Configuration of VmgUptimeTest

In most virtualized environments, it is essential to monitor the uptime of VMs hosting critical server applications in the infrastructure. By tracking the uptime of each of the VMs, administrators can determine what percentage of time a VM has been up. Comparing this value with service level targets, administrators can determine the most trouble-prone areas of the virtualized infrastructure.

In some environments, administrators may schedule periodic reboots of their VM. By knowing that a specific VM has been up for an unusually long time, an administrator may come to know that the scheduled reboot task is not working on a VM.

The VmgUptimeTest test included in the eG agent monitors the uptime of each VM on an Oracle VM server.

The default parameters associated with this test are:

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• Specify the host for which the test is to be configured in the HOST text box.

• Specify the port at which the HOST listens in the PORT text box. By default, this is NULL.

• This test remotely connects to the Oracle VM Manager that manages the monitored Oracle VM Server and uses the web services API of the Oracle VM Manager to pull out metrics of interest. To enable this test to communicate with the web services API, you first need to configure the test with the IP address or host name of the Oracle VM Manager. This can be done using the ORACLE VM MANAGER text box. Then, you need to configure the test with the credentials of a user with Admin rights to the Oracle VM Manager. Use the ORACLE VM MANAGER USER and ORACLE VM MANAGER PASSWORD parameters to configure these credentials. Finally, confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• By default, the Oracle VM Manager is SSL-enabled. Accordingly, the SSL flag is set to Yes by default. This indicates that the eG agent will communicate with the Oracle VM Manager via HTTPS by default.

• By default, the Oracle VM Manager listens on 7002. This implies that while monitoring an Oracle VM server via an SSL-enabled Oracle VM Manager, the eG agent, by default, connects to port 7002 of the Oracle VM Manager to pull out metrics. In some environments however, this default port may not apply. In such a case, against the WEBPORT parameter, you can specify the exact port at which the Oracle VM Manager in your environment listens so that the eG agent communicates with that port.

• Administrators of some high security Oracle environments might not have permissions to internally monitor one/more VMs. The eG agent can be configured to not obtain the ‘inside view’ of such ‘inaccessible’ VMs using the IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW parameter. Against this parameter, you can provide a comma-separated list of VM names, or VM name patterns, for which the inside view need not be obtained. For instance, your IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW specification can be: *xp,*lin*,win*,vista. Here, the * (asterisk) is used to denote leading and trailing spaces (as the case may be). By default, this parameter is set to none indicating that the eG agent obtains the inside view of all VMs on an Oracle VM server by default.

  Note:

  While performing VM discovery, the eG agent will not discover the operating system of the VMs configured in the IGNORE VMS INSIDE VIEW text box.

• By default, the eG agent does not support the inside view for VMs executing on Windows NT operating systems. Accordingly, the IGNORE WINNT flag is set to Yes by default.

• By default, this test communicates with every VM remotely and extracts “inside view” metrics. Therefore, by default, the INSIDE VIEW USING flag is set to Remote connection to VM (Windows).

  Typically, to establish this remote connection with Windows VMs in particular, eG Enterprise requires that the eG agent be configured with domain administrator privileges. In high-security environments, where the IT staff might have reservations about exposing the credentials of their domain administrators, this approach to extracting “inside view” metrics might not be preferred. In such environments therefore, eG Enterprise provides administrators the option to deploy a piece of software called the eG VM Agent (Windows) on every Windows VM; this VM agent allows the eG agent to collect “inside view” metrics from the Windows VMs without domain administrator rights. To ensure that the “inside view” of Windows VMs is obtained using the eG VM Agent, set the INSIDE VIEW USING flag to eG VM Agent (Windows). Once this is done, you can set the DOMAIN, ADMIN USER, and ADMIN PASSWORD parameters to none.

• By default, this test connects to each virtual guest remotely and attempts to collect “inside view” metrics. In order to obtain a remote connection, the test must be configured with user privileges that allow remote communication with the virtual guests. The first step towards this is to specify the DOMAIN within which the virtual guests reside. The ADMIN USER and ADMIN PASSWORD will change according to the domain specification. Discussed below are the different values that the domain parameter can take, and how they impact the ADMIN USER and ADMIN PASSWORD specifications:

  • If the VMs belong to a single domain: If the guests belong to a specific domain, then specify the name of that domain against the domain parameter. In this case, any administrative user in that domain will have remote access to all the virtual guests. Therefore, an administrator account in the given domain can be provided in the ADMIN USER field and the corresponding password in the ADMIN PASSWORD field. Confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.
  • If the guests do not belong to any domain (as in the case of Linux/Solaris guests): In this case, specify “none” in the DOMAIN field, and specify a local administrator account name in the ADMIN USER below.

    Prior to this, you need to ensure that the same local administrator account is available or is explicitly created on each of the virtual machines to be monitored. Then, proceed to provide the password of the ADMIN USER against ADMIN PASSWORD, and confirm the password by retyping it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

    If key-based authentication is implemented between the eG agent and the SSH daemon of a Linux guest, then, in the ADMIN USER text box, enter the name of the user whose <USER_HOME_DIR> (on that Linux guest) contains a .ssh directory with the public key file named authorized_keys. The ADMIN PASSWORD in this case will be the passphrase of the public key; the default public key file that is bundled with the eG agent takes the password eginnovations. Specify this as the ADMIN PASSWORD if you are using the default private/public key pair that is bundled with the eG agent to implement key-based authentication. On the other hand, if you are generating a new public/private key pair for this purpose, then use the passphrase that you provide while generating the pair. For the detailed procedure on Implementing Key-based Authentication refer to the Monitoring VMware Infrastructures document.

  • If the guests belong to different domains - In this case, you might want to provide multiple domain names. If this is done, then, to access the guests in every configured domain, the test should be configured with the required user privileges; this implies that along with multiple DOMAIN names, multiple ADMIN USER names and ADMIN PASSWORDs would also have to be provided. To help administrators provide these user details quickly and easily, the eG administrative interface embeds a special configuration page. To access this page, simply click on the Click here hyperlink that appears just above the parameters of this test in the test configuration page.
  • If the inside view using flag is set to ‘eG VM Agent (Windows)’ - In this case, the inside view can be obtained without domain administrator privileges. Therefore, set the DOMAIN, ADMIN USER, and ADMIN PASSWORD parameters to none.

• By default, the REPORTMANAGERTIME flag is set to Yes, indicating that, by default, the detailed diagnosis of this test, if enabled, will report the shutdown and reboot times of the VMs in the manager's time zone. If this flag is set to No, then the shutdown and reboot times are shown in the time zone of the system where the agent is running (i.e., the system being managed for agent-based monitoring, and the system on which the remote agent is running - for agentless monitoring).

• To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise suite embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

  The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

  • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
  • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

• If multiple components of the same component type are awaiting configuration, then an APPLY TO OTHER COMPONENTS check box will appear in this page. Clicking on this check box will allow you to apply the configuration to all/selected components of that type.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing the configuration for specific servers, a “*” beside the text box corresponding to the parameter signifies that these values have to be manually configured by the user. The parameter values that require to be configured will typically be prefixed with a “$” or contain a series of “*”. A value of "none" in the parameter value indicates that the corresponding parameter value can be changed if required.