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(See also the HTML version in the doc subdirectory)
This is Big Sister Version 0.98beta. Please read the
RELEASE_NOTES-0.98a file to get some information on new
features.
Yes, it is called nearly like Sean MacGuire's Big Brother and
it works nearly like it ... Actually it is even compatible
with it.
... because I liked the idea behind Big Brother but did not like
the limitations (mainly performance!) in using shell scripts ...
... and also because I needed a few more monitors such as sar,
rpc and snmp ...
... a history would also be fine ...
... some way to reduce the number of alarms (e.g. when a router is
going down I don't want to get 20 alarms stating that all the
machines behind this router are unreachable) ...
... I also wanted to be able to do a more decent grouping on the
display server ...
... and thought about porting BB to other platforms - such as win95
or NT
... and thought about integrating it into the HP Openview/SNMP NMS running
at our site
So I started to rewrite BB in Perl step by step.
In the meantime you will find that Big Sister and Big Brother still
share some compatible concepts (e.g. the client/server protocol and
part of the log file format) but do not have too much in common any
more.
The preferred way of asking for support / reporting bugs is now
via the Support / Bug manager at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bigsister/
This makes tracking bugs and support requests much more easy.
Big Sister was originally written by:
Thomas Aeby, Switzerland
aeby@graeff.com
In the meantime (random order)
Joseph Gooch
Richard Cross
Derek Douville
Mike Lowe
joined in. Many contributions have been made from interested
people out there. Please see the CREDITS section and copyright/
author notices in the sources.
Feel free to sent comments or ask for help ...
You may find the page
http://bigsister.graeff.com/
helpful.
Please read the INSTALL document.
By default Big Sister installs in /usr/local/lib/bs (but should run
anywhere else). Below its root directory it installs:
- bin the binaries
- adm the place where configuration files local to the machine
should go
- uxmon the client software of Big Sister (Unix Monitor)
- etc various configuration files (not very populated yet)
- www the directory where Big Sister generates its HTML files
- www/logs the directory where the client status files
end up
- www/logs/history the directory where the history goes to
- var the location where Big Sister stores any file (except
for the WWW files) it writes to
Some people might want to move www to /var and place a link into
/usr/local/lib/bs. "www" is only used on the Status Collector machine.
adm/bb-display.cfg Tells bbdisp.pm what Web pages it should create and which
tables they should contain.
NOTE: Any host will only appear on your status web
page when it is
- listed in bb-display.cfg
- or uses dynamic grouping
adm/hosts.allow OBSOLETE (but still active)
adm/permissions tell bbd which agents are allowed to connect and
what they are allowed to send
adm/grouping Grouping information for dynamic join/leave of
host groups (when using the generic uxmon-rules.pl)
adm/uxmon-net The agent configuration file
Do not forget to at least edit this file after
a new installation
etc/syslog If you are checking system log files ("syslog" check)
etc/mibs.txt If you are using snmp monitor this file is used for
mapping text to oids
etc/OV configuration file for HP Openview uxmon Monitor (only
if you are using the "OV" check)
adm/bb_event_generator.cfg The configuration file for the alarm generator
adm/notify.cfg If you use bb_event_generator with notify this is
the notify configuration file
{adm,etc}/graphtemplates
The definitions in this file are used as a template
for creating performance data history databases
etc/bsmon.cfg, configures the various Big Sister server modules
adm/bsmon_site.cfg
see the file CONFIG for a description of these files
A shell script named 'bb_start' is supplied. This should go into /etc/rc2.d
(or /sbin/rc2.d or wherever your startup scripts usually go) so that Big Sister
is started during system reboot.
Of course you can use bb_start manually:
bin/bb_start start start Big Sister
bin/bb_start stop stop Big Sister
bin/bb_start restart stop/restart Big Sister
Big Sister comes in two parts: The "Status Collector" (bbd & bsmon)
and the "Agent" (uxmon). Uxmon is meant to run on one or more machines. It's
purpose is to check the local status on the machine (e.g. CPU load, disk usage,
...) it is running and the network status of neighbouring machines (e.g. ping,
RPC, telnet to specific ports, etc.). It reports the status periodically to
the "Status Collector". The "Status Collector" saves the reported stati,
creates Web pages showing them, generates alarm messages on pre-configured
status changes, collects, stores and displays trend data and so forth.
- oracle: Oracle database check
- tripwire: Tripwire system consistency check
- bbscript: for re-using Big Brother monitoring scripts
- statusfile: as a simple interface to simple monitors
- cpuload: CPU load as reported by uptime
- eventlog: monitoring NT EventLog
- logfile: generic log file monitor
- procs: checking running processes
- ping: checking reachability of a host
- fs: checking file system usage
- rpc_ping: checking RPC responses
- tcp: generic TCP monitor
- sar: checks sar output against limits
- snmp: does snmp polling
- dumpdates: check for last dump/ufsdump backup
- syslog: check system log files
- OV: HP Openview trap monitor
- metastat: check Solstice DiskSuite RAID-Systems
- dns: check DNS servers
- radius: Radius
- http/realhttp: Web Server
- ... many more (see CONFIG)
Sean McGuire author of Big Brother
Sylvio Svensson he suggested the name Big Sister and is THE
HP Openview crack
Bernhard Stalder for always being there when I needed an
experienced system administrator to talk to
Peter Stevens for some suggestions, e.g. dynamic grouping
Russell Mosemann from whom I have borrowed parts of Monitor::ping.pm
Philip Nyffenegger for his support
Rudolf Meyer for sharing his NT know how
and offering connectivity for the
Big Sister web server
(just some person) who unfortunately did not want me to quit the
project :-)
Andreas Disteli for finding more bugs than I ever wrote :-)
Peter Sorensen for many good suggestions
Roland Roberts for his contributions
Torben Sorensen for his contributions
Joseph Gooch for many contributions
Pius Sabathy for his support and willingness to
test new patches/releases
Kevin O'Donnell for his contributions
Tim Powell for his contributions
Markus Boss for his work on the prototype RRDTool support
Tobi Oetiker for RRDTool
Philip Markwalder for his contributions
Boris Bellorini for his contributions
Eduardo Tarasiuk for his contributions and support
Steve Chan for his contributions
Manuel de Vega Barreiro for his contributions
Richard Ward for his contributions
Richard Cross for his contributions
Brandon S. Allbery for his contributions
brendanb@mission.data for his contributions
Neal Rigney for his contributions
Simon Clift for his contributions
Derek Douville for his contributions
T. Taguchi for his contributions
everyone else who contributed and is not listed here
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