REMOTE CONTROL
Monitoring solutions often provide the ability to alert an administrator over email, pager, SMS, etc., when problems occur. In response to an alert, the administrator has to perform domain-specific detailed analysis of the problem, often by running different commands on the target system. In this process, the administrator has to figure out and initiate corrective measures. Most monitoring solutions provide remote problem alerting capability, but the ability to remotely login in a secure manner and perform detailed analysis and troubleshooting is not available. To allow true anytime, anywhere management capability, such remote control of the target IT infrastructure must be possible using a web browser.
eG's Remote Control Action capability allows an administrator to remotely and securely access any monitored server in an IT infrastructure and to execute remote commands in order to perform detailed analysis of problems and to initiate corrective actions against them.
The benefits of eG's remote control actions are:
- Enable remote control in addition to routine monitoring, thereby offering a quick and easy way of initiating corrective actions
- Remote diagnosis and control of any component in the monitored infrastructure is enabled from anywhere, using just a web browser
- Remote control capability is selectively enabled for users based on their access rights
The control actions are enabled with no change in the eG architecture. The agents do not listen on any TCP ports. Hence, security risks in the target environment are minimum. Furthermore, since control actions can be initiated from a web browser, they can be triggered from anywhere, at any time.
eG Enterprise allows you to pick and choose the agents you want to remotely control, and run commands on them. You can use this page to do the same. This page appears when you click the 
icon against an agent listed in the AGENTS - STATUS page.
To remotely execute a command on the agent in the Control mode, do the following:
By default, the agent on which you wish to remotely execute the command will be specified in the Agent IP / Nick name text box.
In oder to execute the commands remotely on the agent, the eG agent should be in Control Mode. To this effect, CONTROL MODE will be specified by default in the Mode of operation text box.
Then, from the Command list box, select the command to be executed remotely. By default, the Command list contains a set of pre-configured, ready-to-use commands. If the command to be executed is already available in the Command list, select it, and specify the Arguments (if any), that may be supported by the chosen command.
If the command you want to execute is not pre-configured, then you have the following options:
- First, add the command to the Command list using the REMOTE CONTROL COMMAND page of the eG administrative interface, and then select that command from the Command list, OR,
- Directly issue the command using the REMOTE CONTROL page of the eG monitor interface. Please check whether you are authorized to execute a remote command that is outside of the Command list.
Note:
By default, only the admin user has the right to directly execute a command on the agent host. To grant such a right to any other user(s), follow the steps given below:
- Edit the eg_controls.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory
- In the [CONTROL_DEFAULTS] section of the file, you will find an AllowOtherCommands parameter that is set to admin, by default. This indicates that, by default, only the admin user is privileged to execute commands other than the ones listed in the Commands list.
- To extend that right to other users, specify a comma-separated list of user names against the AllowOtherCommands parameter: AllowOtherCommands=admin,john,elvis,brian
- Finally, save the eg_controls.ini file.
Once the right is granted to you, you can proceed to directly execute an ‘unregistered’ remote command by selecting the Execute command option from the Command list, and providing the Command Syntax.
Then, set the value of Output required to Yes to view the output of the specified command. Otherwise, select No.
Then, enter the Timeout period. This is the duration for which the eG manager will wait for an output for the specified command. Upon the expiry of the period, the command execution will be automatically terminated.
Finally, execute the command by clicking the EXECUTE button.
If Output required is set to Yes, then you will view the output of the executed command.
Note:
An agent will remain in the Control mode for 5 minutes, after which, it will return to the Normal mode.