107636-01 |
Installing
Use the following steps to install SunMC:
- Download the latest release of SunMC from http://www.sun.com/software/sunmanagementcenter/download/ (latest 2.1)
- Uncompress and untar the package
- go to the directory where the package resides, and run the install script:
# cd /opt/sunmc2.1 # ./es-inst
- when prompted for the agent port, change it from 161 to 1161, or simply disable
snmpdx
(recommended to change the port to 1161) - add sun-mc users to
/etc/group
and/var/opt/SUNWsymob/cfg/esusers
if the installation do not add them
Uninstalling
To uninstall SunMC, following these steps:
- Change to the package install directory:
# cd /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin
- Stop all SyMON services:
# ./es-stop -a
- Run the uninstall script:
# ./es-uninstall
- Remove configuration files:
# rm -rf /var/opt/SUNWsymon
Upgrading
- It is recommended to follow the uninstall procedure first with one change:
- Instead of removing the
/var/opt/SUNWsymon
folder, just rename it so that configuration files can still be retrieved.
- Instead of removing the
- now follow the steps for normal installation
Product Info
Components
SunMC consists of three components:
Functionality
Component | Size | Platform |
---|---|---|
Console | 25mb | SPARC, Windows 95/98, WinNT |
Server | 45mb | SPARC only |
Agent Layer | 25mb | SPARC only |
Support Hardware
- All SPARC platforms (inc Enterprise E10000)
- Printers
- Gateways
Functionality
SunMC provides the following functionality:
- GUI based monitoring console
- alarm manager
- performance and data management
- hardware configuration manager
- process monitoring
- discovery (automatically adds new machines on the network)
- log file monitoring
Architecture overview
Console layer
- login access via unix id & password
- GUI is written in java
- interface to the server layer
- hierarchy view on the left side
- topology view on the right side
- double click on a host to bring up the host details view, where alarms are set.
- Host details view contains 7 tabs
- info — basic system info
- browser — hierarchy view of hardware, OS, local apps, remote systems
- alarms — current and unacknowledged alarms
- processes — monitored processes (empty by default)
- log view — view of /var/adm/messages or SunVTS diag files
- applications
- hardware — hardware info and views
- attribute editor
- brought up by selecting an item in the hierarchy view and clicking on attributes button or right clicking and selecting attribute editor from the menu.
- Contains 5 tabs
- info
- alarm — set alarm thresholds
- actions — set actions for alarms
- alarm events are filtered by severity, state, ack/unack
- alarm events are sorted by start time, severity, and state
- refresh
- history
- Host details view contains 7 tabs
Server layer
- supports the console layer
- receives asynchronous alarms
- dissimulates alarms to interested clients
- interface between console and agent configurations
Agent layer
- daemon that facilitates monitoring
- interfaces with the monitoring modules
Modules overview
SunMC modules define:
- data collection
- data storage
- alarm parameters
- alarm rules
- alarm actions
All module customisations are made in /var/opt/SUNWsymon/cfg
. These files can be copied to other systems for easy administration.
Module examples
- file scanning module
- specify a file(s) to watch and regex to look for
- kernel reader
- swap
- cpu
- load
- processes
- disk space
- network errors
- process monitoring module
- monitor specified process(s)
Setting Alarms
SunMC alarms are set from the host detail view:
- choose (or load a module) from the hierarchy view on the left
- the right frame will display module info in a table format
- select a cell to alarm on, for example:
filesystem usage -> kb used
- click on the attributes button and select the alarms tab
- enter thresholds, for example:
critical threshold < 90
- select the actions tab and enter an action if needed, for example:
email [userid]
- custom alarm actions
- alarm action scripts must be stored in
/var/opt/SUNWsymon/bin
folder email.sh
is the only factory script included
- alarm action scripts must be stored in
- custom alarm actions
SunMC daemons
- SunMC Server
start with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -s
- Configuration Server — provides SunMC security and authenticates console logins
starts with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -f
- Topology Agent — provides SunMC domain management
start with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -p
- Trap Handler — receives alarm notifications (communicates through snmp traps)
start with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -t
- Event Management Agent — maintains event info and alarms
start with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -e
- Agent
start with/opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -a
GUI view of daemons and laters
- Console layer
- console
- requires that the server layer is running on the server you login to.
- Server layer
- configration server
- topology
- server
- trap handler
- event manager
- Agent layer
- agent
Troubleshooting
source tree
- /opt/SUNWsymon — factory scripts, binaries, default config
- /var/opt/SUNWsymon — custom scripts, binaries and configurations
resolving port issues
- file: /var/opt/SUNWsymon/cfg/domain-config.x
- look for and change the snmpPort setting, for example:
agent = { snmpPort = 161 }
- change 161 to 1161
- stop and start symon agent
# /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-stop -A # /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -A
checking port conflicts
- Run
netstat -an | grep [port number]
- port 161 is the most common conflict. Recommendation is to configure all ports +1000 (ie: 161 = 1161)
- that way a
netstat -an | grep 116
will show all sunMC ports
checking log files
- In
/var/opt/SUNWsymon/log/
directory:- agent.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace
- agentStatus.log — status
- alarms.log
- cfgserver.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace
- event.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace
- eventStatus.log — status
- history.log
- predictive.failure
- server.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace, data, snmp
- topology.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace
- topologyStatus.log — status
- trap.log — err, warn, info, debug, trace
- to view the log files use the
es-run
command with thectail
orccat
commands. For example:# /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-run ctail -f /var/opt/SUNWsymon/log/server.log
Note: You must specify the absolute log path
trouble shooting agent problems
- run the agent in interactive mode:
# /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -ai
checking for processes
- Determine which process running:
# ps -ef | grep esd root 588 1 0 Dec 04 ? 18:39 esd - init topology -dir /var/opt/SUNWsymon root 586 1 3 Dec 04 ? 90:55 esd - init agent -dir /var/opt/SUNWsymon root 587 1 0 Dec 04 ? 3:53 esd - init trap -dir /var/opt/SUNWsymon root 589 1 0 Dec 04 ? 6:25 esd - init cfgserver -dir /var/opt/SUNWsymon root 590 1 0 Dec 04 ? 3:39 esd - init event -dir /var/opt/SUNWsymon
enable creation of core files
- set the
ESDEBUG
environment variable totrue
and repostart the agent:# ESDEBUG=true # export ESDEBUG # /opt/SUNWsymon/sbin/es-start -A
- Core files located in
/var/opt/SUNWsymon/cfg
exporting the display
- the new java gui is not entirely functional on a remote display and should not be expected to work properly
- it should not be expected to work at all using exceed. Use the windows console instead
cannot login
- user id is not in the
/var/opt/SUNWsymon/cfg/esusers
file
cannot set alarms
- user id is not in
/etc/group
with the esdomadm and esadm groups
Further information
The following links will provide additional information on SunMC: